From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 31 01:14:18 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 0C94A22AF; Thu, 31 May 2007 01:14:17 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #151 Message-Id: <20070531051417.0C94A22AF@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 01:14:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 31 May 2007 01:15:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 151 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (Gene Johnson, AP) AP to Use Copyright Protection Service (Michael Liedtke, AP) Incoming AT&T Chief Sees Possibilities in Overseas Buys (USTelecom daily) Google Adds 'Street Level View' to U.S. Maps (Eric Auchard, Reuters) Kilobytes for Minutes? (Chris Kantarjiev) Re: I Want to Pay For Basic Service and Extras Separately (Rick Merrill) Re: I Want to Pay For Basic Service and Extras Separately (Queensbridge.us) Re: Voicemail Messages Get BUZzed (Mr Joseph Singer) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.freepress.net/netfreedom . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 23:26:10 -0500 From: Gene Johnson, AP Legal Affairs Writer Subject: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail By GENE JOHNSON, AP Legal Affairs Writer A 27-year-old man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail. Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised "zombie" computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails. "He's one of the top 10 spammers in the world," said Tim Cranton, a Microsoft Corp. lawyer who is senior director of the company's Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. "He's a huge problem for our customers. This is a very good day." A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Soloway pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon to all charges after a judge determined that -- even with four bank accounts seized by the government -- he was sufficiently well off to pay for his own lawyer. He has been living in a ritzy apartment and drives an expensive Mercedes convertible, said prosecutor Kathryn Warma. Prosecutors are seeking to have him forfeit $773,000 they say he made from his business, Newport Internet Marketing Corp. A public defender who represented him for Wednesday's hearing declined to comment. Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called "zombies" because owners typically have no idea their machines have been infected. He continued his activities even after Microsoft won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 and the operator of a small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment, prosecutors said. U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Wednesday that the case is the first in the country in which federal prosecutors have used identity theft statutes to prosecute a spammer for taking over someone else's Internet domain name. Soloway could face decades in prison, though prosecutors said they have not calculated what guideline sentencing range he might face. The investigation began when the authorities began receiving hundreds of complaints about Soloway, who had been featured on a list of known spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organization. The Santa Barbara County, Calif., Department of Social Services said it was spending $1,000 a week to fight the spam it was receiving, and other businesses and individuals complained of having their reputations damaged when it appeared spam was originating from their computers. "This is not just a nuisance. This is way beyond a nuisance," Warma said. Soloway used the networks of compromised computers to send out unsolicited bulk e-mails urging people to use his Internet marketing company to advertise their products, authorities said. People who clicked on a link in the e-mail were directed to his Web site. There, Soloway advertised his ability to send out as many as 20 million e-mail advertisements over 15 days for $495, the indictment said. The Spamhaus Project rejoiced at his arrest. "Soloway has been a long-term nuisance on the Internet -- both in terms of the spam he sent, and the people he duped to use his spam service," organizers wrote on Spamhaus.org. Soloway remained in federal detention pending a hearing Monday. 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: Wed, 30 May 2007 23:33:03 -0500 From: Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer Subject: AP to Use Copyright Protection Service By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer The Associated Press will intensify its efforts to protect its copyrights on the Web and possibly uncover new sources of revenue by working with a Silicon Valley startup that's trying to help the media gain more control over digital content. Under an agreement to be announced Thursday, the AP will subscribe to a service developed by Attributor Corp. to track how its stories are distributed across thousands of Web sites. The monitoring tools eventually will be expanded so the news cooperative will be able to keep tabs on the use of its photos and videos on the Internet, too. Although precise terms aren't being disclosed, the AP's fees will depend largely on how heavily it relies on Attributor's service. With the deal, the AP becomes Attributor's first major customer. The Redwood City-based startup, led by former Yahoo Inc. executive Jim Brock, has spent the past 18 months developing a system for determining whether Web content is authorized or unlicensed. Attributor so far has indexed more than 13 billion Web pages, providing the AP with a potentially powerful tool for better understanding how its content is being consumed online and, ultimately, detect copyright violations, said Srinandan Kasi, the news cooperative's general counsel. "What we are trying to say is that if someone wants to use our news, they have to pay for it," Kasi said in an interview. Rather than trying to scan all the material that AP produces each day, Attributor initially will focus on a few hundred stories likely to attract a lot of readers. Web sites that are updated frequently will be tracked more intensively. The AP can log in to Attributor's service to track usage and flag potential copyright violations. Protecting copyrights is becoming increasingly important to long-established media like the 161-year-old AP as people spend more time on the Web instead of reading newspapers, watching television or listening to the radio. While many Web publishers are paying for content or working out other licensing agreements, copyright disputes continue to crop up on the Internet -- vexing media executives already trying to cope with eroding revenue as more advertisers shift their spending to the Web. Some of the online advertising appears to be flowing to Web sites that include copyrighted material without proper authorization. The not-for-profit AP has been affected by the trend because it relies on fees from its member newspapers and other commercial media sources for much of its revenue. The market conditions prompted the AP to freeze its basic rates for newspaper and broadcast members this year and keep them at the same levels again next year. Boosted by more online income, the AP's revenue last year rose nearly 4 percent to $679.8 million. But the cooperative's net income plunged 28.5 percent to $13.3 million. The AP doesn't intend to take a litigious approach in its enforcement of its copyrights and instead will try to negotiate licensing agreements consistent with its mission of keeping the public informed, Kasi said. Attributor's monitoring tools also could help AP's management get a better handle on what kinds of stories attract the most online traffic -- knowledge that Kasi said could be used to develop more creative approaches that generate more revenue. The AP's patronage could open more doors in the media for Attributor. The startup is already testing its service with about a dozen other undisclosed companies, said Brock, who hopes the AP proves the effectiveness of the service. "It's a very important feedback loop from one of the most important content producers in the world," Brock said. Privately held Attributor has raised more than $10 million so far from a list of investors that includes five venture capital firms: Sigma Partners, Selby Venture Partners, Draper Richards, First Round Capital and Amicus Capital. 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/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 12:18:56 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Incoming AT&T Chief Sees Possibilities in Overseas Buys USTelecom dailyLead May 30, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/gZzsfDtusXsuAQCibudddYnb TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Incoming AT&T chief sees possibilities in overseas buys BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Windstream to buy CT Communications * Alcatel-Lucent signs on for WiMAX trial * Vodafone to invest heavily in India * Broadcom completes Octalica deal USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Secure Your Optical Network FoundationTuesday, June 5, 1 p.m. (ET) TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Redline to build WiMAX network in Paraguay * Mobile ads coming to a phone near you * Analysts predict growth in surveillance-technology market * SMS voting guidelines set IP DOWNLOAD * Telecoms stepping up on IPTV rollouts * Microsoft unveils tabletop computer REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Court ruling revamps cell phone security EDITOR'S NOTE * New feature: dailyLead at work, home and on the road Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/gZzsfDtusXsuAQCibudddYnb ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 15:47:15 -0500 From: Eric Auchard, Reuters Subject: Google Adds 'Street Level View' to U.S. Maps By Eric Auchard Google Inc. said on Tuesday it was introducing street-level map views of various U.S. cities, giving Web users a panoramic, 360-degree images as well as the overhead views Google Maps has offered. With the new "Street View" feature in Google Maps, street level imagery is available for maps of the San Francisco area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami, and will soon expand to other metropolitan regions, Google said in a statement. Users looking at Google Maps through a Web browser can navigate around a city, "virtually" walking the streets, checking out restaurants and landmarks and even zoom in on bus stops or street signs to make travel plans. Google is playing catch-up with street-level viewing features, following in the footsteps of A9.com's BlockView mapping feature introduced in early 2005 and showing street-level views in roughly two dozen major U.S. cities. A9.com, a unit of Amazon.com Inc., discontinued the feature in September 2006. A9 Chief Executive Udi Manber subsequently joined Google as vice president of engineering. Microsoft Corp. has offered what it calls a "birds-eye" view on parts of its MSN Virtual Earth three-dimensional mapping service for several big U.S. cites since late in 2005. Google also announced plans for "Mapplets," a tool for independent software developers to build mini-applications that be displayed within Google Maps. Mapplets can display a variety of information, from housing listings to crime data as well as ways to measure distances between different points on the map. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Inc. and MapQuest, a unit of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL online business, all continue to compete aggressively to create new online mapping features, said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Web sites now rely on one of the major online map providers to create hybrid mapping applications, popularly known as "mashups," he estimated. Google made the announcements at the Where 2.0 conference taking place in San Jose this week. More details can be found at http://maps.google.com/preview . 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/internet-news.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 15:25:06 PDT From: Chris Kantarjiev Subject: Kilobytes for Minutes? I've got a smartphone on Cingular that I use more for data than for voice. As a result, I pay extra for a data plan, and have lots of minutes left over every month. I'd really like it if Cingular made those two commodities fungible -- I'd happily trade one of my bucket voice minutes for every kilobyte (or SMS). They don't seem to offer such a plan. Does any carrier? Thanks, chris [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought either Cingular or Cellular One offered an unlimited data transfer package for some sum of money each month. You'd have to ask them if 'unlimited' actually means 'unlimited' or not. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 18:53:52 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: I Want to Pay For Basic Service and the Extras Separately John Mayson wrote: > On Mon, 28 May 2007, lbrtchx wrote: >> Hi, >> I would like to pay for a basic service ideally as part of a family plan >> and if my son needs long distance, internet, or any other service, he would >> have to pay for it himself upfront. >> The thing is that I would like for the basic services to be always >> available. >> Is there any company offering such services? > Having looked into something similar I can say "no", at least not in > the United States. The billing doesn't work when part of it goes to > "dad", but "son" wants to add to it. All I can suggest is "dad" agree > to pay for the added service and "son" reimburse dad. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA Most cable companies (Charter, Verizon, Comcast) offer phone service that has free long distance and unlimited local calling and basic TV and internet access. ------------------------------ From: www.Queensbridge.us Subject: Re: I Want to Pay For Basic Service and the Extras Separately Date: 30 May 2007 14:01:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On May 29, 9:00 pm, John Mayson wrote: > On Mon, 28 May 2007, lbrtchx wrote: >> Hi, >> I would like to pay for a basic service ideally as part of a family plan >> and if my son needs long distance, internet, or any other service, he would >> have to pay for it himself upfront. >> The thing is that I would like for the basic services to be always >> available. >> Is there any company offering such services? > Having looked into something similar I can say "no", at least not in > the United States. The billing doesn't work when part of it goes to > "dad", but "son" wants to add to it. All I can suggest is "dad" agree > to pay for the added service and "son" reimburse dad. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA Original poster does not state if he is referring to hardwired or wireless. With wireless it is easy. Use prepaid. I use Virgin and pay $16.21 with tax every 3 months. I removed voicemail so no one pays for a call if I do not anwer in person. For long distance you can prepay thru OneSuite and log on WWW to check on usage and to replenish. OneSite is as low as USA-Canada 1.9CPM! Works as prepaid phone card. PIN not needed for calls from home or cell phone. Compare the rates at https://www.OneSuite.com No monthly fee or minimum. Use Promotion/SuiteTreat Code: "FREEoffer23" for FREE time. Works FROM many other countries ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 14:11:00 PDT From: Mr Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Voicemail Messages Get BUZzed communicationsdirect pointed to this article: > http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24628?11228 > Sure, your mobile phone has a unique, personal ringtone. But what > does your phone's voicemail message sound like? BUZ Interactive > is betting there's a lot of people who think that a musical, > personalized voicemail message is a great idea. That's why the > Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is offering GETaBUZ, a new way to Maybe I'm turning into an old fart, but I'm getting severely annoyed with the "need" to fix something that ain't broken. "Personalizing" voicemail with someone else's music is just another way to annoy people who are calling you. It's very likely that this "special" music which you like a lot others may not be so crazy for. Another in the same vein of annoyance is the service where you call someone's number and instead of the familiar ringback tone you get the person's choice of music blaring in your ear until such time as they decide to answer. We know the reason for these services ... to make a buck. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #151 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 31 13:05:24 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 5820422B1; Thu, 31 May 2007 13:05:24 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #152 Message-Id: <20070531170524.5820422B1@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 13:05:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 31 May 2007 13:06:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 152 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets (Reuters News Wire) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Time Warner Digital Phone Question (John Mayson) Re: Touch Tone vs. Rotary -- Desk vs. Wall Sets? (Paul Coxwell) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (Rick Merrill) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (Steven Lichter) Re: Voicemail Messages Get BUZzed (Rick Merrill) Re: FCC Should be Required to Accurately Count Users (Matt Simpson) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:27:22 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets World oil prices jumped briefly on Wednesday after a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the No. 62 U.S. media market -- posted an erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site. At 10:14 EDT (1414 GMT), CBS affiliate KOTV reported that a lightning strike had caused a fire at an Oklahoma refinery -- sparking a flurry of excitement among energy traders and boosting U.S. crude prices 40 cents. The refining company announced the story was "completely wrong" and the station withdrew the story. "All it takes is a screw-up on a Web site to move the market. It just goes to show how tense this market is," said a Houston-based oil trader. A string of refinery problems in the United States has propelled retail gasoline prices to record highs in recent weeks. 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 ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:56:53 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For May 31, 2007 ******************************** Ukrainian Telesystems Extends 3G Network to Crimea http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24653?11228 Ukrainian CDMA operator Ukrainian Telesystems has launched 3G services in Simferopol, the capital of the Ukrainian republic of Crimea, reports Ukrainian News. The operator will now offer high-speed mobile internet and mobile communication and multimedia under the 'PEOPLEnet' brand, and has plans in place to extend its coverage ... Government Awards $20B Telecom Contract http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24650?11228 WASHINGTON Five companies -- AT&;T Inc., Level 3 Communications, Verizon Communications Inc., Qwest Communications International Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. -- on Thursday were awarded a federal telecommunications contract worth up to $20 billion over 10 years. Getting on the so-called Networx Enterprise ... VSNL Combats Falling Voice Margins http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24644?11228 International data connectivity provider Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL) is feeling the pinch from falling profit margins in its wholesale voice business, and upcoming reforms to bandwidth pricing at home in India threaten to increase the pressure. In its financial results for the year ended March 31, the India-based operator ... Original WiMAX Entrants Still Lead Market http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24642?11228 According to the latest report from In-Stat, the original vendors who entered the WiMAX market -- Alavarion, Aperto, Redline and Airspan -- still hold the dominant market positions. However, better-known equipment vendors such as Motorola, Nokia Siemens and Samsung received more press coverage in 2006, for their high-profile ... Survey Sez: Enterprise Comms Users Dissatisfied http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24640?11228 Lack of open standards may be the cause of dissatisfaction of enterprise communications by nearly 70 percent of users, according to an independent survey of hundreds of respondents who attended the CeBIT 2007 show in Hannover, Germany, last March. Siemens Communications sponsored the research, which was conducted by an independent ... Palm's Constant Companion http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24638?11228 Palm Inc. has finally unveiled its long-awaited new mobile computer -- a small notebook-like device intended to be used in conjunction with a smartphone for mobile email, Web surfing and more. Analysts, however, question who exactly will buy the symbiotic new device. Palm founder Jeff Hawkins unveiled the $500 Foleo "mobile... Will the Apple iPhone Ignite the US Multimedia Phone Market? http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24636?11228 SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Despite a rapid increase in the number of multimedia-capable phones, US wireless subscribers have not yet been persuaded to take advantage of these capabilities, reports In-Stat. More than one-third of respondents to an In-Stat wireless subscriber survey now carry a wireless handset that can play MP3 tracks, ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Organization: http://www.mayson.us Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:05:15 -0500 I hope this isn't too inappropriate a question for the digest. I finally fired Ma Bell. I had once-upon-a-time worked for AT&T and remainded a loyal telephone customer. However I just got tired of waiting for DSL on my street so I could take advantage of their phone/DSL/satellite package deal. I already had Road Runner high-speed Internet from Time Warner so I signed up for digital cable and phone. The Time Warner website is rather sketchy and I'm having trouble finding an answer to this, so I'm asking here. I understand I can continue using my existing telephones and jacks with digital phone. But can I use my computer to make/receive calls on my digital phone number? I have both Windows XP and Apple Mac OS X at my disposal. Note, I'm not talking about using Skype. I would like to be able to place and receive calls on my home number from my computer regardless of where my computer may be. Is this possible? Thanks, John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 07:09:23 PDT From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Touch Tone vs. Rotary -- Desk vs. Wall Sets? > P.S. While we're on the subject, would anyone know what percentage of > lines are still served by exclusively dial equipment? I don't think > they charge a premium for TT anymore. Also, many people have some old > rotary sets still in service (like me) even if their primary sets are > TT. Over here in the U.K. we didn't get TouchTone until the 1980s, but there was never any premium and it was made available on all lines automatically as soon as the C.O. equipment could handle it. All lines will still accept rotary/pulse dialing, at least regular "old fashioned" lines (some cable services might not). In fact the automated BT line test function still includes dial-tests for both DTMF and pulse. I still have rotary phones in service around the house, both Western Electric 500s and the old GPO 706 (nearest British equivalent of the WECo 500). Paul ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 07:16:23 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Gene Johnson wrote: > By GENE JOHNSON, AP Legal Affairs Writer > A 27-year-old man described as one of the world's most prolific > spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer > users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk > e-mail. > Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised > "zombie" computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails. > "He's one of the top 10 spammers in the world," said Tim Cranton, a > Microsoft Corp. lawyer who is senior director of the company's > Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. "He's a huge problem for our > customers. This is a very good day." > A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against > Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, > aggravated identity theft and money laundering. > Soloway pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon to all charges after a > judge determined that -- even with four bank accounts seized by the > government -- he was sufficiently well off to pay for his own lawyer. > He has been living in a ritzy apartment and drives an expensive > Mercedes convertible, said prosecutor Kathryn Warma. Prosecutors are > seeking to have him forfeit $773,000 they say he made from his > business, Newport Internet Marketing Corp. > A public defender who represented him for Wednesday's hearing declined > to comment. > Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to > send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called > "zombies" because owners typically have no idea their machines have > been infected. They should try using the Rico Laws because of his use of zombies. Seriously! ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 08:30:53 -0700 Gene Johnson wrote: > By GENE JOHNSON, AP Legal Affairs Writer > A 27-year-old man described as one of the world's most prolific > spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer > users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk > e-mail. > Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised > "zombie" computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails. > "He's one of the top 10 spammers in the world," said Tim Cranton, a > Microsoft Corp. lawyer who is senior director of the company's > Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. "He's a huge problem for our > customers. This is a very good day." > A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against > Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, > aggravated identity theft and money laundering. > Soloway pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon to all charges after a > judge determined that -- even with four bank accounts seized by the > government -- he was sufficiently well off to pay for his own lawyer. > He has been living in a ritzy apartment and drives an expensive > Mercedes convertible, said prosecutor Kathryn Warma. Prosecutors are > seeking to have him forfeit $773,000 they say he made from his > business, Newport Internet Marketing Corp. > A public defender who represented him for Wednesday's hearing declined > to comment. > Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to > send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called > "zombies" because owners typically have no idea their machines have > been infected. > He continued his activities even after Microsoft won a $7 million > civil judgment against him in 2005 and the operator of a small > Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment, > prosecutors said. > U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Wednesday that the case is the first > in the country in which federal prosecutors have used identity theft > statutes to prosecute a spammer for taking over someone else's > Internet domain name. Soloway could face decades in prison, though > prosecutors said they have not calculated what guideline sentencing > range he might face. > The investigation began when the authorities began receiving hundreds > of complaints about Soloway, who had been featured on a list of known > spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam > organization. > The Santa Barbara County, Calif., Department of Social Services said > it was spending $1,000 a week to fight the spam it was receiving, and > other businesses and individuals complained of having their > reputations damaged when it appeared spam was originating from their > computers. > "This is not just a nuisance. This is way beyond a nuisance," Warma > said. > Soloway used the networks of compromised computers to send out > unsolicited bulk e-mails urging people to use his Internet marketing > company to advertise their products, authorities said. > People who clicked on a link in the e-mail were directed to his Web > site. There, Soloway advertised his ability to send out as many as 20 > million e-mail advertisements over 15 days for $495, the indictment > said. > The Spamhaus Project rejoiced at his arrest. > "Soloway has been a long-term nuisance on the Internet -- both in > terms of the spam he sent, and the people he duped to use his spam > service," organizers wrote on Spamhaus.org. > Soloway remained in federal detention pending a hearing Monday. > Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. I think they should shoot him and posted a picture of his dead body on the net!!!! The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 07:18:14 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Voicemail Messages Get BUZzed Mr Joseph Singer wrote: > communicationsdirect > pointed to this > article: >> http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24628?11228 >> Sure, your mobile phone has a unique, personal ringtone. But what >> does your phone's voicemail message sound like? BUZ Interactive >> is betting there's a lot of people who think that a musical, >> personalized voicemail message is a great idea. That's why the >> Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is offering GETaBUZ, a new way to > Maybe I'm turning into an old fart, but I'm getting severely annoyed > with the "need" to fix something that ain't broken. "Personalizing" > voicemail with someone else's music is just another way to annoy > people who are calling you. It's very likely that this "special" > music which you like a lot others may not be so crazy for. Another in > the same vein of annoyance is the service where you call someone's > number and instead of the familiar ringback tone you get the person's > choice of music blaring in your ear until such time as they decide to > answer. We know the reason for these services ... to make a buck. You can find your "mute" button? ------------------------------ From: Matt Simpson Subject: Re: FCC Should be Required to More Accurately Count Broadband Users Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 12:29:43 -0400 Organization: None In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > Sounds rather expensive. How much would it cost the taxpayer? > Of what benefit would it be? One possible benefit of more accurate reporting of broadband coverage might be more chance of somebody providing coverage to those who don't have it. An area with no existing competition might be more attractive to a provider who is considering serving that area. In my area, for example, a provider who looks at the false maps created with my tax dollars might assume that they would have a hard time convincing users to switch from cable. In fact, customers don't have cable and might happily jump at any option that was offered. Whether or not this is worthy of taxpayer dollars may be a matter of opinion, which may depend on whether or not you already have broadband coverage and don't care if anybody else does, or whether you're one of those on the wrong side of the digital divide. There are many in government (state, local, and federal) who feel that reliable broadband access for all is a plus for economic development, and that efforts to make that happen are worthwhile. Unfortunately, they're currently doing it in such a half-assed manner that their efforts may be worse than nothing at all. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #152 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 1 01:44:00 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 4DC642271; Fri, 1 Jun 2007 01:44:00 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #153 Message-Id: <20070601054400.4DC642271@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 01:44:00 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Jun 2007 01:45:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 153 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions (Jill Serjeant, Reuters) Canadian Natives Want Cut from Cell Phone Traffic (John Mayson) Report: Broadband Subscribers to Almost Double by 2011 (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Rick Merrill) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Linc Madison) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Robert Bonomi) Re: Touch Tone vs. Rotary -- Desk vs. Wall Sets? (Adrian) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (Tom Horsley) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (mc) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 23:19:29 -0500 From: Jill Serjeant, Reuters Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Canadian Natives Want Cut from Cell Phone Traffic Organization: http://www.mayson.us Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 13:23:15 -0500 http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/05/canadian_native.html "Mobile phone calls in Canada may get a little more expensive if a native tribe there is successful with plans to levy a fee on every phone call that passes through its airspace. Manitoba First Nations is negotiating with Manitoba Telecom Service to take a cut of every call that passes over tribal land or water." In my humble opinion, this is ridiculous. Will they next demand a cut from satellite radio? Will they demand a cut of advertising revenue from radio and TV stations? Will amateur radio operators have to pay for a special license if their signals pass through First Nations airspace? What about airplanes that fly overhead? John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is equally ridiculous for the various carriers to claim some sort of 'privacy in communications' rationale, and attempt to punish those persons who intercept or monitor or otherwise tamper with the carriers' signal, yet they (carriers) attempt to do that here in USA. Consider 'pay television' here in the United States. The carriers of same keep insisting that no one has a right to intercept their radio signals without the proper payment of their fee for service. On the other hand, some radio pirates insist upon their right to examine any/all particles entering upon their land, electronic or otherwise. A good illustration of this would be those persons who _routinely_ monitor radio-telephone communications and challenge the FCC to make them stop doing so. Their rationale seems to be 'if it is on my property I have the right to inspect it. If you do not like that, then build an impenetrable 'wall' around my property, forcing your radio signal to travel in some other direction, or possibly not travel at all past that point.' If it (radio signal) penetrates my property then I have the right to charge a 'transit fee' for same. Are radio waves suppoedly inviolate? I think not; since there are many theatres, restaurants, other public places in the USA which use 'mesh-like' devices to specifically neutralize or diminish radio transmissions. You might feel that radio waves have the right to do their own thing, or travel at will, wherever. Obviously not everyone would agree with that. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 12:50:34 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Report: Broadband Subscribers to Almost Double By 2011. USTelecom dailyLead May 31, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/harcfDtusXsAzuCibuddfzLo NEWS OF THE DAY * Report: Broadband subscribers to almost double by 2011 BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel among winners in latest government telecom contract * Motorola cutting an additional 4,000 jobs * Verizon discounts bundle in Delaware * Alcatel-Lucent lands network-extension contract in Pakistan * AT&T offers smallest QWERTY BlackBerry * Executive at Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems resigns USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Register Now for VIP NXTcomm Access! TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Apple to stream YouTube to TVs * Are you prepared for more mobile security threats? * Searching the Web, one phone call at a time IP DOWNLOAD * Opinion: OCS 2007 creates opportunities for VoIP * Cyber-criminals target VoIP REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Georgia governor signs video-franchise bill Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/harcfDtusXsAzuCibuddfzLo SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005=A0 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 16:21:37 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question John Mayson wrote: > I hope this isn't too inappropriate a question for the digest. > I finally fired Ma Bell. I had once-upon-a-time worked for AT&T and > remainded a loyal telephone customer. However I just got tired of > waiting for DSL on my street so I could take advantage of their > phone/DSL/satellite package deal. I already had Road Runner > high-speed Internet from Time Warner so I signed up for digital cable > and phone. > The Time Warner website is rather sketchy and I'm having trouble > finding an answer to this, so I'm asking here. I understand I can > continue using my existing telephones and jacks with digital phone. > But can I use my computer to make/receive calls on my digital phone > number? I have both Windows XP and Apple Mac OS X at my disposal. > Note, I'm not talking about using Skype. I would like to be able to > place and receive calls on my home number from my computer regardless > of where my computer may be. Is this possible? > Thanks, > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA Well, "no" because your computer's modem isn't connected to the internet, "yes" because your new ATA (analog telephone adapter) MAY be able to muster enough REN to handle all your phones and your modem(s). "maybe" because some VoIP services have limitations on FAX and modem operation that use older technologies. You will just have to try it and see. I'll bet it will work! ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 13:36:08 -0700 From: Linc Madison Reply-To: telecom@lincmad.com Organization: Linc Mad dot com In article , John Mayson wrote: > I hope this isn't too inappropriate a question for the digest. Not at all; it's right on target. > The Time Warner website is rather sketchy and I'm having trouble > finding an answer to this, so I'm asking here. I understand I can > continue using my existing telephones and jacks with digital phone. > But can I use my computer to make/receive calls on my digital phone > number? I have both Windows XP and Apple Mac OS X at my disposal. > Note, I'm not talking about using Skype. I would like to be able to > place and receive calls on my home number from my computer regardless > of where my computer may be. Is this possible? I don't think you can. I have cable telephone from Comcast, but I would guess it's nearly identical to Time-Warner. My cable comes into my apartment building, and then over the in-building coax cable wiring to my apartment, where I have a special cable modem that splits out the Internet signal to an Ethernet cable and the telephone signal to a wire that feeds into my existing in-home phone wiring. Without the special cable modem, with its serial number registered on Comcast's system, I don't have telephone service; however, if I take the cable modem with me and plug it in somewhere else, it wouldn't work. (I would guess that even if I plugged it in on a cable belonging to another Comcast customer with the same services, it would still generate an error because of the mismatched serial numbers.) I used to have RCN, also with cable/net/phone service. Their setup was a little bit different. The cable came into the building, but the phone signal was split off at the demarc into the existing in-building phone wiring, allowing me to use just a regular cable modem in my apartment for the Internet part. I also haven't tested how or whether the phones work in a power outage. I think the Comcast system, since it relies on the cable modem in my apartment, probably wouldn't. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom at Linc Mad d0t c0m URL: < http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits Read my political blog, "The Third Path" US, California, and Washington State laws apply to LINCMAD.COM e-mail. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: VOIP services _will_ work when there is a power interuption assuming that you have a battery backup on the line. You would need to have your router and ATA get their power from the backup supply; something that might kick in when the power other- wise fails. Or perhaps you have, like myself, a power supply sufficient for your entire network, but only to allow for an 'orderly shutdown' of your computer system as needed. I experimented with this one day recently. I went over to the circuit-breaker box on the wall and flipped off the circuit serving my computer area. Instantly I heard something sounding like a 'click' as the battery backup started going. (Oh, on my battery backup I also have the telephone network wired in to it also.) After flipping the circuit breaker 'off' I went over immediatly to try this test: Dial '8' for the Vonage line; I heard dial tone, and dialed a number. Now, it would not work for very long; the battery is not that large, and it is mainly intended for the 'orderly shutdown' of my computers, _not_ to just keep on using them. But you probably see my point. Now, if the cable service went out, that would be a different matter entirely. But if your telephone central office went on the blitz, you would not be able to use your landline phones very long either. Typically, when my power goes off for some reason or another (which would also affect my telephone system) I 'cheat' by plugging the phone line directly into the central office line, enitirely by-passing the mini-PBX I normally run everything through. Its not a trivial effort in any event. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 17:21:46 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , John Mayson wrote: > I hope this isn't too inappropriate a question for the digest. > I finally fired Ma Bell. I had once-upon-a-time worked for AT&T and > remainded a loyal telephone customer. However I just got tired of > waiting for DSL on my street so I could take advantage of their > phone/DSL/satellite package deal. I already had Road Runner > high-speed Internet from Time Warner so I signed up for digital cable > and phone. > The Time Warner website is rather sketchy and I'm having trouble > finding an answer to this, so I'm asking here. I understand I can > continue using my existing telephones and jacks with digital phone. > But can I use my computer to make/receive calls on my digital phone > number? I have both Windows XP and Apple Mac OS X at my disposal. > Note, I'm not talking about using Skype. I would like to be able to > place and receive calls on my home number from my computer regardless > of where my computer may be. Is this possible? Possible? yes. Trivial effort? no. Probably requires some extra hardware. Definitely requires some _significant_ extra software. On a Unix-esque platform, I'd be looking at Asterix as a starting point. On Windows, 'yate' maybe?? (dunno much about it). ------------------------------ From: Adrian Subject: Re: Touch Tone vs. Rotary -- Desk vs. Wall Sets? Date: 31 May 2007 15:41:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On May 31, 7:09 am, Paul Coxwell wrote: >> P.S. While we're on the subject, would anyone know what percentage of >> lines are still served by exclusively dial equipment? I don't think >> they charge a premium for TT anymore. Also, many people have some old >> rotary sets still in service (like me) even if their primary sets are >> TT. > Over here in the U.K. we didn't get TouchTone until the 1980s, but > there was never any premium and it was made available on all lines > automatically as soon as the C.O. equipment could handle it. > All lines will still accept rotary/pulse dialing, at least regular "old > fashioned" lines (some cable services might not). In fact the > automated BT line test function still includes dial-tests for both DTMF > and pulse. > I still have rotary phones in service around the house, both Western > Electric 500s and the old GPO 706 (nearest British equivalent of the > WECo 500). > Paul Have you made any adjustments to your WECo 500s for compatibility with the UK system? Adrian ------------------------------ From: Tom Horsley Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 23:00:05 GMT On Wed, 30 May 2007 23:26:10 -0500 Gene Johnson, AP Legal Affairs Writer wrote: > federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice > a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail. Yea right. If kept detailed statistics I might notice a statistically significant decrease in the 4th digit to the right of the zero in the percentage of mail I get that is spam. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Quite frankly, I was not that impressed with the feds' efforts, either in this case. Now, if the feds did that sort of thing day after day for a couple weeks or so, _then_ I think we would see a substantial decrease in spam. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 19:45:10 -0400 >> Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to >> send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called >> "zombies" because owners typically have no idea their machines have >> been infected. > They should try using the Rico Laws because of his use of zombies. Definitely. And look at where his money was coming from. How many people were knowingly paying him to do fraudulent and illegal things? They're guilty, too. And was anybody paying him to sabotage and degrade the nation's e-mail system? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To answer your question 'how many people were knowingly allowing this ...' my answer would be 'the spam enablers are equally guilty'. The 'enablers' are the users who sit there and try to convince you that 'email filtering' is the answer; that we can repeatedly and without ceasing apply filters to our email and newsgroups, all the while Soloway continues to plug up our filters to the point they are almost unusable. Oh, when really pressed on this issue, they will bitch and moan about users (or actually, ABusers) like Soloway and how evil they are, yet they will rarely, if ever, 'vote' with either their money or their efforts to put people like Soloway out of business on his own, and if anyone dares to suggest some guerilla-like tactics to accomplish the same thing, they will shudder and tell you how awful you are for thinking and speaking about it. We should NOT have to use email filtering; why should WE have to endure it? But, that's the enablers for you. They prefer to punish the rest of us. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #153 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 1 16:04:51 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1327A22A9; Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:04:50 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #154 Message-Id: <20070601200450.1327A22A9@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:04:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:06:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 154 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More Old Movie Phone Scenes (Lisa Hancock) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) AT&T Adds International Text-Messaging Plan (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (mc) Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets (John Mayson) Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions (mc) Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions (Fred Atkinson) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Jax) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: More Old Movie Phone Scenes Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 07:24:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The cable channel TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is excellent. It shows great old movies. Many of the films were very well written and produced. In B&W, the artful use of lighting and shadows to create mood is excellent. The film "The Night Holds Terror" (1955) was about a kidnapping. At the end of the film they're waiting for the kidnappers to call with the ransom demand. The victim's wife (who would get the car) was told she must stall them as long as possible to trace the call. The call came, and the scene switched to the phone company central office, showing technicians checking various Strowger switch units. Other units were still running. Then they showed the service center and lookups in the tub file (a file of each line and its repair history). Very realistic. Another film, "Dial 1119" (1955?) had some phone scenes (I couldn't stay up for the whole film, work calls). The film opened with the front page of the phone book listing 1119 as the emergency number for police fire and rescue. (I wonder if this was a common number for police back then, in those days we were taught to simply dial 0- operator). This film had an escaped murderer taking a group of people hostage in a bar, and using the telephone (an old 202 set with an E1 handset) to talk to police. Pay phones in the film were all two- piece. Part of the drama was that murderer dialed his calls in a very slow and deliberate manner. ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communications Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:45:10 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 01, 2007 ******************************** Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent Wins GSM Network Contract from China Mobile Pakistan http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24687?11228 Ericsson yesterday announced that it has been selected by China Mobile Pakistan Limited (CM Pak), a company created after the former Paktel was acquired by China Mobile Communication Corporation (China Mobile), for the expansion of its GSM network throughout the southern Pakistan. Under the contract, Ericsson will provide a complete GSM ... EU Outlines Plans for "Super" Regulator http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24684?11228 The European Union (EU)'s Information Society Commissioner, Viviane Reding, has outlined plans to launch proposals into the creation of a single 'super regulator' for the region. In a statement released on 31 May, Reding said she will launch the proposals by end of October 2007, seeking further powers to strengthen telecoms ... Ericsson Wins Vodafone Spain's 3G Deal http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24682?11228 Global mobile giant Vodafone has selected Ericsson to modernise and expand its existing WCDMA/HSPA radio-access network throughout Spain. In a statement, Ericsson said that under the three-year deal, it will deliver WCDMA radio base stations to enhance Vodafone Spain's network coverage and add the latest Ericsson HSPA functionality .... Mirror Promises Better Telecom Lasers http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24678?11228 A new high-performance mirror, developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, could dramatically improve the design and efficiency of next generation telecom devices relying on laser optics. The new mirror packs the same 99.9 percent reflective punch as current high-grade mirrors, called distributed Bragg ... Why Telcos Need Web 2.0 http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24675?11228 IMS might not be the answer, it turns out. Service providers looking to create new revenue-driving applications will instead have to adapt to the Web 2.0 world, using the concept of 'mashups' to quickly create new Web-based services, according to the latest Services Software Insider report, Telco Web 2.0 Mashups: A New ... AT&T Offers International Text Messaging http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24670?11228 AT&T has announced an international text-messaging plan. The new plan will include 100 international long-distance text messages for $9.99 a month. "A text package specifically for international use helps make friends and families across borders seem less far away by allowing them to communicate when time zone differences ... BT's Flat Fusion http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24663?11228 BT Group plc has not given up on its fixed/mobile convergence (FMC) service, Fusion, despite flat subscriber growth. The operator now has 40,000 Fusion customers, which is the same number of customers it had about two months ago. With nearly two years of experience since BT first launched Fusion in 2005, BT says its FMC ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 12:11:37 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: AT&T Adds International Text-Messaging Plan USTelecom dailyLead June 1, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hbdwfDtusXsDuICibuddvAjb TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * AT&T adds international text-messaging plan BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Qwest in discussions with movie studios * Covad makes good on ADSL2+ promise to businesses * Converged optical Ethernet networks boost Ciena * Google outlines mobile strategy, mum on handsets rumors * Nacchio may have to forfeit $52 million USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Secure Your Optical Network FoundationTuesday, June 5, 1 p.m. (ET) TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Clearwire completes WiMAX-spectrum buy * Life after dial-up: Company looks to diversify * Study: Mobile TV to attract 155.6 million subscribers * EarthLink nears completion of Texas wireless network IP DOWNLOAD * Avaya buyout speculation reflects unrest in VoIP world REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC to wireless: Improve emergency-call standards EDITOR'S NOTE * New feature: dailyLead at work, home and on the road Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hbdwfDtusXsDuICibuddvAjb ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:01:30 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To answer your question 'how many > people were knowingly allowing this ...' my answer would be 'the > spam enablers are equally guilty'. The 'enablers' are the users who > sit there and try to convince you that 'email filtering' is the > answer; that we can repeatedly and without ceasing apply filters to > our email and newsgroups, ... Well said! The spam-filtering and antivirus industries have often struck me as enemies disguised as friends. They rely on spam and viruses to continue, so they can continue selling us their technological solutions to human problems. And locksmiths don't want the burglary rate to drop ... it's bad for business ... What bothered me about the Soloway case is the time scale. They let him keep spamming for something like 5 years while slowly gathering evidence. Computer criminals just don't think in a 5-year time scale. Things happen too fast. They're like shoplifters -- they need to face substantial consequences on the *day* of the crime, or there will be little or no deterrent effect, and massive needless damage done. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And, midst your examples above of people and industries who want to maintain the status quo for various reasons -- generally financial -- be sure to include the 'corrections industry' along with the locksmiths. Doesn't it almost make you go spastic with laughter when a police officer notes how 'all we are trying to do is reduce the crime rate; nothing would be better than for us (police officers) to be out of a job from lack of crime?' (or words to that effect; they are not too original in their thinking.) Once in our kindergarten class at school Officer Friendly came around to tell all us students about how 'police officers were our friends' and how they were trying to eliminate or do away with crime. I thought back then that sounded a bit odd, but it was not until fifth or sixth grade I began to grasp the irony of it all. So when Officer Friendly came around again to address us in seventh grade, I held up my hand when he asked if there were any questions or comments: I am sure he was expecting me to snitch on my parents or friends, claiming they were either (a) drug users, (b) drug pushers, (c) sex molestors or (d) other breeds of malevolent individuals; (no, I take that back, we did not have _open_ drug abuse nor sex offenders in those days, but he sure was looking for some type of malevolence to be certain so that he would make a big show of adding yet one more intake to his score of corrections industry inmates.) Drug use came along in the seventies and sex offenses came along in the 1990s. I held up my juvenile hand and asked him, "Officer Friendly, are you going to really stand there and tell us you'd like to see the ten thousand employees of the Cook County Jail and Sheriff's Department out of work? And you really want to see the several thousand police officers of the Chicago Police out of work? And what about the millions of dollars spent each year for the construction of new prisons? And what about the thousands of employees in the prison system?" Officer Friendly's face became sort of contorted with hate, but our teacher was unable to get me to shut up either. Finally, Officer Friendly looked at me and said, "you know something, kid, you really are a smart-aleck son of a bitch." And over the next half-century or so, we have witnessed an unbelievable growth in the corrections industry and its peripheral occupations, such as prison phone services, prison food service, private corporate prisons, etc. We had none of those 'periperies' back in the 1950-60's of course. To say nothing about MSNBC's thice weekly hour long program entitled 'LOCKUP' where we television viewers are given guided tours of the many correctional facilities in the USA. Lots of people depend on the status quo to gve meaning to their own lives. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: TELECOM Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets Organization: http://www.mayson.us Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 09:51:49 -0500 On Thu, 31 May 2007, Reuters News Wire wrote: > World oil prices jumped briefly on Wednesday after a television station > in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the No. 62 U.S. media market -- posted an > erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site. Someone explain something to me. Why would the price of a raw material go up due to a refinery fire? It'd be like the price of wheat rising on news of a fire at a Wonder Bread factory. I could see the price of gasoline rising, but not oil. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not really, since there is a more than ample supply of wheat with which to make more bread, but oil is a somewhat more limited substance. And, refineries do more with crude oil than simply make gasoline. How about all sorts of 'petroleum-based' by-products? PAT] ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 10:58:11 -0400 I don't think the people who run eHarmony should lose their freedom to run the business the way they want. They are clearly not setting out to harm anyone. They simply believe that heterosexual matchmaking is different from homosexual matchmaking, and they've chosen to do one and not the other. They have (or can have) any number of competitors that make the other choice. There is also a free exercise of religion issue. As I understand it, the founder of eHarmony is an evangelical Christian and is specifically setting out to promote and uphold the conservative Christian concept of marriage, which is entirely heterosexual. Nobody sues Jewish grocers to make them sell non-kosher meat. Do they? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you substitute the word 'black' for the word 'homosexual' in your comments above, (which is how _many_ but not all GLBT activists would have you handle it) perhaps you can see the problem. _Many_ LGBT (interchangeable with 'GLBT') activists place themselves on the same level as during the black/white struggles in the USA prior to the 1960s. Regards Jewish grocers and non-Kosher products, the fellow across the street from the Skokie Bus Station is Jewish, and operates a specific- ally Kosher market. One day I was joking with him and said "Please fix me a bologna and cheese sandwhich". His reply was "I will sell you the bread and a slice of bologna, then I will sell you a slice of cheese. What you choose to do with them when you get back to the bus station is your own business." His deli market was a large, sort of busy place, with many clerks on duty. But he (owner) always had a nice sense of humor. Over the delicatesan counter was a large sign, apparently due to complaints in the past: Entitled "Your Assurance of Kazruth (or Kosher)it said: "When there are at least two employees on duty at this counter, one will prepare your meat product. The other will prepare your cheese or other dairy (like potato salad) product. The products will be bagged separately if you request it. In the event there is only one employee on duty, then that employee will prepare your meat product, *then wash his/her hands*, and then prepare your dairy product. If our employees do not follow this procedure then your products will be given to you free of charge." The notice was signed by the chief Rabbi in charge of (Jewish) food sales for Village of Skokie. On this particular day, his shop was quite busy. Only one person was on duty at the deli counter. Two people were ahead of me in line, but I was known to be a regular customer, getting lunch to take back to the bus station. The owner himself was working there at the deli counter, obviously harassed and busy. He asked me what I wanted to eat that day, and I told him a liver sausage sandwhich (and then as a sort of afterthought, after pausing a couple seconds) give me an order of cream cheese to go with it. At first he said, "well, it will be a couple minutes before I can get to you," and he turned to the lady who was waiting there ahead of me and _touched_ the meat he was going to cut up for her. Then he said to her, "Do you mind waiting a couple minutes while I get Patrick's order ready?" No, she said she did not mind ... he placed the roast (or whatever she had ordered) back in its bin, turned around a bit and _touched_ the cream cheese he was fixing to add to my sandwhich order. I immediatly made a 'tsk, tsk' sound and he looked at me and said, "You are not Jewish are you?" ... I assured him I was not. "Well then," he said, "our laws do not apply to you." I told him that was correct, they did not apply to me, "but they apply to you, Mr. Rosen, so I will take my order for free today." He fixed my order at no charge, handed it to me, and he said "but the only reason I have that (rabbi-ordered) sign at the counter is because of the young black guys working here who don't give a damn and my regular customers who moan and bitch all the time about Kosher requirements. My clerks have to follow Kosher requirements at all times (even though they are not Jewish). I gave him his two dollars for my sandwhich and told him 'do not let that happen again; or I will have to report you to the chief rabbi for food sales here in Skokie. (smile). His reply was "yeah, yeah, go ahead and report me, you would not be the first." PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 05:45:05 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Gay, or LGBT persons may wish to get > in touch with attorney Todd Schneider in San Francisco in inquire > about being added to the pending lawsuit. PAT] Hi Pat, I don't understand why the LGBT community would want someone who is not well qualified to evaluate the dynamics of their relationships to be providing such a service to them. It would probably turn into a disaster (because of shortcomings in such unqualified evaluations) and result in a lot more lawsuits from people being 'mismatched' because of those shortcomings. Those lawsuits would probably be far more justified. There are plenty of sites that do offer this service and could have been developed by people who are far more qualified to do it. The students of Gallaudet University underwent DPN (Deaf President Now) to bring about the first deaf president of Gallaudet University because they wanted their education to be managed by someone who understood (from having lived it) the problems faced by the Deaf community (if you do not know about DPN, you should read a book entitled 'The Week The World Heard Gallaudet'). They did not want the Hearing (who did not live the Deaf experience) to be the ultimate manager of their education (this did not mean that teachers from the Hearing community could not teach them, just that they wanted their deaf leader to be the ultimate manager of their educational affairs). Would not the LGBT community want their own qualified professionals to do the same for them and not rely on someone who hasn't lived their own experience? It makes very little sense to me. I would liken it to going to a podiatrist to be evaluated for a problem with your hands (the dynamics are not the same). It would probably require Dr. Neil Clark Warren go back to pyschology school to study a new speciality (or do a bunch of costly independent research) to resolve this issue. I'm not entirely sure that that is fair to him especially since other specialists are already more qualified to do it. Why should he reinvent the wheel? The result would probably not be as good as with someone who lived the experience. So now do we sue general practitioners for discrimination because they do not provide pyschological services? Would you not be better suited to choose an experienced mental health practitioner? Do we sue psychologists who specialize in child psychology for not providing counseling to adults as well? These adults can get refered to a psychologist that specialize in their dynamics. Do we sue magazines that specialize in writing about the Black community for not writing about the White or Hispanic communities? Or do we subscribe to a magazine that writes articles about events in our own respective communities? Do we sue Yahoo or Google for not providing dictionary services when we could go to dictionary.com or m-w.com for those services? Do we sue the Reverend Farrakhan for not providing ministries to Protestants or Catholics? What about atheists and agnostics? How about The Washington Blade? Do we sue them because they exclusively support the Gay community and not the Heterosexual community? I don't think so. It's just that I don't see it as a discrimination issue. I see it as an issue of professional specialization. Just my two cents worth. Regards, Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please see the first part of my reply on the previous message. Substitute the word 'black' for the word 'gay'. Now you perhaps see where many GLBT activists are coming from. And you are correct -- when the shoe is on the other foot, discrimin- ation is not a lot of fun. In Australia, where GLBT 'rights' are very strong, a couple of restaurant/tavern owners have specifically banned _heterosexual_ people from using their establishment. _Many_ (not all, but a substantial number of) LGBT Americans are making the comparison to the white/black struggles in America a half-century ago. I am not sure that is an accurate comparison, but it is a very common one these days. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jax Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:19:13 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com On May 31, 11:05 am, John Mayson wrote: > I hope this isn't too inappropriate a question for the digest. > I finally fired Ma Bell. I had once-upon-a-time worked for AT&T and > remainded a loyal telephone customer. However I just got tired of > waiting for DSL on my street so I could take advantage of their > phone/DSL/satellite package deal. I already had Road Runner > high-speed Internet from Time Warner so I signed up for digital cable > and phone. > The Time Warner website is rather sketchy and I'm having trouble > finding an answer to this, so I'm asking here. I understand I can > continue using my existing telephones and jacks with digital phone. > But can I use my computer to make/receive calls on my digital phone > number? I have both Windows XP and Apple Mac OS X at my disposal. > Note, I'm not talking about using Skype. I would like to be able to > place and receive calls on my home number from my computer regardless > of where my computer may be. Is this possible? > Thanks, > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA As a former Time-Warner Technical Support employee, I will have to say no, this can't be done with just the eMTA (that's the phone modem.) It is possible to get this working with additional hardware/software that others have suggested, but beware - Time-Warner will not troubleshoot this connection, since it is not an ordinary phone jack and therefor beyond their scope of work. If you had any problems getting this to work, or keeping it working.....the only place you could go for help is a forum - assuming others have tried this and succeeded. Also, in our division at least, the service goes out A LOT. It is not the most reliable to say the least ... You'd be amazed at how much we, as a culture, have come to assume that when you pick up the phone there will always be a dialtone. If you have gotten Digital Phone, please leave that notion at the door ... and try not to get too frustrated with Tech Support -- they're there to help ... If the service goes out too much for you to handle, then cancel it. No harm, no foul. I know it sounds unrelated, but I am trying to do something similar but without phone service at all. I want to hook my computer, cell phone, and house phone (which has no dialtone) all to run off of Bluetooth technology, but I'm running into a lot of road blocks. Phreaking just isn't as easy as it used to be. ~Jax ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #154 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 1 23:25:52 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id A28C02296; Fri, 1 Jun 2007 23:25:51 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #155 Message-Id: <20070602032551.A28C02296@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 23:25:51 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Jun 2007 23:26:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 155 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions (Fred Atkinson) Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions (mc) Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets (Rick Merrill) Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets (John Mayson) Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets (Robert Bonomi) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (John Mayson) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:56:08 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please see the first part of my reply > on the previous message. Substitute the word 'black' for the word > 'gay'. Now you perhaps see where many GLBT activists are coming from. No, I really don't. And I'm not trying to be condescending. This Web site supports blacks and people of other races who are *heterosexuals*. Are you honestly going to tell me that the dynamics are essentially the same for homosexual relationships? I'd find that hard to believe, and no disrespect is intended. I would agree that it was discriminatory if eHarmony was refusing service to people it was qualified to serve. This fellow has made his career out of a study of heterosexual relationships. He is not qualified to evaluate alternative relationships. Why would they want to put themselves at risk like that? Today my landlord told me a story about a woman he knows. She used an online dating service and met a guy she fell in love with via the Internet and the phone. She never met him face to face.n They swapped pictures and messages via email. It progressed to the point where they starting phoning each other. After several months, he said he was in financial trouble and asked her for help. Then again. Then again. In all, I think he said that this fellow was into her for about twenty-two hundred dollars (someone she had never seen face to face). More time went by and she got suspicious. She had the calls traced. Guess where they were coming from? Nigeria. With your knowledge of Internet scams, I guess that I don't need to explain to you any more. If this story is true and complete (I don't know for sure that it is, of course), then that particular dating service has been compromised and their customers have been exploited. Whether or not it was the service's fault will take more information. But if there is legal action it could be costly to the service company even if they win. My only point in telling this story is that there is a weakness in that service if this story *is* true. I would leave it to the lawyers to determine if there is any legal liability here. Maybe or maybe not. It would probably require a lot more information before they could determine anyway. And maybe it's a weak comparison. I only want to point out [by telling this story] that there can be legal pitfalls in running any service of this (or other) kind(s). If you're sued and have to defend yourself, it can be costly. Even if you win, you lose [because you are out money to your attorney]. To the original point I was trying to make was for someone from the LBGT community [evaluation by someone who was only qualified to evaluate heterosexual relationships]: This well might open eHarmony to legal liability (the lawyers would have to fight this out to settle it. But I suspect their opinion would mirror mine) if there was any negative issue that might arise as a result of what a court would probably say was an unqualified evaluation. This is just my evaluation of the situation. I'll be very surprised if they don't ultimately dismiss her case. But not until after eHarmony has to spend a bunch of money on a lawyer. Is this a case of 'you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't'? Regards, Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A few points for you on this: There are many (again, not all) 'gay activists' who compare being gay in America to formerly being black in America. Whether or not this is a good, intellectually honest and sound comparison, I, of all people, am not in a position to judge. I know that we Episcopalians these days are almost constantly having this hammered in our heads by our rectors and bishops; that is, by the more liberal bishops and rectors. Regards 'who is qualified to administer a romantic web site directed to GLBT people', I am reminded that for many years in the 1960-70's, formerly 'white only' barber shops, the barbers used as their excuse for not wishing to cut a black person's hair was that 'they' (the barber) 'did not know how to do it properly'. That statement (either truthful or a guise to cover up their bigotry, suit yourself!) managed to get them out of cutting a black man's hair for many years. And no one, black or white, wishes to have their hair screwed up by someone doing a bad job, re: "I would not mind cutting his hair, if only I knew how." Some then suggested that the barber shop hire a black barber (presumably with experience in knowing 'what do to') to handle black customers who came in seeking a haircut. Then, the truth came out; many barbershops had racist white owners who did not wish to do that. Regards 'the dynamics of _properly_ servicing GLBT clients in a dating service', I _personally_ do not think there is that much difference in gay and straight relationships. Again, many GLBT folk would disagree with me on that point. But as my friends tell me, since I had my brain aneyrysm in 1999, and now mostly just sit here in my shell, I am not a very good person to evaluate gay relationships, having had so few of them in the past seven years, not of choice, but out of health reasons. But, I retort, "touche! and all that rot; I am not now nor was I ever in a position to evaluate heterosexual relationships all that well either." Regards the high cost of justice -- either way -- in the USA these days, truely this case will cost plenty of money for the winners and the losers. On that topic -- the cost of justice -- I am sort of qualified to speak: we Episcopalians (and by far, we are not the poorest church body in the USA) are getting eaten alive by legal fees already established by lawyers (read, $475 per *hour*) in the liberal Episcopalian vrs. conservative Anglican battle currently going on; a battle we are told will last at least through September over our property rights in Virginia and elsewhere, all on account of that damned gay bishop in New Hampshire. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 18:08:23 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you substitute the word 'black' for > the word 'homosexual' in your comments above, (which is how _many_ but > not all GLBT activists would have you handle it) perhaps you can see > the problem. Not comparable. Black people marry exactly the same way white people do. But heterosexual mating is (mathematically provably) different from homosexual mating. Look up "stable-marriage theorem." eHarmony is being asked to provide a fundamentally different type of service, not merely provide the same service to a wider range of people. If they tried to provide it, there would be immediate (and valid) complaints that they're not doing it competently. Their software would probably perform very poorly (again, look up the relevant theorems). I don't think gay activists would actually support this lawsuit if they thought about the probable consequences: (a) eHarmony moves to Texas and continues as usual but no longer contributes to California's economy. (b) Gay activists come to be viewed as enemies of personal liberty. Until now, they wanted freedom to do their own thing; now they seem to want to take freedom away from people different from themselves. (c) Legislators conclude the California anti-discrimination law is too broad, stamping on personal liberties, and decide to narrow it. If somebody wants to set up a same-sex matchmaking bureau, why not do so, and take advantage of the lack of competition from eHarmony? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, they already have. Without making any references to eHarmony except in a very veiled, obscure way, this televison commercial for chemistry.com (? I think ?) seems to imply they want GLBT business. Regards your (b) and (c) above, gay activists are typically liberal Democrats, and liberal Democrats tend to have no problem with taking away personal liberties. The gay activists who, conversely, are conservative Republicans -- and yes there are a few -- spend most of their time merely explaining themselves to whoever will listen. They by and large will say they are 'traditional Republicans' but they object to the party's evangelical religous leanings in recent years. And then, there are the gay activists who are libertarian either with an upper case /L/ Libertarian (as in political party membership) or lower case /l/ libertarian (as in general philosophy and sympathies but without formal party membership). I place myself in this latter category. Geeze, I could start an entire mailing list/newsgroup on this topic, and I wish I had some help from gay activists one way or the other on it. But, as Ralph Blair (founder and head of the gay religious group *Evangelicals Concerned*) phrases it, "There is overall so much hated and building of agendas in the world these days. Everyone has their own agenda, and refuses to listen to the agendas of anyone else." On that topic -- agenda building and protecting -- he is absolutely, one hundred percent correct. If anyone wants to read what I believe is a _comprehensive_ 'gay rights' view on things, I suggest they go to my web site for same: http://gaynews.n3.net . And this discussion on the eHarmony lawsuit is getting a lot of coverage in the gay press. Lots of GLBT people hate me for 'allowing' all these views to be present in my daily newspaper. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:34:02 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets John Mayson wrote: > On Thu, 31 May 2007, Reuters News Wire wrote: >> World oil prices jumped briefly on Wednesday after a television station >> in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the No. 62 U.S. media market -- posted an >> erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site. > Someone explain something to me. > Why would the price of a raw material go up due to a refinery fire? > It'd be like the price of wheat rising on news of a fire at a Wonder > Bread factory. I could see the price of gasoline rising, but not oil. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not really, since there is a more than > ample supply of wheat with which to make more bread, but oil is a > somewhat more limited substance. And, refineries do more with crude > oil than simply make gasoline. How about all sorts of 'petroleum-based' > by-products? PAT] I think that is a good question. Perhaps the competition says, "hey, buy us more oil so we can make a run at the marketplace while that refinery is down." Thus bidding up the price of crude. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 19:04:35 -0500 From: John Mayson Subject: Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, John Mayson wrote: > On Thu, 31 May 2007, Reuters News Wire wrote: >> World oil prices jumped briefly on Wednesday after a television station >> in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the No. 62 U.S. media market -- posted an >> erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site. > Someone explain something to me. > Why would the price of a raw material go up due to a refinery fire? > It'd be like the price of wheat rising on news of a fire at a Wonder > Bread factory. I could see the price of gasoline rising, but not oil. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not really, since there is a more than > ample supply of wheat with which to make more bread, but oil is a > somewhat more limited substance. And, refineries do more with crude > oil than simply make gasoline. How about all sorts of 'petroleum-based' > by-products? PAT] Let's say we have 10 refineries and each can handle 10 barrels of oil per day (this is a very simplisitic example). So everyday the market sells 100 barrels of oil to the 10 refineries. One of the refineries goes offline. Now the market can only supply 90 barrels, but still has the capacity to supply 100. My understanding of supply and demand would say the price should fall since the supply remained the same, but the demand fell. However on the opposite end of the refinery, I could understand the price of GASOLINE rising because the supply fell 10%. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:46:23 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , John Mayson wrote: > On Thu, 31 May 2007, Reuters News Wire wrote: >> World oil prices jumped briefly on Wednesday after a television station >> in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the No. 62 U.S. media market -- posted an >> erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site. > Someone explain something to me. > Why would the price of a raw material go up due to a refinery fire? > It'd be like the price of wheat rising on news of a fire at a Wonder > Bread factory. I could see the price of gasoline rising, but not oil. Because the amount of oil being 'sold' on the market is _many_times_ higher than the actual volumes delivered. Many operations buy and sell oil 'futures' to protect themselves against changes in the price of various kinds of refined products -- especially when they do not have the ability to buy/sell futures on the particular product they require. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 19:16:10 -0500 From: John Mayson Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Jax wrote: > As a former Time-Warner Technical Support employee, I will have to say > no, this can't be done with just the eMTA (that's the phone modem.) It > is possible to get this working with additional hardware/software that > others have suggested, but beware - Time-Warner will not troubleshoot > this connection, since it is not an ordinary phone jack and therefor > beyond their scope of work. If you had any problems getting this to > work, or keeping it working ... the only place you could go for help > is a forum - assuming others have tried this and succeeded. I'm not all that interested in a "hard" solution. :-) As a consumer, I think offering the ability to make calls on my home number from my home phone, computer, or wifi phone would rock!! > Also, in our division at least, the service goes out A LOT. It is not > the most reliable to say the least ... You'd be amazed at how much we, > as a culture, have come to assume that when you pick up the phone > there will always be a dialtone. If you have gotten Digital Phone, > please leave that notion at the door ... and try not to get too > frustrated with Tech Support -- they're there to help ... If the service > goes out too much for you to handle, then cancel it. No harm, no foul. Which is exactly why I refused to drop Southwestern Bell/SBC/at&t for so many years. When I lived in Florida we had a hurricane that took out our electricity and cable TV (the power came back on days before CATV, that's how I knew CATV went out) but good ole BellSouth kept our phones going. My decision is strictly financial. Right now we have at&t telephone, rabbit ears, and Road Runner. For LESS money we can have digital phone, digital cable TV, and Road Runner. Even after the introductory pricing it's still a small savings. I have called/emailed at&t practically begging them to get DSL out this way. They have service literally three streets over. I understand the technical barriers of DSL, but given we're a somewhat affluent neighborhood, it seems like it'd be worth their while to install the necessary equipment to get this section online. But 5 years have gone by ... Since we all have cell phones, our home phone has become somewhat superfluous. > I know it sounds unrelated, but I am trying to do something similar > but without phone service at all. I want to hook my computer, cell > phone, and house phone (which has no dialtone) all to run off of > Bluetooth technology, but I'm running into a lot of road blocks. > Phreaking just isn't as easy as it used to be. No it's not. I can think of a lot of projects I'd love to tackle, but these days it can't be done (or the cost is too prohibitive). John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #155 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jun 3 00:12:45 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id C1BF922E3; Sun, 3 Jun 2007 00:12:44 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #156 Message-Id: <20070603041244.C1BF922E3@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 00:12:44 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 3 Jun 2007 00:13:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 156 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Google Acquires Web Media Distributor Feedburner (Eric Auchard, Reuters) Life Online (Monty Solomon) For Pornographers, Internet's Virtues Turn to Vices (Monty Solomon) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Curtis R Anderson) Re: More Old Movie Phone Scenes (Curtis R Anderson) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (Tom Horsley) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 22:34:52 -0500 From: Weix Auchard, Reuters Subject: Google Acquires Web Media Distributor Feedburner By Eric Auchard Google Inc. said on Friday it is acquiring Feedburner Inc., bolstering the Internet advertising leader's capacity to distribute both media and advertising to blogs via Web syndication technology. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, a Google spokesman said. Various blog reports in recent weeks had put the price of a potential deal at about $100 million, but those reports could not be confirmed. Feedburner is a pioneer in the market for delivering the latest updated information to other Web sites using technology known as Really Simple Syndication (RSS). Customers include the Wall Street Journal, BBC and Amazon.com Inc.. "We're constantly looking for ways to identify and offer new tools for content creators and Website publishers," Susan Wojcicki, Google's vice present of product management, said in a blog post, adding that the purchase helps it provide new tools for its hundreds of thousands of advertising customers. Feedburner also offers analytics to help Web publishers understand who reads their sites, as well as embedded advertising allowing Web site publishers to get paid based on the audiences they attract via RSS feeds. The deal, while small in financial terms, is the latest in a series of rapid moves to consolidate the fast-growing online advertising market. The deal would expand Google's existing blog advertising service, known as AdSense for feeds, which delivers targeted advertising tied to Web page content. Two weeks ago, Google rival Microsoft Corp. announced its largest-ever acquisition, a $6 billion deal to buy aQuantive Inc., the largest independent online ad company. In April, Google agreed to acquire an Quantive competitor, DoubleClick, for $3.1 billion. Feedburner, based in Chicago, counts more than 430,000 Web site publishers as users of RSS. A total of 736,000 RSS feeds, including roughly 110,000 audio or video feeds, are delivered to readers as publishers update their Web sites, according to Feedburner. Feedburner was funded by venture capital firms Mobius Venture Capital, Portage Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Union Square Ventures. 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, 2 Jun 2007 01:19:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Life Online Here and Now : Life Online http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/06/20070601_17.asp Hasan Elahi is an assistant professor of art at Rutgers University whose entire life is available at his web site: Tracking Transience. He says he was inspired by his own experience post 9-11 when his Palm Pilot helped prove his whereabouts to the FBI who considered him a person of interest. Guests: Hasan Elahi Related Links: http://elahi.org http://trackingtransience.net http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/herenow/2007/06/hn_0601.rm?start=34:40 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 13:43:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: For Pornographers, Internet's Virtues Turn to Vices By MATT RICHTEL June 2, 2007 The Internet was supposed to be a tremendous boon for the pornography industry, creating a global market of images and videos accessible from the privacy of a home computer. For a time it worked, with wider distribution and social acceptance driving a steady increase in sales. But now the established pornography business is in decline - and the Internet is being held responsible. The online availability of free or low-cost photos and videos has begun to take a fierce toll on sales of X-rated DVDs. Inexpensive digital technology has paved the way for aspiring amateur pornographers, who are flooding the market, while everyone in the industry is giving away more material to lure paying customers. And unlike consumers looking for music and other media, viewers of pornography do not seem to mind giving up brand-name producers and performers for anonymous ones, or a well-lighted movie set for a ratty couch at an amateur videographer's house. After years of essentially steady increases, sales and rentals of pornographic videos were $3.62 billion in 2006, down from $4.28 billion in 2005, according to estimates by AVN, an industry trade publication. If the situation does not change, the overall $13 billion sex-related entertainment market may shrink this year, said Paul Fishbein, president of AVN Media Network, the magazine's publisher. The industry's online revenue is substantial but is not growing quickly enough to make up for the drop in video income. Older companies in the industry are responding with better production values and more sophisticated Web offerings. But to their chagrin, making and distributing pornography have become a lot easier. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/technology/02porn.html?ex=1338436800&en=be6f7a83f149ccbd&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:19:01 -0400 From: Curtis R Anderson Organization: Gleepy's Chaotic Henhouse Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Jax wrote: > Also, in our division at least, the service goes out A LOT. It is not > the most reliable to say the least ... You'd be amazed at how much we, > as a culture, have come to assume that when you pick up the phone > there will always be a dialtone. If you have gotten Digital Phone, > please leave that notion at the door ... and try not to get too > frustrated with Tech Support -- they're there to help ... If the service > goes out too much for you to handle, then cancel it. No harm, no foul. In our Buffalo, NY radio market, I hear numerous ads for Verizon plugging "it's always on when you need it." At another point in the hour on the same (Citadel Broadcasting owned) station, listeners were treated to an ad from Time Warner Cable plugging their services. While on my lunch break at work, the television station we watch had an ad for satellite televison services. In clear earshot of our service manager and IT person, I mutter "I'll be impressed enough with satellite when I can get high speed, low latency internet service!" I got a good chuckle out of her! A coworker of mine groused about Time Warner's high download but low upload speed of his cable internet service. He lives too far away from one of the Niagara Falls central offices to have Verizon for DSL. DSL works for us at home. It works flawlessly for our landlord living below us in the flat. I like getting these services from a phone company who understands the concept of having a duty to continuously provide service. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:19:01 -0400 From: Curtis R Anderson Organization: Gleepy's Chaotic Henhouse Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > The cable channel TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is excellent. It shows > great old movies. Many of the films were very well written and > produced. In B&W, the artful use of lighting and shadows to create > mood is excellent. > The film "The Night Holds Terror" (1955) was about a kidnapping. At > the end of the film they're waiting for the kidnappers to call with > the ransom demand. The victim's wife (who would get the car) was told > she must stall them as long as possible to trace the call. > The call came, and the scene switched to the phone company central > office, showing technicians checking various Strowger switch units. > Other units were still running. Then they showed the service center > and lookups in the tub file (a file of each line and its repair > history). Very realistic. I wanted to ask a film question quite recently, and I'm glad this was brought up. I remember seeing in 1985 on TV some kind of thriller where the phone company technicians were tracing calls through a panel switch. I remember seeing the selector rod rise up as the technicians were scrambling to find the bad guy. This one was in color, if I remember correctly. I would spend time some years after that trying to find a VHS copy of that film to have, just to see that panel in action. Without knowing the name of the film, it was hard enough to try to find. And this was many years before I even heard of the Telecom Digest. Does anyone know the name of the film I'm thinking of? Curtis R. Anderson, Co-creator of "Gleepy the Hen", still "In Heaven there is no beer / That's why we drink it here ..." http://www.gleepy.net/ mailto:gleepy@intelligencia.com mailto:gleepy@gleepy.net (and others) Yahoo!: gleepythehen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Might you be thinking of the movie called 'Tandem Rush' which was about a very sick phreak who enjoyed killing people 'over the phone' who he felt had been 'discourteous' to him? There was a central office scene similar to your discription in it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Horsley Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 20:30:25 GMT On Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:01:30 -0400 mc wrote: > Well said! The spam-filtering and antivirus industries have often struck me > as enemies disguised as friends. They rely on spam and viruses to continue, > so they can continue selling us their technological solutions to human > problems. And as near as I can tell, the only difference between anti-virus software and an actual virus is that you pay money to deliberately infect your system with anti-virus software which will render it sluggish and useless just like the viruses it claims to protect you from. (Or with the recent Norton debacle in China, will completely break your computer). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, but the way you can almost always guarantee a virus-free computer is by putting up with that sluggishness while the virus checker thing literally examines the entire page you are atempting to download. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't, it would seem. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #156 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 4 22:30:45 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7386122EC; Mon, 4 Jun 2007 22:30:45 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #157 Message-Id: <20070605023045.7386122EC@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 22:30:45 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Jun 2007 22:31:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 157 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Online Porn Merchants Dodge Internet Dragnet (Reuters News Wire) MySpace to Seek Court Help to Release Predator E-Mails (Kenneth Li,Reuters) House Panel Sets Hearing on Internet Gambling (Reuters News Wire) Fever Builds for iPhone (Anxiety Too) (Monty Solomon) iPhone TV Ads (Monty Solomon) Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine (Monty Solomon) Apple Announces iPhone Release Date (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Fred Goldstein) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Jax) Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions (Mark Atwood) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:47:26 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Online Porn Merchants Dodge Internet Dragnet China's Internet police have claimed tangible results in the "people's war" against online pornography with the help of tip-offs, but they only scratched the surface, state media reported on Tuesday. A month-long crackdown against online porn sponsored by 10 ministries had shut down 300 Web sites and deleted 10,200 links to pornographic Web sites and 10,000 online "porn games," the China Daily said, citing the Ministry of Public Security. "Determined to protect their huge profits, porn distributors will do anything to avoid detection," the paper quoted Li Baozhong, an official with the General Administration of Press and Publication, as saying. "They are becoming more and more insidious," Li said. In April, Chinese President Hu Jintao launched a campaign to rid the country's unruly Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a platform for Communist Party doctrine. China's burgeoning Internet population reached 137 million in 2006, up 23 percent on the year before. But despite a vast system of filters and tens of thousands of Internet monitors employed to wipe out salacious content and ideas contrary to Communist ideology, pornography remains prevalent in Chinese cyberspace. "It is a constant battle to uncover the latest tricks," Li said, adding that the country's banking regulator had been recruited to cut off porn operators' funding channels. Li said a new system regulating Internet content and limiting the amount of time the nation's youth could spend online was expected to be launched next month. China in April released a string of regulations aimed at curbing excessive online-game playing to curb Internet addiction in the nation's youth, including a real name and identity registration system, but within weeks, newspapers had printed articles about the ease of subverting the regime. 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, 04 Jun 2007 20:52:24 -0500 From: Kennth Li Subject: MySpace to Seek Court Help to Release Predator E-Mails By Kenneth Li News Corp.'s MySpace filed a request on Monday in a Pennsylvania state court to seek guidance on how it can legally provide local authorities with the private e-mails of convicted sex offenders who had lurked on its service. A federal law prevents Internet service providers such as MySpace from turning over a user's electronic communications without a search warrant. But obtaining search warrants is difficult for offenders not currently under investigation. The request comes after some U.S. state authorities, including Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, began seeking more information on convicted sex predators who they worry could be using MySpace to find child victims. "We got the court order from Pennsylvania Attorney General Corbett, which we can't comply with," MySpace general counsel Mike Angus said in a phone interview. The resolution is seen as a test case for how local U.S. authorities and MySpace can cooperate in sharing information without violating federal law. MySpace and a coalition of U.S. attorneys general reached an accord in May on how the Web service could turn over information on convicted offenders who register on its site. MySpace said it has deleted their profiles from its service, but retained their information in its database. MySpace has provided the profiles of offenders, such as names and addresses, a process made easier after it contracted background verification company Sentinel Tech Holdings last year to develop a national database of registered sex offenders. Before the database's launch in early May, sex offender data was collected on a local level, making nationwide searches difficult. However, MySpace has not provided private e-mail correspondence, citing legal restrictions. The service, popular among teens as young as 14 years old and young adults who share their interest in music and new bands, has been the target of adult predators over the past year. U.S. state authorities began investigating the service after several teens fell prey to adult predators posing as minors. The families of several teenage girls, who said they were sexually assaulted by MySpace members, sued the service in January for failing to do enough to protect its members. MySpace said it is restricted from complying with the Pennsylvania AG's demands as the federal U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit prevents the disclosure of electronic correspondences before obtaining a search warrant. "The 9th Circuit has determined that ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) requires a search warrant to produce private messages and unfortunately, in some cases, this is proving difficult," Angus said. "Absent an existing investigation, having the name of a registered sex offender isn't enough to produce a search warrant." It is now up to the state courts to decide whether disclosing the private communications of its members is legally sound. "We want Attorney General Corbett to get this information to provide them with whatever they need to use in their investigation," Angus said. But, "We don't want the information to become tainted." Angus said MySpace has provided e-mail correspondence of sex offenders to the Pennsylvania court, leaving it up to the court to release the information at its discretion. MySpace filed the request in the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania on Monday morning. 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/internet-news.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:54:31 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: House Panel Sets Hearing on Internet Gambling A U.S. House of Representatives panel said on Monday it will hold a hearing on Friday to look at Internet gambling, which is effectively banned in the United States. The hearing will examine whether Internet gambling can be regulated to protect consumers and the payments system, said the House Financial Services Committee. Committee Chairman Barney Frank introduced a bill in April that would repeal an effective ban on online gambling imposed last year by Congress. The Massachusetts Democrat said the ban was "imprudently adopted" and the pastime is "a matter of individual freedom." Frank's bill would make it legal again for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites. The bill includes provisions for licensing and regulating online gambling companies to protect against underage gambling, compulsive gambling, money-laundering and fraud. The Internet gambling payments ban was signed into law last October by President George W. Bush. It has been closely monitored by investors in some British-based gaming companies, such as PartyGaming Plc. Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 15:45:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Fever Builds for iPhone (Anxiety Too) By JOHN MARKOFF The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO, June 3 - During an onscreen demonstration of the iPhone in Apple's sprawling retail store here recently, an employee, clad in a black T-shirt, of course, surprised a potential customer. Nonplused, the customer stammered, "You mean it's a cellphone, too?" Such is the spell that Steven P. Jobs has cast on the American consumer. It has been almost six months since Mr. Jobs, the world's consummate salesman, introduced the iPhone as the Ronco Veg-O-Matic for the Internet era. Tongue only partly in cheek, Mr. Jobs promised that Apple's entry into the cellular handset market would be a better phone, Web browser and music player. Mr. Jobs succeeded in building expectations for what some have called "the God machine." The bar-of-soap-size phone is being coveted as a talisman for a digital age, and iPhone hysteria is beginning to reach levels usually reserved for video-game machines at Christmas. Although the phones are expected to cost as much as $600 when they go on sale at Apple and AT&T stores later this month, each company has received more than a million inquiries about the product's availability. Apple disclosed in television commercials Sunday night that the phone would be released June 29. Further evidence that expectations have been wound up to a fever pitch: the phones, or promises to deliver a phone, are already on sale on eBay for $830. A pundit as unlikely as Arianna Huffington sought out Mr. Jobs directly for advice on being the first to score a phone. (He told her to go to an AT&T store.) Last week, during an appearance at a technology industry conference in Southern California, Mr. Jobs teased the audience by briefly pulling an iPhone out of his jeans pocket and immediately slipping it back out of sight. The anticipation, which is intense even by Jobsian standards, has led to some quiet, behind-the-scenes anxiety at Apple. Some Apple executives worry privately that expectations for the one-button phones may be too high and that first-generation buyers will end up disappointed. Certainly there are skeptics. The high price will limit the phones' appeal to true believers. The cellular network that the iPhone operates on is slower than those of many of its rivals. Several of Apple's handset competitors hope that its decision not to include a keyboard, relying instead on a touch-screen virtual keyboard, will limit the attractiveness of the iPhone in text-intensive business markets. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/technology/04iphone.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 09:35:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone TV Ads http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 16:25:18 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine By SAUL HANSELL The New York Times June 3, 2007 Mountain View, Calif. THESE days, Google seems to be doing everything, everywhere. It takes pictures of your house from outer space, copies rare Sanskrit books in India, charms its way onto Madison Avenue, picks fights with Hollywood and tries to undercut Microsoft's software dominance. But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a bland, white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet. Google is the homework helper, navigator and yellow pages for half a billion users, able to find the most improbable needles in the world's largest haystack of information in just the blink of an eye. Yet however easy it is to wax poetic about the modern-day miracle of Google, the site is also among the world's biggest teases. Millions of times a day, users click away from Google, disappointed that they couldn't find the hotel, the recipe or the background of that hot guy. Google often finds what users want, but it doesn't always. That's why Amit Singhal and hundreds of other Google engineers are constantly tweaking the company's search engine in an elusive quest to close the gap between often and always. Mr. Singhal is the master of what Google calls its "ranking algorithm" -- the formulas that decide which Web pages best answer each user's question. It is a crucial part of Google's inner sanctum, a department called "search quality" that the company treats like a state secret. Google rarely allows outsiders to visit the unit, and it has been cautious about allowing Mr. Singhal to speak with the news media about the magical, mathematical brew inside the millions of black boxes that power its search engine. Google values Mr. Singhal and his team so highly for the most basic of competitive reasons. It believes that its ability to decrease the number of times it leaves searchers disappointed is crucial to fending off ever fiercer attacks from the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft and preserving the tidy advertising gold mine that search represents. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html?ex=1338523200&en=f003aaab287c0a72&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 12:23:01 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Apple Announces iPhone Release Date USTelecom dailyLead June 4, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hbuMfDtusXsHrrCibuddmbCe TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Apple announces iPhone release date BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Verizon files suit against suspected "spammer" * Deutsche Telekom narrows search for T-Systems partners * Motorola CEO: Company will rebound with multimedia handsets * AT&T offers bundled services in San Diego County * Unwired launching prepaid wireless broadband * Verizon to take on Cox in Rhode Island USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Secure Your Optical Network FoundationTuesday, June 5, 1 p.m. (ET) HOT TOPICS * Incoming AT&T chief sees possibilities in overseas buys * TV over phone lines: How does it compare? * AT&T offers smallest QWERTY BlackBerry * Windstream to buy CT Communications * VeriSign signs up new leadership TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Ericsson lands 5-year field-maintenance contract * Analysis: Position FMC as complement to broadband, mobile services * NXP announces home-Wi-Fi module for HDTV IP DOWNLOAD * Opinion: Heavy lifting ahead for IPTV REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Ofcom OKs doubling power output of broadband-wireless base stations EDITOR'S NOTE * New feature: dailyLead at work, home and on the road Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hbuMfDtusXsHrrCibuddmbCe ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:21:17 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:19:01 -0400, Curtis R Anderson wrote, > In our Buffalo, NY radio market, I hear numerous ads for Verizon > plugging "it's always on when you need it." At another point in the > hour on the same (Citadel Broadcasting owned) station, listeners were > treated to an ad from Time Warner Cable plugging their services. Clever. Of course at the same time, Verizon is flogging its FiOS product, which, like Time Warner's PacketCable, uses local battery. Old-fashioned POTS uses central office power, of course, but many lines now are served by digital loop carrier systems, which have their own local batteries whose backup isn't as strong as a CO's. I don't know if it's always the case, but PacketCable is generally provided via an "embedded multimedia terminal adapter" -- a phone adapter -- built into a cable modem that contains some hours of battery backup. Older cable telephony systems, like the one Comcast is phasing out here in the Boston area (but RCN is keeping), are powered by batteries on the poles. That service has proven quite reliable over the years. My service was off for a few minutes, after midnight, a couple of weeks ago; it turned out to be scheduled system maintenance. Of course if you care about the phone's working during a power failure, don't rely on a cordless phone with its mains-powered base. > ... I like getting these services from a phone > company who understands the concept of having a duty to continuously > provide service. So would I, but your DSL comes from Verizon. And on a separate note, > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Might you be thinking of the movie > called 'Tandem Rush' which was about a very sick phreak who enjoyed > killing people 'over the phone' who he felt had been 'discourteous' > to him? There was a central office scene similar to your discription > in it. PAT] I cannot find anything about that movie anywhere except here. It is not in IMDB, and googling it doesn't turn up any references to it except by Pat. Are you sure that's the name? Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ From: Jax Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:14:56 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 1, 9:19 pm, Curtis R Anderson wrote: > Jax wrote: >> Also, in our division at least, the service goes out A LOT. It is not >> the most reliable to say the least ... You'd be amazed at how much we, >> as a culture, have come to assume that when you pick up the phone >> there will always be a dialtone. If you have gotten Digital Phone, >> please leave that notion at the door ... and try not to get too >> frustrated with Tech Support -- they're there to help ... If the service >> goes out too much for you to handle, then cancel it. No harm, no foul. > In our Buffalo, NY radio market, I hear numerous ads for Verizon > plugging "it's always on when you need it." At another point in the > hour on the same (Citadel Broadcasting owned) station, listeners were > treated to an ad from Time Warner Cable plugging their services. > While on my lunch break at work, the television station we watch had > an ad for satellite televison services. In clear earshot of our > service manager and IT person, I mutter "I'll be impressed enough with > satellite when I can get high speed, low latency internet service!" I > got a good chuckle out of her! > A coworker of mine groused about Time Warner's high download but low > upload speed of his cable internet service. He lives too far away from > one of the Niagara Falls central offices to have Verizon for DSL. > DSL works for us at home. It works flawlessly for our landlord living > below us in the flat. I like getting these services from a phone > company who understands the concept of having a duty to continuously > provide service. EXACTLY!!!!! TWC continues to increase the download capability, but refuses to expand it's upload speeds ... WTF?!?!?! Ok, so I can download faster from my friend ... but it doesn't really matter because he can't upload any faster!!!! Again, this is from a former employee ... in San Antonio, at least, most of the people I came in contact with HATED working where they were because of the horrible business practice, but couldn't walk away due to the free cable bill ... sad really ... I'm seriously considering DSL, my father has worked for SBC, now AT&T for about 30 years now and has always tried to get me to go that route ... I think it may be about time ... On Jun 1, 7:16 pm, John Mayson wrote: > On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Jax wrote: >> As a former Time-Warner Technical Support employee, I will have to say >> no, this can't be done with just the eMTA (that's the phone modem.) It >> is possible to get this working with additional hardware/software that >> others have suggested, but beware - Time-Warner will not troubleshoot >> this connection, since it is not an ordinary phone jack and therefor >> beyond their scope of work. If you had any problems getting this to >> work, or keeping it working ... the only place you could go for help >> is a forum - assuming others have tried this and succeeded. > I'm not all that interested in a "hard" solution. :-) > As a consumer, I think offering the ability to make calls on my home > number from my home phone, computer, or wifi phone would rock!! >> Also, in our division at least, the service goes out A LOT. It is not >> the most reliable to say the least ... You'd be amazed at how much we, >> as a culture, have come to assume that when you pick up the phone >> there will always be a dialtone. If you have gotten Digital Phone, >> please leave that notion at the door ... and try not to get too >> frustrated with Tech Support -- they're there to help ... If the service >> goes out too much for you to handle, then cancel it. No harm, no foul. > Which is exactly why I refused to drop Southwestern Bell/SBC/at&t for so > many years. ****I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOUR DISCLOSURES WERE WHEN YOU SIGNED UP!!!!! But they were supposed to tell you not to cancel your "normal, analog- land line" (because it is more reliable, honestly). Keep a few things in mind ... consider this: You're in Austin, so I'll assume you may have a home security system. If your CABLE goes out -- FOR WHATEVER REASON!!!! EVEN A DRUNK ON 6th STREET HITTING A POLE!!!! Your phone has no dial tone ... until that pole is repaired ... so this means that the police are on their way, thinking there is a problem, due to your alarm being offline. *ADT has a program with our division to upgrade for a "low price" but it's still unnecessary considering all technology up until now has worked with the "current phone system", and ADT is the only company offering this, that I know of.....additionally, if someone tried to put a splitter (a normal frickin' splitter!!!) on your coax cable line that goes to your modem, you could lose dial tone ... also, you can't move the modem to a new room, this is also the same with Road Runner though ... The batter back up is a joke, because ... I know this isn't a reasonable question but: How many times do you think your power goes out and your cable still works? It's a difficult thing to check, since your TV won't work without power ... but ... think about it ... I tried to buy into the whole Time-Warner mindset ... thinking that this was the company of the future, but it's a little ahead of it's time, due to the fact that they don't test their systems, equipment or databases nearly enough to make them effective in a live CONSUMER environment. To prove this point even further, the past MULTIPLE Pay Per View events have had problems ... the IT department was aware of these problems and never did anything to FIX them (I know because I was in direct contact with many individuals who worked in IT)... they simply "wished for the best" ... until the worst happened ... then the phone reps, and customers paid the price ... Sadly, the motto of Time Warner Cable is not to be on the CUTTING EDGE, but to be on the BLEEDING EDGE, defined by the President of our division to be: Always ahead of technology ... so much so, that our technology is out BEFORE IT'S PERFECTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This makes the employees take a huge hit when all this crap doesn't work, and frustrates consumers who expect a dial tone that's been there for countless decades ... or a HD picture that doesn't suck more than analog TV. I think my point is that TWC is a horrible company and should not be supported ... Call DirecTV or Dish, whoever is in your area and tell them you're a "Winback customer", this means that you're THINKING about coming from another provider and will prompt them to give you the VERY BEST DEALS you can get ... quite honestly. > When I lived in Florida we had a hurricane that took out our > electricity and cable TV (the power came back on days before CATV, that's > how I knew CATV went out) but good ole BellSouth kept our phones going. > My decision is strictly financial. Right now we have at&t telephone, > rabbit ears, and Road Runner. For LESS money we can have digital phone, > digital cable TV, and Road Runner. Even after the introductory pricing > it's still a small savings. I have called/emailed at&t practically > begging them to get DSL out this way. They have service literally three > streets over. I understand the technical barriers of DSL, but given we're > a somewhat affluent neighborhood, it seems like it'd be worth their while > to install the necessary equipment to get this section online. But 5 > years have gone by ... > Since we all have cell phones, our home phone has become somewhat > superfluous. Then cancel digital phone, call, and ask for the RETENTION department, they're the ones who give you the world for only pennies a day ... you can get Road Runner for $29.95 for a year in some cases, without getting a trio "package", if internet is all you're concerned with ... I canceled my Digital Phone for the same reason you cite though ... I have a cell phone. Again, my father has worked for SBC for over 20-30 years and just got DSL 2 years ago in his neighborhood ... up until then, he had Road Runner for internet, Dish for TV and SBC for phone. > No it's not. I can think of a lot of projects I'd love to tackle, but > these days it can't be done (or the cost is too prohibitive). > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA Indeed, I must agree with that. ~Jax PS, don't know if I mentioned before, but I'm in the San Antonio division, so we're not that far away as far as technology goes ... actually, I think both divisions work out of Austin. PPS, sorry for the lengthy response. heh ... ------------------------------ Subject: Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:36:42 GMT Fred Atkinson writes: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Gay, or LGBT persons may wish to get >> in touch with attorney Todd Schneider in San Francisco in inquire >> about being added to the pending lawsuit. PAT] > I don't understand why the LGBT community would want someone who > is not well qualified to evaluate the dynamics of their relationships > to be providing such a service to them. It would probably turn into a > disaster (because of shortcomings in such unqualified evaluations) and > result in a lot more lawsuits from people being 'mismatched' because > of those shortcomings. Those lawsuits would probably be far more > justified. I *am* a member of (and lord help me, even a leader of sorts) in the "LGBT Community", and I have to agree with Fred. Relationships are the most personal of things, and forcing someone to take part in them, when they expressly don't want to, is worse than counter productive. Who brought this lawsuit, and what where they smoking when they did it? Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure me@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all. http://mark.atwood.name/ http://fallenpegasus.livejournal.com/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #157 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jun 5 15:45:59 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 8688E227B; Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:45:58 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #158 Message-Id: <20070605194558.8688E227B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:45:58 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:46:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 158 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson "Amateur" Charges Infuriates Blogosphere (Eric Auchard, Reuters) A Telephone Museum in Texas (PRN Newswire) Selling City Halls on Wireless as a Utility (Candace Lombardi) Nacchio Attorneys File for New Trial (Reuters News Wire) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Avaya Snapped up by Private-Equity Firms (USTelecom dailyLead) June Share Day (TELECOM Digest Editor) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:34:40 -0500 From: Eric Auchard, Reuters Subject: "Amateur" Charges Infuriates Blogosphere By Eric Auchard Internet culture, often portrayed as the vanguard of progress, is actually a jungle peopled by intellectual yahoos and digital thieves, according to a Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned-dissenter. Andrew Keen, a 47-year-old Briton who founded dot-com era music startup Audiocafe, argues that basic notions of expertise are under assault amid a cultural shift in favor of the amateurism of blogs, MySpace and other popularity-driven sites. "Millions and millions of exuberant monkeys ... are creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity," Keen writes in a book published Tuesday. His views have infuriated bloggers and others, especially in Silicon Valley, who argue he is an elitist intellectual, a conservative pining for a return to old ways, and a writer who cannot keep his facts straight. The villains in Keen's narrative are a "pajama army" of mostly anonymous writers who spread gossip and scandal, "intellectual kleptomaniacs," who search Google to copy others' work and the "digital thieves" of media content in the post-Napster era. For a technology industry used to basking in the glow of self-promotion, Keen's work is shocking for its unforgiving view of Silicon Valley's utopian aspirations. The book "is designed as a grenade," Keen, a native of north London who now lives in California, said at a recent debate with bloggers and journalists in Berkeley. "It is not designed to be particularly fair or balanced." The title of his polemic, "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture," attacks what he calls the "cut and paste" ethic of Web users, who he says are robbing professionals of their livelihoods. The Web allows anyone to post their most intimate thoughts, views or even outright lies, without any editing, under the assumption that the crowd will correct any mistakes. Keen calls for efforts to balance out the Web's powers of instant publishing against society's need for accountability. COUTERATTACK Some of the biggest names in Internet publishing are hitting back against Keen, including video blogger Robert Scoble, media critic Jeff Jarvis, citizen journalism advocate Dan Gillmor and blog pioneer Dave Winer. Jarvis, on his blog BuzzMachine, refers to Keen's thinking as "Snobs.com." He recently asked readers to advise him whether he should bother to debate Keen or shun him. The outcome was that the two have agreed to debate online. But some would-be detractors find themselves sticking up for Keen, at least for his ideas, if not his bombastic tone. Clay Shirky, a lecturer on new media technology at New York University, came spoiling for a fight with Keen at a recent online politics conference in New York. Instead, Shirky says he found himself defending Keen. "So much of the conversation about the social effects of the Internet has been so upbeat that even when there is an obvious catastrophe ... we talk about it amongst ourselves, but not in public," Shirky wrote in a blog post afterward. INTELLECTUAL-FREE ZONE? Keen, for his part, rejects any notion that he is a modern Luddite out to break the machinery of the Web. He keeps up a regular dialog with friends and opponents at his blog at http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/. He points to intellectual influences such as German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt, known for her work on the nature of totalitarianism and the "banality of evil," and Jurgen Habermas, the German philosopher who defined the concepts of the private and public spheres in politics. "The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralized access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to create a focus," Habermas said in a 2006 speech. Keen first staked out his views in a 2006 magazine article in the Weekly Standard magazine, and in online debates since then has won some supporters, who say they too have second-thoughts about the Web's ultra-democratic ethos. "If I ever need surgery, I damn sure hope my surgeon is one of the elite in his field," one disgruntled blogger wrote. 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: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:46:50 -0500 From: PRN Newswire Subject: A Telephone Museum in Texas Verizon Ensures Telecom History Lives On Deep in the Heart of Texas One of Two Original Alexander Graham Bell Telephones Still in Existence Are Part of Museum Exhibit to be Donated by Company to Fort Concho Museum in San Angelo. SAN ANGELO, Texas, June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Nine years before Alexander Graham Bell successfully tested his new invention by calling out, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you," to his assistant, Thomas Watson, West Texas settlers and the Fourth U.S. Cavalry established Fort Concho to defend against hostile enemies who rode the range on horseback. Much as Bell's invention of the telephone in 1876 changed the way the world communicates, the formation of Fort Concho in 1867 along the banks of the Concho River dramatically shaped how the mighty Texas frontier was settled. And now, thanks to Verizon, Fort Concho, 140 years after its creation, will be the permanent home for one of the most famous telephones ever made, along with a collection of other historical pieces of telephone equipment, photos and memorabilia of Texas telephone pioneers who paved a path for future industry leaders. This Saturday (June 9), Verizon will transfer to the city of San Angelo ownership of the antique telephone equipment and related artifacts that make up the E.H. Danner Museum of Telephony. The city manages the museum, housed inside former officers' quarters at Fort Concho, which is listed as a National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Verizon Roots Run Deep in Texas "Verizon's predecessor-company roots run long and deep in the heart of Texas, and we're very proud of our positive, long-standing relationship with the city of San Angelo," said Trinidad Aguirre, senior vice president and general manager f1or Verizon Communications' Texas division. In 2000, GTE Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp. merged to form Verizon, but for many years the headquarters for the then-General Telephone Company of the Southwest was based in San Angelo. Today San Angelo is home to more than 1,400 Verizon employees, the second-highest concentration of company employees in the Lone Star State. Aguirre, who began his career in 1980 as a central office technician in San Angelo, calls the E. H. Danner Museum - named on behalf of former General Telephone Company of the Southwest president E.H. Danner -- a "lasting legacy to the pioneer spirit that formed our great state and our great company." "I am a true believer that San Angelo people have the capability to do anything they aspire to do," said Aguirre. He will be joined by officials from the Fort Concho National Historic Landmark, San Angelo, Concho Valley Telephone Pioneers Association and the Fort Concho Museum at an 8:30 a.m. outdoor ceremony at the Fort Concho National Historic Landmark, 630 S. Oakes St., to commemorate the Verizon donation as part of the annual Fort Concho Frontier Day celebration. "We know the historical items that trace our industry and company's past are in good hands, and future visitors to the E. H. Danner Museum of Telephony will enjoy walking and talking down memory lane," Aguirre said. In addition to possessing one of the two known models of Bell's Gallows Frame telephone still in existence, the museum features other novel items such as a Kellogg single-position manual magneto switchboard from 1910; an 1898 solid oak hotel lobby telephone; the Independent Telephone Pioneers Association Hall of Fame, which features photos and biographies of former company leaders; and a personal collection of former GTE Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rocky Johnson's career memorabilia. For years, Johnson worked in San Angelo. Verizon Investment in San Angelo Museum Tops $250,000 to Date; Museum Assets Top $100,000 Since 1990 when the E. H. Danner Museum was rededicated at its present location at Fort Concho, Verizon has invested more than $250,000 to establish, maintain and operate the telephone museum. The museum telephone equipment and related artifacts are valued at more than $100,000, according to Verizon. Much has changed since Bell transmitted those first well-known words via telephone after accidentally spilling acid in his Boston workshop and reaching out for help to Watson, who was in another room; but some things remain the same, said Aguirre. "In Alexander Graham Bell's day, people didn't have the convenience we have now of picking up the phone and knowing we can speak to a friend or family member during even the worst of thunderstorms, thanks to our network reliability," said Aguirre. "The one constant that remains through the years is the need for people to communicate. No matter when or how people communicate - either by landline or wireless phone; a local or long-distance call; an e-mail, text or video message - Verizon helps people enjoy life and be productive by connecting with others." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:49:42 -0500 From: Candace Lombardi, News.com Subject: Selling City Halls on Wireless as a Utility Candace Lombardi, for News.com NEWTON, Mass.--At this week's MuniWireless New England conference, leaders in municipal broadband are extolling the benefits of their technology to urban officials. But is the pitch falling on deaf ears? On Monday morning, "MuniWireless 101" panelists said that high-bandwidth broadband infrastructures become public safety tools for law enforcement and first responders, help alleviate costs for public schools, aid the rising population of telecommuters, back future entertainment for personal computers, and support public wireless networks. The U.S. isn't exactly in the lead when it comes to building such infrastructures, though. Some at the two-day conference here pointed to Asian countries that compete economically with the U.S., such as India and Malaysia, as being far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to building high-bandwidth broadband infrastructure nationwide. "Is it happening? Yes. Is it happening in the U.S.? No. I'm sorry to say it's a bloody mess," said Ken DiPietro, the chief technology officer of NextGen Communications. Access to high-capacity broadband service is one of the benefits of public wireless networks, but there are numerous others. DiPietro said that the popularity of the Joost video-on-demand program, for example, points to an inevitable switch to Internet Protocol television, or IPTV, in lieu of traditional broadcast television and that such a change will put even more strain on broadband networks unless they are built to be upgradeable every three to five years. Panelists also cited the rise of telecommuting and businesses' increasing use of bandwidth-eating video conferencing technology as justification for municipalities building, or beefing up, wireless networks. Some uses mentioned were more exotic. Cisco Systems, for example, is offering relatively inexpensive options for telepresence technology, which uses a highly sensitive interface to allow humans to remotely control devices as if they were present at the remote location. But for such a system to work, "you still need the continuous bandwidth to go with it," DiPietro said. For cash-strapped municipalities, however, the main issue is price. "I am from a town with 25,000 people. How can we do this for free without using any tax dollars?" asked one municipal leader. The question provoked a visible smiles and audible sighs among the panelists -- and chuckles from the audience. That's because the question embodied one of the issues that the industry is up against: convincing municipalities to invest. "It comes down to: Do you consider it a service or a utility? I consider it a utility," said Ash Dyer, a researcher at MIT involved in program in Cambridge, Mass., to bring wireless to 95 percent of the city. Dyer suggested that both companies and municipalities should look at past government models in this instance. He cited the U.S. highway infrastructure built under the Eisenhower administration as one model the federal government should consider adopting. "They built stretches of highway in the middle of nowhere, between major areas and cities and then told them 'OK, you have to build your stretch if you want to be connected,'" Dyer said. "As hard as this is going to be, you need to bite the bullet and pay or your town is going to get left behind," DiPietro said. He pointed out that many business plans are set up so that the municipalities do make money from their investment after three years. Michael Dillon, director of digital communications for IBM, offered a more diplomatic answer. "Don't try to build it all at once. Poll your citizens and businesses, and see if it's something they are open to investing in," he said. Panelists said they saw a lack of leadership at the federal level as one of the challenges they face in getting towns and cities interested. Dillon and DiPietro said the Federal Communications Commission should step up its involvement, while Dyer suggested that a federal department of telecommunications should be established. "We don't have a federal broadband policy," Dillon said. "It's a lot easier for federally based countries, such as Malaysia, to decree or establish policy." Copyright 2007 CNET, Inc. For more news and headlines, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html (or) http://telecom-digest/org/td-extra/internet-news.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:55:36 -0500 From: Retuers News Wire Subject: Nacchio Attorneys File for New Trial Attorneys for former Qwest Communications International Inc. CEO Joe Nacchio filed motions Monday for an acquittal, a new trial and a change of venue in his insider trading case. His attorneys said the jury that convicted him on 19 of 42 counts in April was exposed to public attacks on Nacchio. A judge has denied a request for acquittal twice before. Another court filing Monday indicated that Nacchio has agreed to put $52 million in escrow for possible forfeiture. Nacchio will be sentenced July 27 and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine for each guilty count. He also might be asked to pay back the $52 million he was said to have grossed as a result of the insider trading. Qwest Communications International Inc. http://www.qwest.com Copyright 2007 Reuters, Inc. ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 11:35:28 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 05, 2007 ******************************** Debitel Pays US$756 mil. for TDC's German Unit http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24738?11228 TDC has agreed to sell its wholly-owned German mobile services provider, Talkline, to its local rival, Debitel, for 560 million euro in cash on a debt-free basis. The transaction is subject to approval from the EU competition authorities. TDC expects to make an after-tax gain of 3.3 billion Danish kroner (US$598 million), which will be ... Swedish Telecom Equipment Maker Ericsson to Buy Germany's LHS http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24730?11228 STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- LM Ericsson, the world's largest maker of wireless networks, said Tuesday it has offered to buy Germany's LHS AG in a deal that values the billing and customer care software company at around E310 million (US$418 million). Ericsson will pay E22.50 (US$30.33) per share under an agreement by which it ... Silver Lake, TPG Capital to Buy Telecom Avaya for $8.2B in Cash http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24727?11228 BASKING RIDGE, New Jersey -- TPG Capital is embarking on its second big telecom venture in two weeks, joining with another private equity firm, Silver Lake, in an $8.2 billion (E6.08 billion) bid for Avaya Inc. Avaya said Monday night that it has agreed to the firm's offer of $17.50 in cash per share, two weeks after ... France Telecom Eyes An Indian Market Entry http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24725?11228 France Telecom (FT), in what would be its first foray into the hot Indian telecom market, is reportedly negotiating to buy the enterprise and managed services division of India's GTL. GTL put the unit, which represents about 20-25 percent of the company in revenue terms, up for sale in order to focus on its core network services ... Survey: Ala Carte Value Vexes Consumers http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24721?11228 Only 53 percent of consumers surveyed by Forrester Research Inc. said they would be interested in getting their cable programming via ala carte, a business and TV pricing model the cable industry strongly opposes despite heavy duty pushing by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin. Although it might ... Aepona & Appium: SDP Minnows Merge http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24719?11228 Two of the service delivery platform (SDP) market's specialist vendors, U.K. firm AePona Ltd. and Sweden's Appium AB , are merging in an effort to increase their chances of picking up more carrier business in an increasingly competitive market. Malm-based Appium, the smaller of the two companies, will become a ... Wanted: Virtual Desktop Services http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24717?11228 What if the service provider that offers you online backup could provide ready-to-use desktop configurations, enabling you to set up and manage desktops and laptops without having to touch the users' machines? If you think it sounds attractive, you're not alone. We are seeing a lot of interest around desktop ... North American Home Network Support Service Market to Double in 2007 http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24714?11228 SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The increasing popularity and increasing complexity of home networks will spur a doubling of fee-based home network support subscriptions in North America in 2007, reports In-Stat. Home networks are still primarily set up by tech-savvy consumers for themselves, their family, and their friends; however, consumer ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 12:17:06 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Avaya Snapped up by Private-Equity Firms USTelecom dailyLead June 5, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hcjIfDtusXsMuGCibuddGIeD TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Avaya snapped up by private-equity firms BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Si TV says it will launch first 24/7 Latino HD channel * Google, SK Telecom enter into advertising agreement * Ericsson plans LHS buy * Stake in Hanarotelecom for sale USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Wiley Rein Conference only at NXTcomm TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Cincinnati Bell converts voice mail into text * Redback rolls out new multiservice edge router * Nortel secures GSM contract * Ringtone sales eclipsed by mobile games IP DOWNLOAD * Verizon Business enables VoIP for Windows Live calls REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * India adopts do-not-call list Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hcjIfDtusXsMuGCibuddGIeD ------------------------------ Subject: June Share Day Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:04:58 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) I would like to ask you all, once again, to PLEASE consider the importance of newsgroups such as this one and the importance in making regular donations to help keep this medium available for all. Your donations are always appreciated and gratefully recieved. Please use the PayPal box on our main page http://telecom-digest.org PLEASE! Thanks. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #158 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jun 6 16:01:31 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 146FC227D; Wed, 6 Jun 2007 16:01:31 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #159 Message-Id: <20070606200131.146FC227D@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 16:01:31 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 6 Jun 2007 16:00:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 159 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Deadbeat Parents to be Named on Web Site (Reuters News Wire) Union Protest Planned for Bell Canada Shareholders (Nigel Allen) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) DSL Subscribers up 29% to 200 Million (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets (Scott Dorsey) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (John Mayson) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (rws_usa@yahoo) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Scott Dorsey) A Desparate Situation Here (TELECOM Digest Editor) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 12:15:54 PDT From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Deadbeat Parents in UK to be Named on Web Site Absent parents who fail to make child support payments could find themselves on a name and shame Web site as part of the UK government's plans to shake up the Child Support Agency (CSA). Letters will go out to about 100 single parents, mostly mothers, asking if they want to give the go-ahead for the name of the child's father to go online. The measure is just one of many the government has announced as it prepares to replace the CSA next year with the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (C-MEC) after 13 years of computer problems and missed payments totaling up to 3.5 billion pounds. Other measures planned under the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill include the removal of passports and the imposition of curfews on those who refuse to pay maintenance. The commission will also be able to deduct cash direct from maintenance dodgers' bank accounts and charge absent parents for the cost of tracking them down. Parents will be encouraged under the new system to come to private agreements on financial support for children when they separate, rather than being required to comply with officially set maintenance arrangements, as the CSA does. But critics described the name and shame approach as "gimmicky." They also questioned the possible effect on children whose parent has been publicly named and shamed. The CSA already has extensive powers, they add, including access to accounts and the right to sell the home of non-paying parents. Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton said the powers will beef up maintenance collection and act as a deterrent against non-payment. "There are a small number of parents who seem to think that paying for their kids is something they can simply choose not to do -- it isn't -- and these new powers will mean that non-payment brings real and lasting penalties. The new rules, he added, will be simpler and more transparent, making it harder to hide income. 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 *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml For more news and headlines, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 22:13:29 -0400 From: Nigel Allen Subject: Union Protest Planned for Bell Canada Shareholders The following press release was issued by the Canadian Telecommunications Employees' Association, the union which represents clerical staff (but not technicians or operators) at Bell Canada. I do not work for or belong to the CTEA, but I thought that the press release might be of interest. Text of the press release can be found at http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2007/05/c9089.html Protest at Bell Canada Shareholders' meeting MONTREAL, June 5 /CNW Telbec/ - The Canadian Telecommunications Employees' Association (CTEA) will attend BCE Annual Meeting of Shareholders to protest against the slashing of benefits for future pensioners and the outsourcing of jobs. "Bell's strategy is clear: cutting costs at the expense of its employees, protested Line Brisson, Chairman of the CTEA Bargaining Committee. But the Company won't get back on track by slashing the working conditions of employees." In 2005, clerical employees accepted wage freezes to help the Company face the competition. In exchange, Bell had signed a memorandum of agreement on job security. "Bell Canada is taking all possible means to bypass the memorandum of agreement and increase outsourcing: reduced work hours, cutting temporary jobs, closing sites... Our members feel they have been cheated", added Mrs. Brisson. In 2006, the speech on the abusive use of outsourcing delivered by Danny Taurozzi, CTEA Vice-President, before Michael Sabia, President of BCE, had been applauded by several shareholders. The BCE Annual Meeting will be held on June 6, 2007 in Montreal. "Once again, we will be there to speak on behalf of our members and denounce the unfair decisions of senior management. The shareholders must be told what's going on", concluded Mrs. Brisson. About the CTEA: The CTEA is an independent union certified in the 1940s by the Canadian Labour Relations Board to represent employees of Bell Canada. Over the years, the CTEA has been certified as the bargaining representative for several groups of employees working for employers such as Comtech, Bell Aliant, ACMS (Amdocs), Télébec S.E.C., Yellow Pages Group, and Bell ICT Outsourcing Solutions inc. For further information: In Quebec: Line Brisson, CTEA Vice-President, (514) 861-9963 ext. 233, Fax: (514) 861-5985, lbrisson@acet-ctea.com; In Ontario: Brenda Knight, CTEA President, (613) 521-3289, Fax: (613) 521-3267, bknight@acet-ctea.com; http://www.acet-ctea.com ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communications Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 11:52:48 -0400 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 06, 2007 ******************************** VimpelCom Makes It Two Out of Three as Second Court Backs Its URS Purchase http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24761?11228 The Supreme Arbitration Court of Russia has upheld the legality of the 2005 purchase of Ukrainian RadioSystems (URS) by VimpelCom. The move had been driven by Altimo, now a 42.2% voting shareholder in VimpelCom, and opposed by Telenor, currently a 29.9% shareholder in VimpelCom. The Supreme Court ruling supports several previous rulings ... Orange Signs Preliminary Agreement for Acquisition Of Ya.com http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24759?11228 French mobile group Orange, part of France Telecom, has signed a preliminary agreement with German incumbent Deutsche Telekom for the acquisition of the latter's Spanish unit, Ya.com, according to the Spanish daily, Expansión. Under the terms of the agreement, Deutsche Telekom will be obliged not to offer broadband services in ... Jyngle Rings for Social Networkers http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24755?11228 Online social networking is a great idea, but only if it's easy and convenient for people to do. Because they're both portable and ubiquitous, mobile phones are perhaps the best online social networking tools. Brevient, a software development company headquartered in Milwaukee, wants to take advantage of mobile phones' social ... E-Mail Senders Can Pay to Bypass Filters http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24753?11228 NEW YORK -- Four more Internet service providers will start charging banks, e-commerce sites and other large e-mail senders for guaranteed delivery. In deals expected to be announced Thursday, Goodmail Systems Inc. is expanding its CertifiedEmail program to Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., Time Warner Cable Inc.'s ... HTC Launches Touch http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24748?11228 Mobile Phone manufacturer HTC has launched an iPhone competitor, the HTC Touch. A Microsoft Mobile-based handset, the Touch uses HTC's TouchFLO navigation system -- consumers simply sweep their finger up the display to launch an animated, 3-dimensional interface. User can reorient the interface by swiping a finger right or left ... Bazalgette's Mobile Dis-Content http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24745?11228 MONTE CARLO, France -- Mobile Entertainment Market 2007 -- Big content providers say mobile operators must open up their networks and simplify data tariffs to make the mobile entertainment market grow. "Two years ago we thought the mobile industry was the perfect place to put content," says Peter Bazalgette, chief ... Packaged Approach to E-Discovery http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24740?11228 With CIOs facing ever-increasing legal and compliance pressures, vendors are cranking up their efforts to solve firms e-discovery woes. Today SAN specialist Xiotech unveiled its first email archiving and e-discovery system, Corporate Evidence Management System (CEMS), which captures and classifies electronic files. Recent ... Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 12:33:29 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: DSL Subscribers up 29% to 200 Million USTelecom dailyLead June 6, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hdcofDtusXsQnqCibuddQpxS TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * DSL subscribers up 29% to 200 million BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * AT&T adds on to GoPhone prepaid offering * Verizon Business enters supply-chain-automation sector * Alcatel-Lucent wins Chunghwa Telecom order for optical-network solutions * Aepona, Appium plan merger * Former Cisco executive to head Joost * Telefonica to invest billions in Latin America USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Experience What's Hot at NXTcomm! TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Siemens tests 1Gbit/s over plastic fiber * IBM announces new mobile chipset * Report lists major mobile trends of 2007 * Examination of Apple TV components reveals slim profit margins IP DOWNLOAD * Optus rolls out VoIP services to SMB market REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Virginia county considers proposal to increase broadband access EDITOR'S NOTE * New feature: dailyLead at work, home and on the road Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hdcofDtusXsQnqCibuddQpxS ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Web Site Error Rocks Global Oil Markets Date: 6 Jun 2007 11:19:46 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) John Mayson wrote: > On Thu, 31 May 2007, Reuters News Wire wrote: >> World oil prices jumped briefly on Wednesday after a television station >> in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the No. 62 U.S. media market -- posted an >> erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site. > Someone explain something to me. > Why would the price of a raw material go up due to a refinery fire? > It'd be like the price of wheat rising on news of a fire at a Wonder > Bread factory. I could see the price of gasoline rising, but not oil. Because it's an open market, and people will buy oil with the expectation that gasoline prices will rise and therefore they can get more for the raw material. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but markets are based on human behaviour, and human behaviour often doesn't make a lot of sense. I _can_ see some exceptions here, though. For example, if a refinery that specializes in catalytic cracking of heavy oil into light oil is down, I could imagine the prices on light oil could rise. Telecom content? Not so much, since you can't hoard telecom services. --scott ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 19:42:31 -0500 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Organization: http://www.mayson.us On Mon, 4 Jun 2007, Jax wrote: > ****I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOUR DISCLOSURES WERE WHEN YOU SIGNED UP!!!!! > But they were supposed to tell you not to cancel your "normal, analog- > land line" (because it is more reliable, honestly). Keep a few things > in mind ... consider this: My wife made the call, but why would they tell us to keep our existing line if we're signing up for their service? > You're in Austin, so I'll assume you may have a home security system. > If your CABLE goes out -- FOR WHATEVER REASON!!!! EVEN A DRUNK ON 6th > STREET HITTING A POLE!!!! Your phone has no dial tone ... until that > pole is repaired ... so this means that the police are on their way, > thinking there is a problem, due to your alarm being offline. *ADT has > a program with our division to upgrade for a "low price" but it's > still unnecessary considering all technology up until now has worked > with the "current phone system", and ADT is the only company offering > this, that I know of.....additionally, if someone tried to put a > splitter (a normal frickin' splitter!!!) on your coax cable line that > goes to your modem, you could lose dial tone ... also, you can't move > the modem to a new room, this is also the same with Road Runner > though ... Today we don't have cable television, just Road Runner. The last time I know of it being down was Thanksgiving weekend 2005. AFAIK our POTS has NEVER been down, but a pole getting hit could take out my phone just as easily as my CATV. > The batter back up is a joke, because ... I know this isn't a > reasonable question but: How many times do you think your power goes > out and your cable still works? It's a difficult thing to check, since > your TV won't work without power ... but ... think about it ... I see what you're saying, but getting out of bed in the morning is dangerous. "What if my digital phone doesn't work and I've managed to cut my arm off with a circular saw?" I could also worry about a meteorite hitting my house. > I tried to buy into the whole Time-Warner mindset ... thinking that > this was the company of the future, but it's a little ahead of it's > time, due to the fact that they don't test their systems, equipment or > databases nearly enough to make them effective in a live CONSUMER > environment. To prove this point even further, the past MULTIPLE Pay > Per View events have had problems ... the IT department was aware of > these problems and never did anything to FIX them (I know because I > was in direct contact with many individuals who worked in IT)... they > simply "wished for the best" ... until the worst happened ... then the > phone reps, and customers paid the price ... I can't say if they test their systems or not. I can say they're knowlegable, friendly, and responsive. > Sadly, the motto of Time Warner Cable is not to be on the CUTTING > EDGE, but to be on the BLEEDING EDGE, defined by the President of our > division to be: Always ahead of technology ... so much so, that our > technology is out BEFORE IT'S PERFECTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This > makes the employees take a huge hit when all this crap doesn't work, > and frustrates consumers who expect a dial tone that's been there for > countless decades ... or a HD picture that doesn't suck more than > analog TV. They've offered digital phone in this area for several years. I know people who have it and love it. I think they have gotten their bugs worked out. > I think my point is that TWC is a horrible company and should not be > supported ... Call DirecTV or Dish, whoever is in your area and tell > them you're a "Winback customer", this means that you're THINKING > about coming from another provider and will prompt them to give you > the VERY BEST DEALS you can get ... quite honestly. Back in 2002 when I ordered Road Runner they said I could have their wireless for free. For months we were never charged for it, but all of sudden it showed up on the bill at $14.95 a pop! I called them and they said it was not free and I shouldn't have been told that. I insisted I was. They said they would review my call. A couple of days later I got a call from them saying they reviewed the call and I had in fact been told that. They offered me free wireless for the next 12 months!! After that I returned their equipment and bought my own. I think that was pretty good of them. >> When I lived in Florida we had a hurricane that took out our >> electricity and cable TV (the power came back on days before CATV, that's >> how I knew CATV went out) but good ole BellSouth kept our phones going. >> My decision is strictly financial. Right now we have at&t telephone, >> rabbit ears, and Road Runner. For LESS money we can have digital phone, >> digital cable TV, and Road Runner. Even after the introductory pricing >> it's still a small savings. I have called/emailed at&t practically >> begging them to get DSL out this way. They have service literally three >> streets over. I understand the technical barriers of DSL, but given we're >> a somewhat affluent neighborhood, it seems like it'd be worth their while >> to install the necessary equipment to get this section online. But 5 >> years have gone by ... >> Since we all have cell phones, our home phone has become somewhat >> superfluous. > Then cancel digital phone, call, and ask for the RETENTION department, > they're the ones who give you the world for only pennies a day ... you > can get Road Runner for $29.95 for a year in some cases, without > getting a trio "package", if internet is all you're concerned > with ... I canceled my Digital Phone for the same reason you cite > though ... I have a cell phone. I do that. But it's a PITA. I don't want to have to call them every 3, 6, 12 months to get the best deal. I'm tired of it. > Again, my father has worked for SBC for over 20-30 years and just got > DSL 2 years ago in his neighborhood ... up until then, he had Road > Runner for internet, Dish for TV and SBC for phone. I want to send a message to AT&T. I know one of my neighbors has been pinging them about getting DSL in our half of the neighborhood. It's simply drug on too long. Maybe as they lose customers they'll get their butts in gear and offer the rest of us service. This was one of their promises to the Feds with respect to the SBC-AT&T and BellSouth-AT&T merger. They would offer DSL throughout their entire service area. I don't know what the timeline on that was, but I've called them since they became AT&T in Texas and they have no plans to offer DSL where I live. >> No it's not. I can think of a lot of projects I'd love to tackle, but >> these days it can't be done (or the cost is too prohibitive). >> John Mayson >> Austin, Texas, USA > Indeed, I must agree with that. > ~Jax > PS, don't know if I mentioned before, but I'm in the San Antonio > division, so we're not that far away as far as technology > goes ... actually, I think both divisions work out of Austin. > PPS, sorry for the lengthy response. heh ... Next time tell me how you REALLY feel. :-P I could be on c.d.t. in a couple of months telling you that you were right. I don't know. I figure it's worth a shot trying the service. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: rws_usa@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:41:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I found your discussion here by doing a search looking for a possible explanation for the decrease in spam I've received over the last several days -- about 90%. I was receiving approx. 100-150 per day, now about 10-15. Cool! ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Date: 6 Jun 2007 11:23:11 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Curtis R Anderson wrote: > I remember seeing in 1985 on TV some kind of thriller where the phone > company technicians were tracing calls through a panel switch. I > remember seeing the selector rod rise up as the technicians were > scrambling to find the bad guy. This one was in color, if I remember > correctly. > I would spend time some years after that trying to find a VHS copy of > that film to have, just to see that panel in action. Without knowing > the name of the film, it was hard enough to try to find. And this was > many years before I even heard of the Telecom Digest. > Does anyone know the name of the film I'm thinking of? Three Days of the Condor? --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Subject: A Desparate Situation Here Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 15:27:46 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) I am totally out of money. Period. I have no money today at all, and for someone who hangs on desparately from one day to the next, things are really bad at this time. I am about to have my cable internet cut off for lack of payment. If anyone can spare any change, please send it now. Thanks very much. Use PayPal box on http://telecom-digest.org PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #159 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 8 02:48:39 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 417A722B1; Fri, 8 Jun 2007 02:48:39 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #160 Message-Id: <20070608064839.417A722B1@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 02:48:39 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 8 Jun 2007 02:49:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 160 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Congress Approves Second, Stricter Anti-Spyware Law (Reuters News Wire) Vietnamese Fishermen Salvage Internet Cable (Reuters News Wire) Telephone Service Out in Barrie, Ontario (Jim Willis) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Vodafone Shareholder Group Calls for Verizon (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail (T) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:06:39 -0500 Subject: Congress Approves Second, Stricter Anti-Spyware Law From: Reuters News Wire The House of Representatives passed on Wednesday legislation that would impose new requirements on software companies and advertisers to protect computer users from spyware. House lawmakers approved an anti-spyware bill that would require software distributors to clearly notify and obtain consent from consumers before programs can be loaded onto a computer. The bill passed on a vote of 368 to 48. The legislation is opposed by the software industry, which argues that new regulatory requirements could hurt innovation and technology investment. The industry favors an alternative bill, passed by the House last month, that would impose specific penalties for the fraudulent use of spyware but would not adopt new regulations. Lawmakers in the Senate have yet to take up the issue. Spyware has emerged as a major headache for computer users. It can end up on users' computers through a virus or through downloaded games or other free programs off the Internet. Spyware can sap computing power, crash machines and bury users under a blizzard of unwanted ads. Scam artists can also use spyware to capture passwords, account numbers and other sensitive personal data. 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, 08 Jun 2007 00:04:11 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Vietnamese Fishermen Salvage Internet Cable Fishermen who were allowed to take unused war-era undersea copper cables have gone too far, "salvaging" fibre-optic lines providing some of Vietnam's Internet and other international communications. A Ministry of Posts and Telematics report seen on Thursday urged authorities in central and southern regions to prevent the theft of cable, whose loss underdeveloped Vietnam can ill afford. "The general assessment is that most fishermen, and in some cases even the local authorities, had a very simple understanding of the consequences of the theft of under-sea fibre optic cable," the report on a May 31 to June 5 investigation said. State-run newspapers said an 11-km (7-mile) section of stolen TVH fibre-optic cable would be replaced at a cost of $5.8 million. It was part of the line that transmits data from Vietnam to Thailand and Hong Kong. In all, about 43 km (27 miles) of fibre-optic cable is missing, including about 32 km (20 miles) stolen from a cable operated by a Singaporean company. "Now just one undersea cable connects Vietnam with the outside world," Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper said. The theft began after the government in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau last year allowed fishermen and soldiers to salvage undersea copper cable laid before 1975 to sell as scrap. The Vietnam war in which the United States backed a South Vietnam government, ended in April 1975 when communist North Vietnam troops captured Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. The permission to salvage the cable has been withdrawn, the ministry has asked the Coast Guard to increase patrols and inspections and officials have started a public relations campaign to educate fishermen about the importance of the cables. 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 ------------------------------ Reply-To: Jim Willis From: Jim Willis Subject: Telephone Service Out in Barrie, Ontario Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 22:45:20 -0400 Barrie Examiner - http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com Phone service knocked out Local News - Thursday, June 07, 2007 @ 07:00 Thousands of residents in south-end Barrie and parts of northern Innisfil were left without phone service yesterday, after Bell Canada experienced a system failure. In Barrie, the Painswick and Allandale areas were affected. Affected exchanges include 722, 725, 733, and 431. Customers were advised to use cellphones in the event of an emergency. Service is expected to be restored sometime today. ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 11:32:47 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 07, 2007 ******************************** Verizon Business Looks to Asia for Growth http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24781?11228 In an interview with Reuters, Verizon Business's Chief Marketing Officer Nancy Gofus has noted that the division is seeing double-digit growth in the Asia-Pacific region, compared with global growth of 2-3%. The company also expects to see "...an acceleration in growth over the next couple of years 'and plans to double' ... Technology Convergence Spurs Media Applications, Practices http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24779?11228 During the last two years, much of the attention on convergence traditionally has focused on its technological aspects: applications, services, devices and networks. However, new research says, the media -- through the accessibility and affordability of enabling technology -- has changed through all recognizable appearances. The ... EU Governments Agree on Lower Roaming Fees http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24776?11228 LUXEMBOURG -- EU governments agreed Thursday on cutting the cost of using mobile phones abroad, the last hurdle for a cap on roaming fees to be introduced later this summer. The law should be adopted by the end of this month, and telecom companies will have one month after that to offer customers a new pricing structure ... Nielsen Launches Wireless Service http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24773?11228 Audience measurement firm Nielsen has announced a mobile media consumption tracking service called Nielsen Wireless. The service, which will be available in the United States in July, hopes to assist wireless carriers, advertisers and entertainment companies in discovering what kinds of media are popular over cell phones. According ... OpenWave Rejects Advances http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24771?11228 Openwave Systems Inc., which late Monday rejected a cash-for-stock offer from Harbinger Capital that would have given the hedge fund a 62 percent stake in the firm, said it has failed to find a buyer after a two-month search led by Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. There had been talk that Sybase Inc. could be waiting in the ... CableLabs Sets PacketCable Deadline http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24769?11228 Cable technology suppliers have until July 13 to respond to a request for information (RFI) issued by CableLabs this week for PacketCable 2.0, an emerging specification and architecture that will enable cable operators to deploy and support a wide range of voice, video, and data services across wired and wireless access technologies. ... HP Vows More Virtualization http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24765?11228 HP has overhauled its Virtual Server Environment (VSE) software as part of an ongoing attempt to lure Sun users onto its server platforms. VSE, which is used to control virtual machines running on Integrity servers, is now being pushed to the forefront of the vendor's virtualization efforts, according to Ute Albert, ... Mobile Handsets Positioned to Radically Change the Navigation Device Market http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24763?11228 SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Mobile phone operators now have the ability to market a downloadable navigation application that is just as good as, if not better, than personal navigation devices (PNDs), reports In-Stat http://www.in-stat.com . As a result, handset-based mapping and navigation applications could cause a major change in the ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 12:20:38 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Vodafone Shareholder Group Calls For Verizon USTelecom dailyLead June 7, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hduofDtusXtucTCibuddpICg TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Vodafone shareholder group calls for Verizon Wireless spinoff BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * France Telecom sells, buys assets * Alcatel-Lucent boosts contract with Vivo * AT&T talks about plans for former BellSouth customers * Alltel announces EV-DO roaming coverage USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * McCormick Urges FCC to Shut Down Unscrupulous Traffic-Pumping Schemes * USTelecom Calls For Interim Universal Service Cap on High-Cost Support TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Broadcom unveils Vista-friendly Bluetooth software * Companies sign up to avoid spam filters * Cisco launches Linksys One managed-services products for SMBs * Nielsen launches wireless-behavior measurement service IP DOWNLOAD * Analysis: IPTV sales to more than double in 2007 REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * EU governments vote to cut roaming fees * Cisco, Qualcomm on opposite sides of Patent Reform Act Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hduofDtusXtucTCibuddpICg ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Top Spammer Arrested; Watch for Decrease in Spam Mail Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 16:42:26 -0400 In article , rws_usa@yahoo.com says: > I found your discussion here by doing a search looking for a possible > explanation for the decrease in spam I've received over the last > several days -- about 90%. I was receiving approx. 100-150 per day, now > about 10-15. Cool! It appears that Cox is doing some upstream filtering for spam since the volume of spam to those accounts I have with Cox has dropped to virtually nothing. In article , tom.horsley@att.net says: > On Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:01:30 -0400 > mc wrote: >> Well said! The spam-filtering and antivirus industries have often >> struck me as enemies disguised as friends. They rely on spam and >> viruses to continue, so they can continue selling us their >> technological solutions to human problems. > And as near as I can tell, the only difference between anti-virus > software and an actual virus is that you pay money to deliberately > infect your system with anti-virus software which will render it > sluggish and useless just like the viruses it claims to protect you > from. (Or with the recent Norton debacle in China, will completely > break your computer). > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, but the way you can almost always > guarantee a virus-free computer is by putting up with that > sluggishness while the virus checker thing literally examines the > entire page you are atempting to download. Damned if you do, and > damned if you don't, it would seem. PAT] I run AVG for anti-virus, POPFile for spam filtering, and use a hardware firewall backed up by Windows Firewall. Hasn't really slowed me down any. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #160 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 8 18:51:38 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7C9EC22F0; Fri, 8 Jun 2007 18:49:29 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #161 Message-Id: <20070608224929.7C9EC22F0@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 18:49:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 8 Jun 2007 18:50:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 161 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Relief in Store for Cable TV Subscribers (John Dunbar & Deborah Yao, AP) Cable Tries to Shed Bad-Service Reputation (Yinka Adegoke, Reuters) ITC Bans Imports on Some Handsets With Qualcomm (USTelecom dailyLead) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Phone Books Are Getting Thinner As Cellphones Take Over (John Mayson) Verizon FIOS in Providence (T) Discover's Debt Collectors' Threats Drive Woman To Suicide (John Mayson) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:33:49 -0500 From: John Dunbar, Deborah Yao, AP Subject: Relief in Store for Cable TV Subscribers By JOHN DUNBAR and DEBORAH YAO, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON - It has been 11 years since Congress voted to break the cable television industry's stranglehold on set-top boxes -- the devices that consumers need to receive digital programming and change channels. So why are you still paying $5 or more a month for that thing on top of your TV? When Congress rewrote the nation's communications laws in 1996, it envisioned a thriving retail market where subscribers could actually buy their own boxes rather than make monthly payments to the cable company in perpetuity. Things haven't quite worked out that way. The retail market for the boxes has failed to materialize, and the cable industry has filed numerous appeals and continued to press a furious lobbying and public relations campaign to make sure it never does, foes say. Come July 1, the gloves come off. After two years of deadline extensions, that's when the Federal Communications Commission will require cable companies to make hardware changes in all new set-top boxes that it hopes will lead to a competitive market. At the center of this melee is FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who has opposed cable's requests for another delay. He sees set-top boxes going the way of the black rotary-dial telephone that consumers once rented from the phone company. When the government opened that market, it "led to more innovation and lower prices and better quality phones," he said. "I think the same thing can be true in this (cable box) market as well." The cable industry disagrees. David Cohen, executive vice president of cable giant Comcast Corp. in Philadelphia and its top political liaison, said consumers won't benefit from the change. "I'm not sure it's a piece of technology a consumer needs to own or wants to own," he said. Once a newer set-top box comes out, "Circuit City won't take their old box and give them a refund to get a new model. They have to buy a new box to get the newest and fanciest upgraded technology." The FCC rules will only affect customers with digital cable, a population that has grown steadily. For the first time last year, there were more digital cable subscribers than analog, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the cable trade group. Of about 65 million cable households nationwide, 33 million have digital cable. To jump-start competition, the cable industry will be required to separate the security function inside their digital set-top boxes -- the hardware that ensures customers can only view channels they are paying for -- from the navigation function, which is basically the channel changer. _____________________ The Telecommunications Act of 1996 included a grab bag of provisions that were meant to spark competition and limit regulation in nearly every area of the industry. The set-top box provision was no exception. The law ordered the FCC to "adopt regulations to assure the commercial availability to consumers" of "converter boxes, interactive communications equipment, and other equipment" used to access multichannel video programming such as cable. On June 11, 1998, the agency adopted a two-phase plan to do just that. Set-top boxes distributed by cable companies today contain both security and navigation functions. In the first phase of the plan, the FCC ordered the industry to make the security function separately available by July 1, 2000. That led to the development of the "cable card." The credit card-sized devices house the de-scrambling function and plug into competing boxes, such as the new TiVo Series3, and digital cable-ready televisions, which have a card slot. So far, there's been little competition for competing set-top boxes. Only about 260,000 cable cards have been deployed, according to the NCTA. And they don't always work very well. The second phase begins July 1, when cable providers are banned from providing new boxes that integrate both the security and navigation functions. Existing subscribers can continue to rent their current boxes. The new boxes will have to use the same cable card technology as the competition. The FCC is hoping that forcing cable companies to do that will motivate them to make sure the cards work like they're supposed to. The agency hopes it will eliminate some of the problems that have faced customers like Ken Hornstein, a 36-year-old computer programmer from Vienna, Va. Hornstein rents two cable cards so he can record one show on his TiVo while watching another. But he says one card malfunctioned after installation, requiring a second technician to visit him at home to replace it. The new card stopped working after a month or two, and had to be replaced again. Hornstein said technicians didn't seem to know much about cable cards. "It wouldn't decrypt anything, wouldn't tune any channels," he said. The technicians "don't expect to see cable cards. If they were used to seeing cable cards we wouldn't have that problem." Once cable companies have to use the same security technology as their competitors, the hope is that they'll suffer fewer problems because it will be in the cable companies' interest to keep them free of glitches. ______________________ The cable industry says the new rule will cost it $600 million more a year for new boxes, an expense that will be passed along to customers. One competitor says that figure is vastly overblown. Cable operators also say customers would rather rent their boxes rather than shell out hundreds of dollars to buy them, according to Dallas Clement, senior vice president of product management at Cox Communications Inc. "Is there really a market for these? TiVo is $800 and $13 a month for a two-tuner high-definition digital video recorder," he said. "Us, they pay nothing up front and it's a $10 monthly lease." TiVo, which is now offering a $200 rebate for the Series3, argues that its interface and features are superior to those on digital video recorders offered by cable companies. The dispute between cable and the FCC has been sharper since Martin became FCC chairman in 2005. But one thing they both agree on is that there is an alternative that makes more sense. A technology dubbed "downloadable security" would let cable companies send the security function directly to a computer chip in specially enabled TV or other devices, eliminating the need for cable cards or a box. "I think that kind of a technology is probably feasible and is definitely preferable from a consumer perspective," the FCC's Martin said. "And I think that would be a better result for consumers than having to worry about trying to get a cable card." The problem, he said, has been getting a commitment from the cable industry. "I think that downloadable security would have been preferable if we could have actually gotten a commitment by when this would have been rolled out -- a commitment with penalties if the cable industry failed to meet that deadline," Martin said. Kyle McSlarrow, chief executive of the NCTA, said the FCC requirement has delayed work on the software solution. "Candidly, a lot of that work has been put on hold. There's so much focus now on complying with the integration ban by July 1," he said. Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, doesn't buy that argument. "They've had ten years to solve this problem," he said. "Consumers want a retail marketplace. Retailers want to sell it. Manufacturers want to make it. The cable industry is doing everything they can to preserve their monopoly profits on set-top boxes." Even with the change, the cable industry will still have a distinct advantage over competitors. Unlike the cable company's set-top box, televisions with cable card slots sold at retail and other devices still won't be able to do interactive functions like deliver on-demand and pay-per-view programming. An agreement has yet to be reached between cable and consumer electronics makers on technical standards for interactive technology. The digital cable-ready TVs now in circulation can receive but not transmit data, creating a one-way street that limits their appeal to consumers. Some cable companies have struck agreements individually with manufacturers like Samsung Electronics America. Samsung is testing a two-way digital TV in Milwaukee with Time Warner Cable Inc. but a wider rollout of similar models won't be available until next year, said Stephen Goldstein, director of business development at Samsung Electronics America. Martin said the FCC is debating a petition filed by the consumer electronics companies, including Sony, asking for the next step to ensure that two-way technology will come to pass. "We'll try to move forward on it in a timely basis," he said. "We're trying to get this first deadline in place first." AP Business Writer Deborah Yao reported from Philadelphia. On the web: National Cable and Telecommunications Association: http://www.ncta.com Consumer Electronics Association: http://www.ce.org 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: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:30:55 -0500 From: Yinka Adegoke, Reuters Subject: Cable Tries to Shed Bad-Service Reputation By Yinka Adegoke Even though U.S. cable companies have had success in winning customers with all-in-one packages of video, Internet and phone services, they still struggle with a reputation for poor customer service. Top cable operators such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. are expanding their customer service operations to make common complaints -- like waiting all day for the cable guy -- a thing of the past. But analysts say it won't be easy. Cable's service shortcomings are one of the reasons satellite television providers are adding more new customers than cable, even with cable's success in offering competitively priced combined TV, Internet and phone packages. "Satellite leads because they place so much emphasis on customer care," said Tuna Amobi, an analyst at Standard & Poor's. Cable operators have done a much better job in recent years, but they still have a ways to go, he added. Comcast, the No. 1 U.S. cable operator, said it plans to hire nearly 6,000 new customer service staff and field technicians this year, after hiring around 6,500 in 2006. The expansion is a drive to keep up with rapid growth. Comcast sold more than 5 million new services to customers last year and expects to sell 6.5 million in 2007. Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable operator, said it is also expanding its customer service, in line with a similar rate of growth in products being sold to customers. Annual surveys by J.D. Power and Associates show satellite TV service providers DirecTV Group Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp. have a significant lead over cable providers in overall customer satisfaction. Improving customer service has become increasingly important for cable operators as phone rivals Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. have become more aggressive in trying to win over TV customers. AT&T's new chief executive, Randall Stephenson, said he hopes to improve service over time. "Right now the installation time line is very similar to the cable experience," he told Reuters in a recent interview. "All of our technicians are brand new hires, so they're going up the learning curve." Publicly, cable companies say customer service has moved higher on their agenda. For example, Comcast and Time Warner Cable say they have cut things like all-day appointment windows to an average of between two and four hours. But privately, cable operators say customer service is a difficult thing to get right because half the challenge is with perception. They say that while 99 percent of customers get serviced without any problems, it is the ones who have a bad experience who call the media or write to their congressmen. One of the most viewed video clips on YouTube last summer was of a Comcast technician caught sleeping on a customer's couch as he waited more than an hour for his office to verify the installation. Cable operators are emphasizing new services to help improve their image. Comcast has introduced a service called "Dynamic Dispatch," which uses mobile devices and GPS systems to enable up-to-the-minute communications between customer centers and technicians. "Do we want to strive to get better? Absolutely. Are we doing a lot to get better? Absolutely," said Comcast Senior Vice President of Customer Care Suzanne Keenan. As for Time Warner Cable, it offers a Call-To-Meet service in most of its regions: A customer receives a call when a technician is en route, reducing the time customers waste waiting at home. "I would say that over time we have continued to put increasing emphasis on customer care," said Tom Kinney, senior vice president corporate customer care at Time Warner Cable. (Additional reporting by Ritsuko Ando) 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, 8 Jun 2007 12:35:17 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: June 8, 2007 - ITC bans imports on some handsets with Qualcomm USTelecom dailyLead June 8, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/heiYfDtusXtxisCibuddRYLg TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * ITC bans imports on some handsets with Qualcomm chips BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Verizon Business: No immediate plans for more acquisitions * Vodafone repudiates shareholder group's restructuring call * Nokia Siemens building DWDM network for Tele2 * Ericsson to acquire Drutt USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Deloitte CTO Roundtable at NXTcomm TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * NextWave announces WiMAX chipsets * KT, LG-Nortel collaborate on mobile-WiMAX testing lab * Consumers have a growing variety of available Internet services * Akamai Web site offers insight on Internet traffic IP DOWNLOAD * VoIP market burns bright this year REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * AT&T, Verizon ask regulators to reject Google airwave proposal Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/heiYfDtusXtxisCibuddRYLg ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 12:03:30 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 08, 2007 ******************************** Forthcoming Qualcomm Equipment Banned from Import to U.S. in Broadcom Spat http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24813?11228 Following last month's US$20-million damages settlement, which could be trebled due to wilful infringement of nine claims in four patents owned by Broadcom, Qualcomm has lost out again in the latest round of patent litigation with rival chip-maker Broadcom. While agreement has been reached in a number of similar patent claims, the ... Regulator Set to Okay FMC Roll-Out in Italy http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24810?11228 Italy's telecoms regulator, AGCOM, is set to lift its ban on fixed-mobile convergence products (FMC) according to a report on the Italian financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore. AGCOM had barred Telecom Italia and Vodafone from offering their respective FMC products in the market in 2006. The regulator blocked Telecom Italia's attempt ... Up Front: Tethered to the Home http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/110/24803?11228 At the recent National Cable & Telecommunication Association (NCTA) event in Las Vegas, I moderated 'Cable Without Cable: Strategies for the Wild Wireless World', a panel featuring three cable operators -- Rogers, Cox Communications and Time Warner. Having moderated plenty of panels in the wireless space, this was my ... Power Advance Heralds Future of Gadgets That Can be Recharged Wirelessly http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24798?11228 CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers announced they had made a 60-watt light bulb glow by sending it energy wirelessly, potentially previewing a future in which cell phones and other gadgets get juice without having to be plugged in. The breakthrough, disclosed Thursday in Science ... EU Approves Roaming Caps http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24796?11228 The European Union's 27 governments finalized a law today capping roaming charges for customers using mobile phones abroad. The law caps roaming fees for the first year at 66 cents a minute for making calls and 32 cents for receiving calls abroad. Price caps are scheduled to decrease to 62 cents and 30 cents in the second year and 58 ... Limelight Raises IPO Price http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24791?11228 Limelight Networks LLC filed an updated S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that raises the price of its IPO from the $10 to $12 range to the $12 to $14 range. The exact price will be determined this evening. The number of shares offered will remain the same at 14,400,000. Limelight will begin trading tomorrow ... Vodafone: Time to Scold the Mayo? http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24789?11228 A shareholder group led by investment firm Efficient Capital Structures has sent a letter to Vodafone Group plc  asking the U.K.-based wireless company to sell its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless . The proposed spin-off would return approximately $79 billion to Vodafone shareholders. Vodafone must consider motions like this ... Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Verizon FIOS in Providence Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 18:03:11 -0400 Check out this photo set, it's the last few pictures in it. I took the pictures this morning at the corner of DePasquale St and Federal St in Providence, RI. So it's gradually moving its way towards me. Not that I'll be subscribing because I hate Verizon with a passion. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kd1s/sets/72157594534810671/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 16:07:45 -0500 From: John Mayson Subject: Phone Books Are Getting Thinner As Cellphones Take Over http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/brave-new-world/phone-books-are-getting-thinner-as-cellphones-take-over-267233.php "One upon a time if you knew someone's name, you could go to a thing called a "phone book" and look up their phone number and where they lived. As cellphones becomes people's primary telephone, more and more households are canceling their landlines and removing themselves from the phone book." John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 16:08:30 -0500 From: John Mayson Subject: Discover's Debt Collectors' Threats Drive Woman To Suicide http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/debt-collection-abuse/discovers-debt-collectors-threats-drive-woman-to-suicide-267237.php John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Date: 8 Jun 2007 02:21:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 4, 5:14 am, Jax wrote: > Again, this is from a former employee ... in San Antonio, at least, > most of the people I came in contact with HATED working where they > were because of the horrible business practice, but couldn't walk away > due to the free cable bill ... sad really ... > I'm seriously considering DSL, my father has worked for SBC, now AT&T > for about 30 years now and has always tried to get me to go that > route ... I think it may be about time ... We all must remember that service provided by a national companies VARIES a great deal from location to location. Most national companies -- cable or telephone -- are conglomerates of once separate companies. Verizon, for example, consists of various former Bell companies, GTE (the "independent") companies, and other pieces. Of all of those, some of them historically were quite good, some not so good. The same applies to cable companies. My local cable company started out as a single independent outfit. It was taken over and resold by numerous players. Frankly, it's not as responsive as when it was independent, but due to the legacy the service is generally satisfactory. It is extremely expensive, though. > The batter back up is a joke, because ... I know this isn't a > reasonable question but: How many times do you think your power goes > out and your cable still works? It's a difficult thing to check, since > your TV won't work without power ... but ... think about it ... Yes, if my power is out, my TV won't work. But in my area I've found that once the power is restored, it takes longer for the cable service to be restored. We have fairly frequent 1-15 minute power outages in the summer. They are a nuisance since most electronic clocks have to be reset. Even ones with battery backup lose a minute or two and need to be reset if exact time is a requirement (like on the VCR). I have never lost phone service, no matter how bad the storm or power. (As mentioned, people with cordless phones -- many these days -- are out of luck). > I tried to buy into the whole Time-Warner mindset ... thinking that > this was the company of the future, but it's a little ahead of it's > time, due to the fact that they don't test their systems, equipment or > databases nearly enough to make them effective in a live CONSUMER > environment. It's not just them. All companies under stockholder pressure to roll out new products and services to bring in associated revenue as quickly as possible. The old regulated monopoly services could do thorough testing. Indeed, the old Bell System was criticized for being too slow with innovations, but they tested new products and services extremely thoroughly before national rollout. That is a big reason I personally am such a Luddite when it comes to new technology. Way too often the salesman (hungry for a commission) and the techies (hungry for glory) promote something new long before it has been thoroughly tested and side issues resolved. (Don't forget a device may "work" but still cause unexpected problems.) Side note -- as to power, the telephone central offices have huge batteries good for some time in case of a blackout, but more importantly, contain big diesel generators (tested regularly) to charge the batteries if the blackout is sustained. Do cable company offices have such generators? Obviously line poles and cell phone antennas do not, but how long (if any) is their battery backup? IMHO, any communications related device should have minimum battery backup for _heavy_ use for at least five hours, preferably eight hours. When you consider the number of external junctions and cell phone antenna sites necessary today, 8-hour heavy duty backup everywhere becomes quite expensive. But it is necessary. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #161 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jun 9 18:59:25 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id C25DF22B8; Sat, 9 Jun 2007 18:59:24 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #162 Message-Id: <20070609225924.C25DF22B8@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 18:59:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Jun 2007 18:58:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 162 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Jewelry Merchant on EBay Fined $400,000 by New York AG (Paritosh Bansal) Printing Books Online: an Author You Can't Refuse (Robert MacMillan) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Lisa Hancock) Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question (Rick Merrill) Re: Relief in Store for Cable TV Subscribers (T) Re: Relief in Store for Cable TV Subscribers (Tom Horsely) Movie Review: Impulse (TELECOM Digest Editor) Cleaning up Some Odds and Ends (TELECOM Digest Editor) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:27:29 -0500 From: Paritosh Bansal, Reuters Subject: Jewelry Merchant on EBay Fined $400,000 by New York AG By Paritosh Bansal A jewelry company on eBay Inc. that allegedly bid on its own auctions to illegally drive up prices by as much as 20 percent agreed to pay $400,000 in restitution and penalties, the New York state attorney general's office said on Saturday. Ezra Dweck and employees of his company, EMH Group, placed more than 232,000 such bids worth some $5 million over about a one-year period, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office said. Dweck and EMH Group have also been banned from the online auction industry for four years under the terms of the settlement agreed to by the parties, Cuomo's office said. A lawyer for Dweck and EMH said they had resolved the matter "only to avoid an interminable, costly battle with the AG's office." "EMH and Mr. Dweck did not intentionally encourage any fraudulent bidding," the lawyer said. "A buyback program, which was vetted by two attorneys, was created to give winning bidders an incentive to sell back to EMH certain items." EBay brought the case to the attention of the attorney general's office and helped in the investigation over several months. The world's largest online auction company has been trying to demonstrate to buyers and sellers that it is making aggressive moves to halt fraud on its sites. The announcement of the settlement comes ahead of next week's annual eBay Live conference, when thousands of the company's top sellers gather for a three-day convention in Boston. Executives are expected to highlight various ways the company is cracking down on illegitimate sales practices. An eBay spokeswoman said the timing of the release of the information was decided by Cuomo's office. "We do not tolerate criminal activity and proactively assist law enforcement to prosecute any individual who may try to defraud our users," spokeswoman Nichola Sharpe said. Dweck, who sold jewelry on his eBay store called Jewelry by Ezra, often offered shoppers "no reserve" auctions, which do not have a minimum price, the attorney general's office said. But Dweck ensured his employees knew of which auctions to bid at along with a predetermined price, it said. "This scam highlights the growing vulnerability of online auction shoppers," Cuomo said. "Consumers should not have to surf with sharks." 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, 09 Jun 2007 14:29:59 -0500 From: Robert MacMillan, Reuters Subject: Printing Books Online: an Author You Can't Refuse By Robert MacMillan Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller are among the world's most respected authors, but for a while they had a hard time finding a publisher. Rather than seek a mainstream outlet for racy novels such as "The Black Book" and "Tropic of Cancer," they used the Obelisk Press, a French publishing house started by Jack Kahane to print his own novel. That was the 1930s. Now, a young Henry Miller could use new Internet companies like Blurb.com, i-Universe, Lulu.com or Xlibris to print his book -- and even sell it through their online stores. Gwen Fuller used Blurb (www.blurb.com) to publish her book, "Do Mallet the Suitcase," a collection of spam e-mail arranged as haiku. Among them: "Dude, get all U need/And dragonhead by reckon/She will love you more," and "Just what all men need/C'Mon Baby, Light My Fire/Chat and meet women." Avoiding traditional publishing was a plus for Fuller, 48, a life coach in Menlo Park, California. "There was a process that I was sort of unwilling to get engaged in when there was something that could so immediately deliver a quality book," she said. Blurb requires customers to download its software, which then lets them lay out text and photos. Then they send the specifications to the company, which prints the books in either hardcover or soft. Rates start at $18.95 for one small softcover. Bulk-order discounts start at 10 copies, company founder Eileen Gittins said. "If you order 10 copies, you get a 10 percent discount, 100 copies you get a 15 percent discount," she said. "Over 200, we encourage you to give us a shout." Blurb also allows authors to sell their works on its in-house bookstore, printing copies as new orders come in, and to charge a markup so they can make a profit. The company sends out a check every time an author earns $25 or more. "PEOPLE WHO LOVE TO WRITE" Many people use Blurb for personal projects as well. Michelle Flaherty and her husband Peter received a book made by their daughters with photos of Haunted Acre Woods, the large-scale Halloween display they mount each year at their home in East Falmouth, Massachusetts. "It was the first Christmas gift in I don't know how many years that actually made me cry," she said. "It was so original, so different." While a budding novelist could use Blurb, the company specializes in photo layouts with glossy paper and the look of a "coffee-table" book. Some writers looking to print more literary works are visiting Lulu (www.lulu.com). Lulu, founded by Bob Young, co-founder of software company Red Hat Inc., allows customers to publish school yearbooks, artwork, calendars and many other things -- but especially books. Lulu recoups expenses and takes a 20 percent cut of the profit on a book sale. Mark Wilkerson's biography of Who guitarist and writer Pete Townshend has led him to the brink of a deal with a conventional publisher in Europe. Wilkerson, 37, is an aircraft maintenance planner for UPS, and lives in Prospect, Kentucky -- about as far away from the mainstream publishing world as it gets. Publishers that he pitched rejected him or asked him why he was qualified to write his book, the 618-page "Amazing Journey: The Life of Pete Townshend." "Lulu has been fabulous for me, because what else would I have done?" he said. "I was completely ignorant of the many facets of the publishing industry." Wilkerson sent his book to reviewers, and received positive notices in The Rocky Mountain News, the Chicago Sun-Times and influential music magazine MOJO. The book came to Townshend's attention, and the legendary musician tentatively committed to writing a foreword to the next edition, Wilkerson said. Blurb and Lulu are not the only self-publishing options on the Internet. Xlibris http://www.xlibris.com is a self-publishing company that works in a partnership with Random House's investment unit, and iUniverse http://www.iuniverse.com offers similar services. Both offer more services, with packages from about $300 all the way up to nearly $13,000. Blurb and Lulu are better for enthusiasts, said Scott Flora, executive director of the Small Publishers Association of North America, "If there are people who love to write and they want to see their book in print, this is a good option," he 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/internet-news.html ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question Date: 8 Jun 2007 02:21:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 4, 5:14 am, Jax wrote: > Again, this is from a former employee ... in San Antonio, at least, > most of the people I came in contact with HATED working where they > were because of the horrible business practice, but couldn't walk away > due to the free cable bill ... sad really ... > I'm seriously considering DSL, my father has worked for SBC, now AT&T > for about 30 years now and has always tried to get me to go that > route ... I think it may be about time ... We all must remember that service provided by a national companies VARIES a great deal from location to location. Most national companies -- cable or telephone -- are conglomerates of once separate companies. Verizon, for example, consists of various former Bell companies, GTE (the "independent") companies, and other pieces. Of all of those, some of them historically were quite good, some not so good. The same applies to cable companies. My local cable company started out as a single independent outfit. It was taken over and resold by numerous players. Frankly, it's not as responsive as when it was independent, but due to the legacy the service is generally satisfactory. It is extremely expensive, though. > The batter back up is a joke, because ... I know this isn't a > reasonable question but: How many times do you think your power goes > out and your cable still works? It's a difficult thing to check, since > your TV won't work without power ... but ... think about it ... Yes, if my power is out, my TV won't work. But in my area I've found that once the power is restored, it takes longer for the cable service to be restored. We have fairly frequent 1-15 minute power outages in the summer. They are a nuisance since most electronic clocks have to be reset. Even ones with battery backup lose a minute or two and need to be reset if exact time is a requirement (like on the VCR). I have never lost phone service, no matter how bad the storm or power. (As mentioned, people with cordless phones--many these days-- are out of luck). > I tried to buy into the whole Time-Warner mindset ... thinking that > this was the company of the future, but it's a little ahead of it's > time, due to the fact that they don't test their systems, equipment or > databases nearly enough to make them effective in a live CONSUMER > environment. It's not just them. All companies under stockholder pressure to roll out new products and services to bring in associated revenue as quickly as possible. The old regulated monopoly services could do thorough testing. Indeed, the old Bell System was criticized for being too slow with innovations, but they tested new products and services extremely thoroughly before national rollout. That is a big reason I personally am such a Luddite when it comes to new technology. Way too often the salesman (hungry for a commission) and the techies (hungry for glory) promote something new long before it has been thoroughly tested and side issues resolved. (Don't forget a device may "work" but still cause unexpected problems.) Side note -- as to power, the telephone central offices have huge batteries good for some time in case of a blackout, but more importantly, contain big diesel generators (tested regularly) to charge the batteries if the blackout is sustained. Do cable company offices have such generators? Obviously line poles and cell phone antennas do not, but how long (if any) is their battery backup? IMHO, any communications related device should have minimum battery backup for _heavy_ use for at least five hours, preferably eight hours. When you consider the number of external junctions and cell phone antenna sites necessary today, 8-hour heavy duty backup everywhere becomes quite expensive. But it is necessary. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 20:52:19 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Jun 4, 5:14 am, Jax wrote: > > Yes, if my power is out, my TV won't work. But in my area I've found > that once the power is restored, it takes longer for the cable service > to be restored. We have fairly frequent 1-15 minute power outages in > the summer. They are a nuisance since most electronic clocks have to > be reset. Even ones with battery backup lose a minute or two and need > to be reset if exact time is a requirement (like on the VCR). Some VCR reset themselves by reading time on PBS vertical retrace. > I have never lost phone service, no matter how bad the storm or power. > (As mentioned, people with cordless phones -- many these days -- are > out of luck). I have my own UPS -- nowadays cable is a single point of failure for most of us. But if a tree takes out the lines, it's going to take 'em all out! > Side note -- as to power, the telephone central offices have huge > batteries good for some time in case of a blackout, but more > importantly, contain big diesel generators (tested regularly) to > charge the batteries if the blackout is sustained. Do cable company > offices have such generators? Our cable company gave us a tour of the head end in Maynard, MA where they pick up the satellite feeds and they have HUGE battery banks and, yes, a giant diesel generator in the front yard! > Obviously line poles and cell phone antennas do not, but how long > (if any) is their battery backup? IMHO, any communications related > device should have minimum battery backup for _heavy_ use for at > least five hours, preferably eight hours. When you consider the > number of external junctions and cell phone antenna sites necessary > today, 8-hour heavy duty backup everywhere becomes quite expensive. > But it is necessary. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Something I find confusing is my bedroom digital clock which 'sets itself' when power is off. I got the thing at Walmart, plugged it in to test it there at the store, and the digits immediatly zipped around and set themselves on the correct time and date. I do not think it uses a WWV reciever in the clock, and anyway, it does not seem to set the 'seconds', just the hour and minutes, and the day/date. I unplugged it to pay for it and bring it home; then tried it again out of fascination once I got it here. It cost fifteen dollars. Does anyone have any idea how it happens? PAT] ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Relief in Store for Cable TV Subscribers Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 21:16:32 -0400 In article , ap@telecom-digest.org says... > By JOHN DUNBAR and DEBORAH YAO, > Associated Press Writers > WASHINGTON - It has been 11 years since Congress voted to break the > cable television industry's stranglehold on set-top boxes -- the > devices that consumers need to receive digital programming and change > channels. > So why are you still paying $5 or more a month for that thing on top of > your TV? It's because they don't want people owning the boxes. There are a couple things that motivate them. The first is that if you multiply that little $5 fee by the number of customers they serve, it's a nice littel chunk of change. The second is that if you OWN the box you can reverse engineer it if you so wish. ------------------------------ From: Tom Horsley Subject: Re: Relief in Store for Cable TV Subscribers Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2007 22:26:00 GMT On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:33:49 -0500 John Dunbar, Deborah Yao, AP wrote: > "I'm not sure it's a piece of technology a consumer needs to own or > wants to own," As opposed to renting a low-end bottom-of-the-barrel cheap to make piece of junk from the cable company? :-). ------------------------------ Subject: Movie Review: Impulse Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 16:37:51 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Thursday night I came home from eating dinner, and my keeper, Raymond had a new DVD to watch, called 'Impulse'. It was a story about this college age computer programmer who liked writing and spreading viruses. (Not for his own computer, of course, but rather for everyone else's computers. A moody, melancholy guy, he decided to commit suicide. In doing so, he released a lot of evil spirits from his mind and body. These evil spirits learned how to communicate with others of their own kind _and real, human people_ using the computer, you know, using Instant Messenger and Email, IRC, stuff like that. This guy was a computer science major at college, specializing in 'telecom'. He had vast amounts of knowledge in subjects like WiFi, cell phones, land line phones, and the computers behind them. Natually, all this guy's knowledge about these subjects were transmitted on to the evil spirits, and soon they knew how to spread themselves around the world after reading the 'telecom paper' this guy had written. We see signs of the evil spirits learing how to use these computers, with messages saying 'please help me' appearing spuriously on the various terminal screens. Then it appears that no matter what anyone does, the hard drives cannot be cleaned off, and computers boot up with a dreadful movie entitled 'Watch me commit suicide' and the man killing himself. Soon, every computer everywhere was plugged up with these evil spirit viruses, but in particular, all cell phones, landline phones, instant message programs, and land line phones were clogged up with them. How badly plugged up? To illustrate this, a multi-line phone is displayed with the ringing of phone bells in the background and all the lines flashing and going unanswered; people nearby were seated at computer terminals getting nowhere, and a recorded message voice is repeating over and over, "Your call has been received by 911. All operators are busy assisting other callers. Please hold until a 911 operator is available." The obligatory characters included the police and their investigation, of course, the dull college professor who kept denying that evil spirits could exist, two other sort of half-witted college students in the same computer science class, and other assorted characters. One of them found a script, which it was stated, could be run and eliminate the viruses. But it had to be run 'from the server' which as luck would have it, was down in the basement of the 'Computer Science Department' building at the university. 'Crash all the terminals, shut down the servers, load this script then restart it all' is what they had to do. Well, our hero and heroine (two of the college students) decide to try this and they rush to the basement. But alas, they are too late, as the worm-like evil spirit viruses have escaped and are now in the process of infesting the entire internet. They do not say exactly where all this is located, but New York City is implied as the location of 'the university'. As the viruses infest all computers everywhere, we see the results in the form of clogged streets and stalled subways, lights flashing or not working at all. A television news station is telling everyone about this dillema when it, itself suddenly shuts down. Our hero and heroine consult again with the police and are told to flee for their lives, because it appears everyone is following the example of the computer science student and committing suicide. They decide to take that advice and get out of the city as soon as they can, driving off to some rural countryside area. We can tell it is a rural area because we see cows and horses, and the heroine is telling us that 'the things we thought were to help us are actually killing us; driving us to the brink of insanity.' Both hero and heroine swore they would never again use a telephone, a cell phone, Wi-Fi, instant messaging or any 'computer', because of the evil spirit viruses which had taken over the entire thing at this point. Raymond said to me the whole movie ("Impulse") stunk very badly. I would generally agree, but one *good* thing about the movie was it was done in black and white with interesting contrasts in what we saw. Black and white, with flourescent lights flashing off and on at the right intervals, dashes of blue and grey in the scenes and quite good sound and music effects. Raymond noted the movie ended 'a lot like 28 Days' (if you have seen that movie), where the surviviors never actually win, but they instead just flee the big city and move to a safe, rural area. Not a bad deal for a $4.00/week rental from Blockbuster. PAT ------------------------------ Subject: Cleaning up Some Odds and Ends Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 18:05:28 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) I apologize for earlier this week when I interuppted the conversations in progress for one of my periodic money requests. The money received, while not enough to allow me to go live high on the hog in some exotic land, __was enough_ to meet this month's living expenses, and provide for my 'children' (three cats and one dog). Something very strange is happening here. I know I should not count on Google AdSense to earn a supplementary living, but I have been doing just that. When I first started using AdSense, in September, 2004, I thought at that time it was some sort of (most likely) unpayable gimmick. Particularly when I saw so many 'make money fast' reports from Google itself. So I checked with a few independent witnesses who (like myself) had signed on with AdSense almost from day one of the program. I spoke with a few guys, who like myself, have years and years of files on line for research. The figures they quoted me were that I could count on Google for at least a 'few' dollars each month. And so it was for the first year and a half; on the one hand, nothing to get excited about, except that I always did mark the days on my calendar each month until I knew the Google wire transfer had been made into my account. It, plus my social security disability check always managed to 'tide me over' one month to the next, along with the scrapings I collect from State of Kansas' own welfare services, etc. State of Kansas/City of Independence does provide me with a few things: a housekeeper for four hours per week, (of which I have to pay twenty percent of her competitive wages), one meal per day (no charge, delivered here to my door, not the best food, but hardly the worst). Social Security got me a motorized wheel chair; prior to the delivery of the chair (and still available) are discount taxicab rides around town. Taxicab charges flat rate around town anywhere to anyone, five dollars, but City of Independence gives me a coupon book allowing me to ride for two dollars plus a coupon. So, you might say I make do, although I have been out of my house and riding around more now that I have the motorized wheel chair, and riding less in the taxicab. I also, once each year, get two interesting benefits: food sales tax exemption (a flat payback of $72 for the prior year) for whatever I paid in food sales tax. The second benefit is 'property tax refund' which is some percentage of whatever the mortgage company paid on my behalf in property taxes. I pay my monthly mortgage, mortgage company pays taxes and insurance, eventually city rebates some percent of it back to me. Actually I am paying _mother's_ mortgage, she is in the old people's home now for a few years, but _she_ cannot claim homestead tax exemption as I can; her monthly upkeep at the old people's home is itself in part subsidized by government. So, with all that in mind, let's say I get by ... barely, but I do. I use every single discount available to 'senior citizens' or 'disabled citizens' I can find that I would otherwise be using ... and yet, and yet, I still wind up at the end of the month (Social Security Disability payments run from the 4th 'payday' of one month to the 4th 'payday' of the next month) right back where I started, zero or a few dollars either way in the bank, preferably in my favor, because if it is the bank's favor the bank 'treats' me to an overdraft fee when the next monthly payment from the feds is made. I think this month it will run in my favor (thank you, readers!) since your donations got me 'over the top' by a few dollars. That's another thing: the monthly federal payout on Disability is _not_ the third day of each month. Feds cut that system out many years ago. If you *were* getting paid on the third of each month, then you still are; but for those of us who started either disability or retirement later, now the checks are paid on Wednesdays; the first through the fourth Wednesdays of each month are the paydays, based on Social Security numbers, staggered throughout the month. I am on the fourth Wednesday of each month. At 2:00 AM on the fourth Wednesday of each month, Social Security's computer automatically makes a deposit into my bank's computer of the amount of money I receive. Bank automatically pays bills, etc. I do not actually _see any money_ all month. All I see are computer pixels; starting at about 2:00 AM on the magic day (fourth Wednesday) my credit balance fills up with money, then all day long the same day and the next, I see it bleed away to the various creditors. The bank does give me a debit card and I can go to any ATM (preferably theirs, to save fees) and withdraw it as I go along. Those of you who sent me money this month; that goes into the PayPal bank. From time to time, I can authorize PayPal to automatically transfer some or all of it (usually all of it) to the regular bank. So I do not, as some have suggested, live 'high on the hog' with 'all' my money. But, back to AdSense to conclude this wrapup: Ad Sense was running along pretty well for a year or so, then, one month it began getting very meager. Once per month, (like Social, the month following, and about three weeks into the month) Ad Sense makes payout. It _had been_ running along okay. But AdSense only pays on those months in which the payout is more than one hundred dollars. A year ago (last summer) AdSense claimed I did not reach the hundred dollar mark, and they held it back. Well, when you live as close to the wire as I do, that tipped me over entirely. Ad Sense did not come through, bank account ran _very low_ and Bank charged me a few of their $35 per incident fees. Frankly, I never did recover from that until now. And when you add in the credit card overlimit fees it gets a bit much. Ad Sense seems to have recovered from whatever was ailing it and is now back to more or less normal payouts. I have learned to live very close to the wire, and have learned how to use things like bank float, credit card float and creditor good-will to get through life. But ... anytime some part of the machine fails, I am so close to the edge that I topple over, and have a very hard time recovering, which is what finally happened during May/June. I thank all of you who participated in getting me back on my feet once again. I sincerely do thank you. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #162 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 11 22:21:12 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 910B121DA; Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:21:12 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #163 Message-Id: <20070612022112.910B121DA@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:21:12 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:21:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 163 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ITC Announces Remedy In Broadcom/Qualcomm Investigation (Monty Solomon) Patent Ruling Strikes a Blow at Qualcomm (Monty Solomon) eBay-nomics (Monty Solomon) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Qwest Chief Announces His Retirement (USTelecom dailyLead) When it Rains, it Pours (TELECOM Digest Editor) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 22:30:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: ITC Announces Remedy In Broadcom/Qualcomm Investigation http://www.usitc.gov/ext_relations/news_release/2007/er0607ee1.htm June 7, 2007 News Release 07-062 Inv. No. 337-TA-543 Contact: Peg O'Laughlin, 202-205-1819 ITC ANNOUNCES REMEDY IN BROADCOM/QUALCOMM INVESTIGATION The U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC" or "Commission") today announced the remedial orders it will issue in connection with its section 337 investigation concerning Baseband Processor Chips and Chipsets, Transmitter and Receiver (Radio) Chips, Power Control Chips, and Products Containing Same, Including Cellular Telephone Handsets (337-TA-543). The chips and chipsets at issue are used in handheld wireless communications devices, including cellular telephone handsets, that are capable of operating on so-called third-generation ("3G") cellular telephone networks, i.e., EV-DO ("Evolution-Data Optimized") and WCDMA ("Wideband Code Division Multiple Access") networks such as those operated by Verizon, Sprint, and A T&T. The Commission previously determined that certain Qualcomm chips and chipsets were imported in violation of U.S. law because they infringe a U.S. patent held by Broadcom; the patent relates to mobile device capabilities and power management. Under section 337, which is designed to protect and enforce U.S. intellectual property rights, the Commission must determine the appropriate remedy to address this violation. Vice Chairman Shara L. Aranoff, Commissioner Deanna Tanner Okun, Commissioner Charlotte R. Lane, and Commissioner Irving A. Williamson voted in favor of the remedial orders. They provide their supporting analysis in two separate opinions. Chairman Daniel R. Pearson and Commissioner Dean A. Pinkert voted for a more limited form of relief. The Commission's written opinions will be made public after consultation with the parties to ensure the removal of confidential business information. The Commission is issuing a limited exclusion order that bars the importation of Qualcomm's infringing chips and chipsets and circuit board modules or carriers containing them. In addition, the exclusion order bars the importation of certain handheld wireless communications devices, such as cellular telephone handsets and personal digital assistants ("PDAs"), that contain Qualcomm's infringing chips and chipsets. The exclusion order does not apply to handheld wireless communications devices that are of the same models as handheld wireless communications devices that were being imported for sale to the general public on or before the date of the order, June 7, 2007. However, the order does bar the importation of new models of handheld wireless communications devices that contain Qualcomm's infringing chips and chipsets. Thus, the order "grandfathers" models of handheld wireless communications devices being imported into the United States for sale to the general public on or before June 7, 2007. The Commission is also issuing a cease and desist order that prevents Qualcomm from engaging in certain activities within the United States related to the infringing chips. The Commission reached its decision after careful consideration of the appropriateness of an order excluding from importation the "downstream products" that is, handheld wireless communications devices incorporating the infringing chips. The Commission found that an order excluding all downstream products would impose great burdens on third parties, given the limited availability of alternative downstream products not containing the infringing chips. However, as the infringing chips are not imported in significant quantities outside of downstream products, the Commission also found that an exclusion order covering only the chips and chipsets, and not downstream products, would afford little or no relief to the patent holder, Broadcom. The Commission determined that barring importation of downstream products, with an exemption for certain previously imported models, will substantially reduce the burdens imposed on third parties while affording meaningful relief to the patent holder. The Commission found that, while exclusion of all downstream products could adversely affect the public interest, particularly the public health and welfare, competitive conditions in the U.S. economy, and U.S. consumers, the exemption for previously imported models sufficiently ameliorates this impact such that the orders should be issued. The dissenting commissioners, Chairman Pearson and Commissioner Pinkert, determined that the appropriate remedy in this investigation is an exclusion order that would bar the importation of the infringing chips, and a cease and desist order that would bar the testing of the infringing chips, including chips that are incorporated into cellular telephone handsets. Chairman Pearson and Commissioner Pinkert determined that exclusion of all downstream products containing the infringing chips would adversely affect the public interest. Further, they declined to endorse the majority's order that "grandfathers" currently imported models of handheld wireless communications devices. Chairman Pearson determined that an order exempting previously imported and held wireless communications devices from exclusion would still adversely affect the public interest. Commissioner Pinkert determined, with regard to such an approach, that the Commission's record was insufficient to permit him to determine whether it was appropriate. Chairman Pearson and Commissioner Pinkert believe that their recommended order would provide appropriate and effective relief because it would place the direct burden of compliance on the infringing party rather than on third parties. It also would be easier to administer. ITC remedial orders in section 337 investigations are effective when issued and become final 60 days after issuance unless disapproved for policy reasons by the U.S. Trade Representative. Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, authorizes the Commission to investigate alleged infringement of U.S. patents and trademarks by imported articles. If the Commission finds infringement, then it must order that the infringing articles be excluded from importation, unless, after considering the effect of the exclusion order on statutory public interest factors, it finds that the articles should not be excluded. Background on this investigation: On June 21, 2005, the Commission instituted an investigation under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U.S.C. =15 1337, based on a complaint filed by Broadcom Corporation of Irvine, California ("Broadcom"), alleging a violation of section 337 in the importation, sale for importation, and sale within the United States after importation of certain baseband processor chips and chipsets, transmitter and receiver (radio) chips, power control chips, and products containing same, including cellular telephone handsets, by reason of infringement of certain claims of five U.S. patents (70 Fed. Reg. 35707 (June 21, 2005)). The complainant named Qualcomm Incorporated of San Diego, California ("Qualcomm") as the only respondent. On October 19, 2006, the presiding administrative law judge ("ALJ"), Judge Charles E. Bullock, issued an Initial Determination ("ID") finding a violation of section 337 with respect to U.S. Patent No. 6,714,983. The ALJ also issued a Recommended Determination ("RD") on Remedy and Bond, in which he recommended a limited exclusion order barring import of Qualcomm's baseband processor chips. On December 8, 2006, the Commission issued a notice of its decision to review and upon review to modify in part the ALJ's final ID. The modification made by the Commission did not change the finding of violation. The Commission also requested the parties to the investigation, interested government agencies, and any other interested= persons to file written submissions on the issues of remedy, the public= interest, and bonding. On January 25, 2007, respondent Qualcomm moved, inter alia, for oral argument and a hearing on the issues of remedy and the public interest. In view of the impact that an exclusion order covering downstream products might have on the public interest, the Commission held a public hearing on the issues of remedy and the public interest on March 21-22, 2007. The Commission announced its remedial orders on June 7, 2007. For further information, see the Commission's Federal Register notice dated June 7, 2007, which is available on the ITC web site. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 01:02:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Patent Ruling Strikes a Blow at Qualcomm By MATT RICHTEL The New York Times June 8, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO, June 7 - Millions of new mobile phones containing certain Qualcomm semiconductors could be barred from import into the United States under a ruling issued Thursday by a federal government agency in a patent dispute. Qualcomm said the ruling by the United States International Trade Commission, if it withstands an appeal, could prevent the importation into the United States of tens of millions of new mobile handsets designed for the Verizon, Sprint and AT&T Wireless networks. The agency ruled that Qualcomm, a semiconductor company based in San Diego, had infringed on a key patent belonging to Broadcom, a competing chip company based in Irvine, Calif., that is used in the design of chips made for advanced 3G, or third-generation, smart cellphones. Qualcomm said that it planned to appeal immediately to the federal court to block the ruling. The company also said that it planned to appeal to President Bush, whose trade representative, Susan C. Schwab, has 60 days within which to veto the ruling. The company said it sought "to avoid irreparable harm to U.S. consumers" and injury to the economy. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/business/08phone.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:24:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: eBay-nomics Modern economists have assumed that people in auctions behave rationally. Then came eBay. By Christopher Shea | June 10, 2007 In Rome, they called it calor licitantis, or "bidder's heat." If you got swept up in the passion of an auction and paid way too much for something, you could plead a form of temporary insanity, and the judges might step in and let you off the hook (and get you your money back). Good luck finding that kind of help the next time you overbid on that used iPod on eBay. You bid for it, you pressed the button, you bought it. The Romans knew something that modern economists lost sight of at some point: Auctions lead people to do weird things. For a long time, economists have explored and even reveled in the supposed purity of auctions, viewing them as uncannily efficient means of moving goods into the hands of people who value them the most. In fact, studying auctions has long been a fertile subfield within economics. The late economist William Vickrey won a Nobel in economic science, in part for his work in auctions. A 1961 paper of Vickrey's detailed the elegance of so-called sealed-bid, second-price auctions, in which the winner pays the price submitted by the second-place bidder. (Among other advantages, such auctions reduce the likelihood that a bidder will overpay for an item.) This spring, Harvard's Susan Athey, who helped British Columbia design timber auctions crucial to its economy, won the John Bates Clark Medal, given to the most accomplished economist under 40. Now, however, economists and other social scientists are as likely to be interested in the quirks and inefficiencies of auctions -- and the irrationality of bidders -- as in their elegance. And since eBay, the hugely successful online auction site, offers a mountain of data about sellers and bidders every day, its glazed-eyed devotees are the guinea pigs for this new wave of research. The new work -- call it "eBay studies" -- highlights the degree to which human psychological quirks, and not just supply and demand, drive auctions. Studies of eBay might ultimately help economists ensure that high-stakes auctions, like those through which the US government distributes the electromagnetic spectrum, are as efficient and fair as possible. But understanding eBay, with its $6 billion in revenues last year, is itself no small matter. http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/06/10/ebay_nomics/ ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:19:50 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 11, 2007 ******************************** Market Update BT Emerges on Top in U.K. VoIP Race http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/110/24833?11228 The United Kingdom's incumbent fixed-line telco, BT, has steadied its grip as the top VoIP provider in the country, despite the presence of new start-ups in the U.K. market. The company's 'BT Broadband Talk' already towers above its rivals, effectively snuffing out any hopes of a major VoIP drive in the country. In its ... Synterra Announces US$80-Mil. Outlay on Fibre-Optic Networks http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24831?11228 Alternative CIS operator Synterra has announced that it is investing US$80 million in the construction of fibre-optic networks this year, reports Prime-Tass. The networks-to be built by TechnoServ A/S-will stretch 6,500 km across 50 regions, and are due for completion in September 2007. Significance: After receiving a long-distance ... Interested Parties Take Positions in U.S. Spectrum Scramble http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24830?11228 Following the end of the period for public comment on how rules for the upcoming auction of spectrum should be set up, various interested parties have made comments. A new lobby group, calling itself The Wireless Founders Coalition for Innovation, has been set up by several influential players in the wireless business-including Amol ... GotZapp Gets Going http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24829?11228 Social networking technology is on the move -- from desktop and notebook PCs to mobile phone handsets. Helping to spearhead the transition is GotZapp, a mobile social networking software and service combo from Cincinnati-based software developer Trivantis. GotZapp allows users to create and send multimedia content to mobile phones in a ... Companies and the Customers Who Hate Them http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24828?11228 This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Why do companies bind customers with contracts, bleed them with fees, and baffle them with fine print? Because bewildered customers, who often make bad ... MVNO Malaise Strikes Again And Again http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24827?11228 Struggling French mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Ten Mobile has gone on the block, according to reports this morning, and fellow French MVNO Debitel has finally found a potential buyer after months of looking. Meanwhile across the pond it turns out that troubled American MVNO Ampd, which filed for bankruptcy protection... AT&T's New Navigation Service http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24824?11228 AT&T has announced that its wireless customers now have direct access to traffic information and rerouting services through TeleNav Traffic, offered initially on the BlackBerry 8800, BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry 8700c and the new BlackBerry Curve. TeleNav Traffic alerts users through voice and on-screen prompts to traffic ... Ericsson Snaps Up SDP Firm http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24822?11228 Only days after announcing the acquisition of billing company LHS Group , Ericsson AB has opened its wallet again to acquire service delivery platform (SDP) specialist Drutt Corp. for an undisclosed sum. Ericsson's move is yet another sign that the increasingly important but fragmented SDP market is entering a ... Qualcomm's 3G Chips Chopped http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24819?11228 A ban on some phones using Qualcomm Inc. chips won't exactly shake the industry, analysts say. A statement from research firm ISuppli Corp. today says the ban "will have only a limited impact on the global wireless communications industry in the short term." It estimates the ruling will affect 4.2 million phones, ... 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: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:50:59 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Qwest Chief Announces His Retirement USTelecom dailyLead June 11, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/heywfDtusXtAxOCibuddqAEP TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Qwest chief announces his retirement BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Embarq sees consolidation coming, eyes acquisitions * Stephenson: iPhone critical to AT&T strategy * China Mobile, Ericsson sign $1 billion contract * SEC could fine Nortel for alleged fraudulent accounting USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * USTelecom Urges Overturning Cablevision DVR Decision HOT TOPICS * Avaya snapped up by private-equity firms * Apple announces iPhone release date * Vodafone shareholder group calls for Verizon Wireless spinoff * DSL subscribers up 29% to 200 million * AT&T talks about plans for former BellSouth customers TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Oversi receives funding from Cisco * Nokia Siemens locks up IMS deal with Com Hem * New payment system uses biometric voice analysis * LiquidOffice 5.0 adds features for mobile business IP DOWNLOAD * Apple TV, Unbox go head-to-head for living-room dominance REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC upholds 2005 ruling on licensed WiMAX * Taiwan: 13 firms vying for regional WiMAX licenses EDITOR'S NOTE * New feature: dailyLead at work, home and on the road Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/heywfDtusXtAxOCibuddqAEP ------------------------------ Subject: When it Rains, it Pours Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:37:14 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Yes, for oldtimers, that statement was the sales motto of the old Morton Salt Company. At the start of the twentieth century, Mr. Joy Morton was a business associate with others in the Morkrum Company, the makers of the teletype machine. For others, that 'rain-pours' statement pertains to the weather. Like here in Independence, for example, if you do not like the weather, wait around for five minutes. We got _no_ spring weather season this year, just a bitter, icy winter that changed in a day or two to a hot, dry summer, and then, after several days of arid hot, dry weather, over this past weekend we had a real downpour. So much rain Sunday night in fact, combined with strong winds and tornado warnings we had more weather reports on the cable Sunday night than we had CSI-SUV police programs, which is quite unusual for the USA Network. And today, Monday, the television was busy reporting police warnings on the tickertape messages on the screen, talking about flooded and washed out highways and roads; we got plenty of rain Sunday night! But there is a third, 'rain-pours' example: my financial state of health runs like a teeter-totter. You may recall reading here last week my report on my own financial shortcomings in life: i.e. from when I was a little guy, I took the word of the government that social security would always protect me when I got old and feeble, (in other words, I did not save anything at all for my own future), and for the past two years I have tended to rely as much as possible on Google Ad Sense (a misplaced faith to be sure!) and Social Security Disability. That was the message, in essence. Then, many of you readers bailed me out, once again, with donations. The donations were generous; they not only filled my refrigerator for the rest of this Disability month (which begins and ends on the Fourth Wednesday of each Calendar month) but they smoothed things over and gave me a very good, comfortable feeling about this month. Then, on early Sunday morning (about 8 AM to be precise) _my_ roof fell in. No, I do not mean my literal roof, this is a hundred year old house which holds together so-so. By 'roof falling in' I am referring to my ancient (of undetirmined age) hot water heater. I woke up hearing water running in the hallway betweeen my bathroom and the computer room area. I went to look, and found water on the floor in the area, and a suspicious 'gurgling' sound coming out of the little closet where that feature (hot water) is made. The 'cut off' valve on the top of the tank, where the cold water supply goes into it was broken. Nothing could stop the water which was running down the side of the tank furiously! I called Mr. Rinck, the plumber and got his answering machine; not unusual considering it was now 8:15 on Sunday morning. He called me back in about 30 minutes, which is also not unusual, considering this is a small town with friendly people and he had done work here in the past in this house. In the meantime, my keeper Raymond had taken a 'street key' (long slender pole with a finger-like thing on the bottom) and gone out in our front yard and cut the water off at the city pipes. (You take off this metal cover in the yard, reach down in there several feet with the long rod, clamp around the cut off valve in there and twist it shut.) Mr. Rinck was preparing to come over and shut off the water himself; he approved of Raymond's quick thinking in the matter. "I'll be out later today to look at it", he said. Needless to say, I almost had a nervous breakdown the rest of Sunday morning. But after what seemed like hours (actually 45 minutes) here he is at the door and goes in to give a good look at the hot water tank. "As good as gone", was his phrase, and he added "let me try to cap it off here". "Nope, the cut off valve is shot, probably stripped years ago, let's leave it off at the street for now, tomorrow morning I will be over at 8:30 to do the job". Somehow, at that moment, I had a very good, warm feeling: _my hero was here to take care of it all_; I would have to live all day on this hot Sunday with no water, no ice cubes from the refrigerator, no toilet I could flush as needed (the reserve flush had already been used before he showed up), no evening shower; just endure and make do until sometime Monday. Monday at 9:00 AM he was here; new 40-gallon hot water heater on his truck, all his wrenches, pipes and other tools. "I want to show you something," he said, as held out a sales ticket from Woods Lumber, our local hardware/fixit store. "Three hundred sixty-eight dollars, sixty-eight cents" read the tag. "And of course, there is the matter of my fee, fifty dollars per hour", he said, "Things like this we no longer stock in our shop, we used to, but not when they got this expensive. Of course, we will work along with you ...". I almost had another coronary attack then and there. But by 11 AM, two and a half hours after he first started, the old hot water tank had been hauled away and the new one installed, with my water running once again. "Give it about 30-45 minutes to heat up, you will be all set." I went out on my back porch to try and calm my nerves; Mr. Rinck cheerfully waved goodbye and drove away in his truck. The final damage estimate, IMO, since I have not received his bill yet, $525.00 for new tank, new plumbing pipes as required, and his labor. As I said before, when it rains, it pours. I guess I should be (AND I AM) very grateful I do not live in Greensburg, KS where a month ago 95 percent of the entire town (population, about 2500 people) was destroyed by a tornado. At least my cozy little house is warm in the winter and semi-cool in the summer; at least I have friends here in town and my friends on the net. At least I have my social security disability money each month and my motorized wheel chair to ride in and my four best friends of all, the three female cats and Willie the minature pincher dog. I guess I am really sort of lucky after all. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #163 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jun 12 20:52:37 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 04D9B223F; Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:52:36 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #164 Message-Id: <20070613005237.04D9B223F@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:52:36 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:52:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 164 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Google Limits Data Retention in Compromise With EU (Eric Auchard, Reuters) Swedish Court Upholds File-Sharing Conviction (Niklas Pollard, Reuters) Telemarketer Ends Call, But Still Connected to Dialer? (KM) PBX / Keysystem Help Wanted (Michael.Mirany@gmail.com) Telecom, Consumer Groups Align With Cablevision (USTelecom dailyLead) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:17:29 -0500 From: Eric Auchard, Reuters Subject: Google Limits Data Retention in Compromise With EU By Eric Auchard Google Inc. is scaling back how long it keeps personally identifiable data accumulated from its Web users, seeking to mollify a European Union watchdog that has questioned its privacy policies. The world's top provider of Web search services said late on Monday that it is ready to curtail the time it stores user data to a year-and-a-half, the low end of an 18 to 24 month period it had originally proposed to regulators in March. But Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel said in a letter addressed to the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in Brussels that any regulatory requirement to keep data for less than 18 months would undermine Google's services. "After considering the Working Party's concerns, we are announcing a new policy: to anonymize our search server logs after 18 months, rather than the previously established period of 18 to 24 months," he said in the letter dated June 10. The server logs refer to software that stores Web search histories. "We believe that we can still address our legitimate interests in security, innovation and anti-fraud efforts with this shorter period," Fleischer added. Google is seeking to ease the concerns of regulators in Europe and the United States, as well as a small, but vocal, chorus of privacy activists, who see the scope of Google's Web services as posing unprecedented threats to consumer privacy. Each time a Google user searches the Web, the company gathers information about that customer's tastes, interests and beliefs that could potentially be used by third parties such as advertisers. Google shares general user statistics but is adamant it never shares personal data outside the company. The European Union body, made up of national protection supervisors of the bloc's 27 member states, said in May that Google seemed to be failing to respect EU privacy rules and asked for clarification before its next meeting in mid-June. Google has sought to take the lead in defining a global standard for rules governing online retention of consumer data. Other household Internet names -- including Amazon.com Inc, AOL, Apple Inc., eBay Inc. Microsoft Corp. and MySpace -- have yet to disclose any limits on how long they retain consumer data, according to a recent report by Privacy International. THINKING UP A NEW COOKIE RECIPE In the May letter, the Working Party also expressed concern about the length of time Google retains Web surfing tracking data known as "cookies" and other details on users' searches. Google said it was studying how it can meet the concerns of European regulators over cookies, a widely-used consumer tracking technology that Web sites rely on to customize what users see and advertisers use to target ads. "We are exploring ways to redesign cookies and to reduce their expiration," Fleischer states. "We plan to make an announcement about privacy improvements for our cookies in the coming months. In his six-page letter, Fleischer details the trade-offs involved in limiting how long Google stores its users' data before "anonymizing" it, industry lingo that refers to the cleansing of computer databases of personal information. The Google privacy official notes that the national data retention policies of individual European nations vary from six months to 24 months, depending on the country. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice has called for a 24-month data retention period, he notes. And post-Enron corporate reforms call for U.S. businesses to retain data for substantial periods. Google's aim is to seek out a single agreed-upon level of privacy protection to users worldwide. Fleischer underscored that it is "extraordinarily difficult" to operate a global Internet business according to different national standards. Google has more than 60 percent of the world's Web search business, market research groups estimate. A preliminary report released over the weekend by Privacy International of London accused Google of being the most hostile to data protections of any major Internet company, a charge that the company is seeking aggressively to rebut. (Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander in Brussels) 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: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:20:37 -0500 From: Niklas Pollard, Reuters Subject: Swedish Court Upholds File-Sharing Conviction By Niklas Pollard A Swedish court of appeals on Tuesday upheld the country's first conviction for sharing music files over the Internet without paying in what the recording industry hailed as a victory. The Appellate Court backed a verdict by a lower court in October last year that saw 45-year-old Jimmy Sjostrom fined 20,000 Swedish crowns ($2,843) for infringing intellectual property rights by sharing four music files. The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) hailed the conviction as a boost for intellectual property protection and said it could act as a deterrent. "The verdict only concerns four songs and it costs the one sentenced about 20,000 crowns in fines -- that is 5,000 crowns per song," IFPI said in a statement. "Illegal file-sharing is thus expensive when there are legal and cheap alternatives available over the Internet today." The legal action is part of a carrot-and-stick approach by the industry, which is pushing cases against illegal file-sharers while promoting legal music services such as Apple Inc.'s iTunes. Sweden made downloading movie and music files from the Internet illegal only in 2005 after having been singled out for criticism by Hollywood. But the Pirate Party, a political group that wants Sweden to re-legalize file-sharing, also claimed the verdict as a success -- saying it meant Swedish police would have a hard time finding file-sharers since they could only access Internet records for a crime that carries a jail sentence. "The verdict confirms that the penalty for file-sharing in Sweden today is a fine," it said in a statement. "For trifling crimes such as file-sharing, they are instead obligated to uphold their customer's right to anonymity." 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/internet-news.html ------------------------------ From: KM Subject: Telemarketer Ends Call, But Still Connected to Dialer? Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:00:59 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I was recently called by a telemarketer who was seemingly on a predictive dialer system, given the fact that I had to say "hello" twice before being connected to someone. I put the telemarketer on speakerphone, and once he was well involved in the sales pitch, I walked away to do something else and left him to make his pitch to an empty room. Eventually, I could hear him calling out my name and then ending the call after realizing that he was talking to no one. However, upon returning to the phone, it seemed as if the call had not really been disconnected. There was just dead air between intermittent clicking sounds. What was I connected to at that point (the predictive dialer?) and what was behind the clicking sounds? And will this show up on the telemarketer's phone bill or in their productivity stats as an unusually long call? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is just IMO, but if I understand predictive dialers, they are 'in charge' of the call; you are just a party to the call, the same as the telemarketer, but YOU are the 'most important' party; as long as YOU stay on the line, the predictive dialer will not disconnect. The 'clicks' you hear are the components of the predictive dialer attempting to 'test the line' for busy, meaning is it in use or not. It does not hear dial tone, therefore the line must be busy and it goes to some other port and tries that one instead. Depending on how many telemarketers work at that shop, chances are the predictive dialer has two or three more ports available to it (than employees on duty), so that it can keep on trying to stay even with (if not slightly ahead of) the number of telemarketers on duty. If you dialed in directly to a telemarketer's outgoing line you'd always hear that dead silence and occassional 'clicking' as it tried to find an outgoing line to use for a telemark- eter's outgoing call. I suppose that if you dialed in on (or were called by) enough telemarketers at the same shop, and you tried this with enough of them, very soon they'd all be sitting around with no calls to make. Your abandoning of the call off hook did nof affect the individual telemarketer's record all that much. He just eventually disconnected and the computer/predictive dialer simply connected him to a new call (although using a different outgoing line, of course, since you still had the one line off hook and busied out. I suppose it would show up as an exceptionally long call for the overall phone system however. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael.Mirany@gmail.com Subject: PBX / Keysystem Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:11:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com We are looking for assistance (fee based) to start a company which repairs and services PBX / Keysystems. We would like to work with somone who knows this business well. Regards, Michael [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you will find someone here who can help you! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:34:17 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Telecom, Consumer Groups Align With Cablevision in Network-DVR Fight USTelecom dailyLead June 12, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hflMfDtusXtGaACibuddZHKJ TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Telecom, consumer groups align with Cablevision in network-DVR fight BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Onex signs on to help acquire Bell Canada * Deutsche Telekom CEO: T-Mobile USA key to long-term strategy * SureWest turns to Mirapoint * FTTH subscribers on the rise in Japan * Analysis: Samsung closing in on Motorola's No. 2 spot USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Get the answers at NXTcomm! TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Nokia's Wibree to become Bluetooth standard * Juniper to debut new core router * Media companies to test YouTube's video-ID software * Digital-signature technology ensures authenticity IP DOWNLOAD * IPTV testing needed to address challenges REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * States could legislate driving while texting Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hflMfDtusXtGaACibuddZHKJ ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:54:55 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 12, 2007 ******************************** CWTA Argues Against Subsidies in Spectrum Auction http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24856?11228 The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) has petitioned the Canadian government to limit the levels of subsidy and other benefits available to companies engaging in the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum auction, due to take place in 2008. The call for action (or rather inaction) was particularly scathing ... Bluetooth Links Up With Rival Technology http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24851?11228 NEW YORK -- The consortium behind the Bluetooth wireless standard announced Tuesday that Nokia Corp., the world's largest maker of cell phones, is contributing a technology that promises to bring the wireless connections to devices that are too small for regular Bluetooth chips. The technology, called Wibree, opens up the ... Deutsche Telekom CEO: Sale of T-Mobile USA Would Be "Shortsighted" Move http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24848?11228 FRANKFURT, Germany -- Deutsche Telekom AG's chief executive, Rene Obermann, said Tuesday that its U.S. cellular unit is a key part of the company's long-term strategy, dismissing suggestions it should be sold off. Obermann said that, despite a few calls by shareholders for T-Mobile USA to be sold, any decision to do so ... German Union ver.di to Restart Talks With Deutsche Telekom http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24846?11228 FRANKFURT, Germany -- Services union ver.di said Tuesday it would resume negotiations with Deutsche Telekom AG, a new effort to try and end five weeks of walkouts at Europe's biggest telecommunica- tions company. Union spokesman Lothar Schroeder said the union would meet with Deutsche Telekom on Wednesday to work on reaching ... Ericsson signs $1 billion deal with China Mobile http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24843?11228 Ericsson has signed an agreement with China Mobile, valued at $1 billion, to expand the carriers GSM network. China's President Hu Jinato was at the contract signing in Stockholm, marking the first time a Chinese president has visited Sweden since the two countries began a diplomatic relationship in 1950. In a company statement, ... Wireless Experts Push FCC For Open-Access E-Block Plan http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24841?11228 A new group of veteran wireless entrepreneurs -- the Wireless Founders Coalition for Innovation -- sent a letter last week to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to provide its 'real-world' perspective for why 'open access' requirements are critical for the proposed 700 MHz E Block (TelecomWeb news ... Nokia's US Enterprise Headache http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24838?11228 Nokia Corp. may be the world's top handset maker, but there is one area where the Finnish giant has failed to make headway -- the U.S. enterprise market. Nokia has seen enterprise net sales in the first quarter of this year leap in almost every region except the U.S. The firm also reported North American device ... Signs of Life at Newport http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24836?11228 VOIP equipment maker Newport Networks plc may have spent a long time on the ropes recently, but it looks like the session border controller (SBC) vendor isn't out for the count, after announcing new customers and a partnership in recent weeks. Newport today announced a deal with U.K. VOIP wholesale outfit nPlusOne, but its ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #164 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jun 13 16:39:39 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 38897218A; Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:39:39 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #165 Message-Id: <20070613203939.38897218A@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:39:39 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:40:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 165 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ad Software Maker OpenAds Decides to Take on Google (Eric Auchard, Reuters) Microsoft Posts Critical Security Fixes (Jessica Mintz, AP) eBay in Patent Fight Over 'Buy it Now' Feature (Sonja Barisic, AP) Twenty Percent Increase in NY Verizon Rates (Danny Burstein) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Telemarketer Destroyer (Mike Sandman) Nokia Siemens Takes Aim at North American Market (USTelecom dailyLead) 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Scam Artist! (Patrick Townson) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:03:55 -0500 From: Eric Auchard, Reuters Subject: Ad Software Maker OpenAds Decides to Take on Google By Eric Auchard Openads, a supplier of free software used by Web sites to manage online ad campaigns, has received $5 million in initial funding, bolstering it to prepare for increasing competition globally with Google Inc. The financing round is being led by Index Ventures, and joined by early-stage U.S. firm First Round Capital, Europe-focused Mangrove Capital Partners, and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, an arm of the U.S. technology publisher. London-based Openads was founded as a grassroots, open-source software development project in 1999. It has signed up 25,000 Web site publishers in more than 100 countries and 20 languages. "In a way, this has been one of the best kept secrets on the Web," said Saul Klein, a partner with Index Ventures, who was previously marketing chief at Web-telephone company Skype. "What we liked about Openads is that they're disrupting the market and (it) has secured significant, global adoption." Openads powers more Web site publishers than all competing products combined, it said, albeit small players. It is popular with users of other open-source content management systems, including Drupal and WordPress blogging software. The community-based project turned 10-employee start-up company relies on an open series of discussion boards http://forum.openads.org/ to service its customers, solicit feature requests, and trade advertising techniques. "What publishers love about Openads is that it is intuitive, easy to use, solid and they can peek under the hood and see how it works," Klein said. "But more than anything they love the fact that it is free." Instead of charging up-front, Openads supplies hand-holding services to publishers, as well as more advanced services to bigger publishers. A big strength is its global distribution. Only 30 percent of customers come from the United States. The rest come from markets such as Poland, Brazil and Russia. Openads makes money in part from referral fees that advertising networks pay it for connecting them to publishers who use its software. Customers include blog ad network Federated Media, Sun Microsystems Inc. and online music site Last.fm. Simplistically, Openads' ad-server technology competes with DoubleClick Inc. in the market for ad-serving services. But Marissa Gluck of media research firm Radar Research in Los Angeles said they operate at opposite ends of the market. DoubleClick, which is seeking regulatory approval of its plan to be acquired by Google for $3.1 billion, focuses on high-end advertisers, while Openads serves up ads for customers who install and run their own ads, relying on multiple advertising networks to sign up advertisers. Instead, Gluck sees Openads coming into competition with Google's mainstay advertising service, AdSense, its pay-per-click text ad delivery system that is transforming itself into both a text and graphical ad service. "Their main competition is really AdSense," Gluck said. The difference between the two is that Google AdSense provides an online hosted service offering both ad-serving and ad network functions, while Openads does only ad-serving and then connects its customers to independent ad networks. That poses challenges for Openads as Google AdSense is the most popular advertising network among Openads customers, according to the company's site. Other Openads networks, which function like online ad agencies, include Commission Junction, Tradedoubler of Sweden and ValueClick Inc.. "I think of it as an evolution more than a competition," Openads founder Scott Switzer said in a phone interview. "When publishers are small, they will download Google (advertising) tags and put them on their page. The next step up is Openads." As part of the venture capital investment, Bernard Dalle and Saul Klein of Index Ventures and Gerard Lopez from Mangrove Capital will take seats on Openads board. 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: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:06:32 -0500 From: Jessica Mintz, AP Subject: Microsoft Posts Critical Security Fixes By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Business Writer Microsoft Corp. released four critical patches Tuesday to plug security holes in several versions of its Windows operating system, Internet Explorer Web browser and other programs. The patches that carried Microsoft's highest security warning all are to prevent malicious hackers from remotely taking control of computers without permission. Three of the patches aim to protect Windows users who unwittingly expose their computers to attack by visiting Web pages infected with malicious code, or look at similarly tainted e-mails with Outlook Express or Windows Mail. A fourth patch prevents hackers from gaining remote access to PCs by installing a specially crafted program. Two of these critical updates fix holes in the company's newest operating system, Windows Vista, which Microsoft has touted as the most secure ever. Vista went on sale to consumers at the end of January; in April, Microsoft broke its once-monthly update schedule with an emergency fix after Microsoft and security experts found that hackers were exploiting a hole in the way Vista and other versions of Windows handle animated cursor files. Besides the critical fixes, Microsoft released a patch for its Visio program for making diagrams and a vulnerability in Windows that could allow unauthorized users to break into computers to steal passwords and other user information. Microsoft also released seven non-security, high-priority updates Tuesday, including a monthly update to a tool that removes harmful software from PCs. On the Net: http://www.microsoft.com/security 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: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:12:56 -0500 From: Sonja Barisic, AP Subject: eBay in Patent Fight Over 'Buy it Now' Feature By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press Writer A small Virginia company in a patent fight with eBay Inc. asked a federal judge Tuesday to stop the online auction powerhouse from using its "Buy It Now" feature allowing shoppers to buy items at a fixed price. A federal jury found in 2003 that eBay had infringed Great Falls-based MercExchange LLC's patent. But last year, the U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory to patent-reform advocates when it ruled that MercExchange was not automatically entitled to a court order blocking the offending service. Now, U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Friedman must decide whether MercExchange is entitled to a permanent injunction. The judge did not say when he would rule. Friedman also did not immediately rule on eBay's request to stay the proceedings until the federal patent office has completed a re-examination of the patent -- a process that MercExchange's lawyers said could take 10 years. Lawyers for San Jose-based eBay told the judge that the company has designed a workaround so that it no longer infringes on the patent and thus an injunction is unnecessary. Attorney Jeff Randall also said MercExchange has not suffered irreparable harm and that the company is better off now than it was before the trial, citing an investment by a hedge fund. MercExchange's attorneys, however, argued that the potential for future infringement is at stake and that MercExchange will not be able to sell exclusive licenses for use of its patent without an injunction. "Without an injunction in the face of an infringing monopolist that now has 95 percent of the market, MercExchange cannot make productive use of its patent in any way," lawyer Seth Waxman said. Randall said an injunction would give MercExchange "illegitimate leverage," hurting eBay's reputation in the marketplace by making people think eBay is still infringing the patent. "That's what they want," Randall said of MercExchange. Randall also said MercExchange is not interested in building its business. "They sit back and try to collect from businesses for their patents, and that is it," he said. In arguing for a stay, Randall said waiting for the outcome of the patent re-examination would save a lot of litigation in the meantime. "I get the impression that, in a nice legal way, the court is being threatened," the judge said. MercExchange attorney Greg Stillman said it was wrong to wait for patent authorities to sort everything out and that eBay could have avoided a lot of litigation by asking for the re-examination much earlier. The patent battle focuses on eBay's button for buying products at a fixed price, bypassing the bidding process, and MercExchange's claim that the technology infringes on its intellectual property. The federal jury that sided with MercExchange awarded the company $35 million. The amount later was reduced to $25 million. Stillman said outside court that MercExchange intends to ask the judge to increase the damages to take into account infringement since the 2003 trial. The Supreme Court's ruling does not affect the judgment against eBay. In the closely watched case, the high court ruled that judges have flexibility in deciding whether to issue court orders barring continued use of a technology after juries find a patent violation. The decision threw out a ruling by a federal appeals court that said injunctions should be automatic unless exceptional circumstances apply. The case became a rallying point for critics who argue the U.S. patent system is riddled with abuse from small businesses that sue established companies to enforce patents for ideas that have never been developed into products. On the Net: http://www.ebay.com http://www.mercexchange.com 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/internet-news.html http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: Twenty Percent Increase in NY Verizon Rates Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:47:39 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC from a "Legal Notice" in today's newspaper (reformatted) [a] "Notice of proposed tariff filing for certain rate changes .. they will go into effect on June 16, 2007 "Dial tone monthly access line rate - residence service - current rate: $ 9.85 - new rate: $11.85 [a] NY Daily News Tues 11-June-2007 p. 70 _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It appears to be a twenty percent increase doesn't it? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:00:31 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 13, 2007 ******************************** U.S. Business Key to T-Mobile Growth http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24881?11228 Following shareholder requests and rumours that T-Mobile may sell off its U.S. operations, Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann has re-iterated that the company has no plans to sell off the unit, stating that "the U.S. business is a core business of the mobile communications business and therefore of Deutsche Telekom." In ... Secret Agent Man http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24877?11228 THERE ARE VARS and there are VARs. CDW is one of the country's largest. And with 2006 revenue of $6.8 billion, it is one of the country's largest companies -- No. 343 on the Fortune 500 list. If you are in business, you've no doubt heard of it and you might even be a customer. If you are in the technology business, you almost ... Bright LED Promises Enhanced Handset Displays http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24872?11228 Tired of squinting at handset displays that wash out in bright sunlight? Help may be in sight. Two University of California at Los Angeles researchers have developed an LED that promises bright and beautiful color at a cost lower than conventional display technologies. By using a new type of plastic infused liquid, engineering ... Broadcom to Purchase Global Locate http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24870?11228 Broadcom has agreed to acquire Global Locate, a provider of GPS products and software, for nearly $146 million in cash. If agreed-upon performance goals are met, Broadcom will pay an additional $80 million in cash to the former holders of Global Locate stock. Founded in 1999, Global Locate has innovative GPS solutions that will add ... Nortel Embraces Big Blue's VoIP Too http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24867?11228 Nortel and IBM, both perhaps burning the candle at both ends, this morning announced a deal to offer 'unified communications' combining IBM's hardware and software with Nortel's VoIP and multimedia solutions. The deal sounds almost like a carbon copy of the landmark deal Nortel signed with Microsoft last year, set up ... Virgin Revamps DNS Strategy http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24865?11228 Virgin Media says a small investment in new domain name server (DNS) technology it's deploying should make its broadband services appear faster to customers and make its network more secure. The U.K. cable operator, known as NTL before it adopted its new name earlier this year, is "investing a few hundred thousand ... Battles Brew Over Mobile TV http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/110/24863?11228 Mobile TV is becoming an emotional issue in Europe, with carriers disputing each other's customer claims in Italy, and major operators challenging European Commission proposals for the adoption of DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) as the standard technical platform for mobile TV service delivery. Italians Squabble ... Substantial Market Niche Emerging for Wi-Fi/Cellular Phones http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24861?11228 SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- A recent survey of US early adopters by high-tech market researcher, In-Stat, found that almost half of those respondents planning to replace their cell phones want Wi-Fi capability. To meet the growing demand, there is an avalanche of dual-mode phones in the pipeline. By the end of this year, the Wi-Fi Alliance ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:00:28 -0500 From: Mike Sandman Subject: Telemarketer Destroyer Hi Pat, We have a new gizmo, called the Telemarketer Destroyer. The thing itself is very funny when used, but at the end of our page we have a recording from a radio show of a comedian named Tom Mabe yanking the chain of a telemarketer (I guess he does that for a living?!?). He drives a red VW bug that's modified to look like a phone. It's one of the funniest bits I've ever heard, at the expense of a young telemarketer trying to sell him satellite TV. The link is towards the end of: http://www.sandman.com/destroyer.html I don't know if you get many telemarketers calling you, but it sure feels good to use it! It connects to the handset of a regular phone with the dial in the base -- if you have one near your PC (you can feed whatever audio you want from your PC to the phone). The only thing I'm happy about is that the telemarketers seem to avoid cell phones -- but when I do get the occasional call on my cell phone I can feel my blood pressure going up as soon as they start their pitch. BTW, I got rid of the Nextel, and went to Verizon. I don't remember if I gave you the Verizon number, but I had that turned off and ported the old number over to Verizon. Nextel was horrible, and Verizon isn't much better. Donna showed me a postcard Nextel had the guts to send us a few weeks ago saying something like "We know the service is terrible in your area, but we're planning on fixing it." Unbelievable! Mike Sandman 630-980-7710 mike@sandman.com - http://www.sandman.com Check out our catalog of Unique Telecom Products & Tools. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mike Sandman is a long time friend of the Digest -- ten or twelve years -- and I very strongly suggest that everyone spend some time purusing his online catalog. For example, they 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. You might also check out their 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 Mike and his wife Donna are among the few businesses on the internet which really care about and are concerned for their customers and interact with them regularly. And their baby parakeets still have the run of their office/warehouse and make for interesting viewing on their web cam. Just start at the beginning of their site http://www.sandman.com and look around. If you get out of there without finding one telephone oddity or another which you decide to purchase, I'll be surprised. _By all means_ at least check out the new Telemarketer Destroyer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:02:02 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Nokia Siemens Takes Aim at North American Market USTelecom dailyLead June 13, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hiakfDtusXtJlhCibuddiwsN TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Nokia Siemens takes aim at North American market BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Sprint snaps up wireless affiliate Northern PCS * Deutsche Telekom: No plans to expand in developing countries * Verizon Business builds out optical long haul network * AT&T to use re-branded retail stores to sell broadband * Engin launching Australian broadband service without fixed-line rental fees USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Register Now for VIP NXTcomm Access! TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * AT&T working with Hollywood to target pirated content * Nokia makes multimedia investment * Study: Customers unaware of mobile-number portability * Broadcom buys Global Locate * Telesurgery trial connects surgeon with robot 4,000 miles away IP DOWNLOAD * IPTV traffic to drive need for network upgrades * Truphone adds presence to VoIP offering REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Senators question FCC commissioner on USF EDITOR'S NOTE * New feature: dailyLead at work, home and on the road Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hiakfDtusXtJlhCibuddiwsN ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:00:00 CDT We get 'Dr. Phil' on Channel 7 on CableOne here in Independence each weekday at 3:00 PM. It just now came on today, and the good doctor is complaining that his name and reputation has been ripped off by some Nigerian-407 style con artists. Someone got a toll free 800 number listed as 'Doctor Phil' and when anyone calls 800 directory assistance for (the real) Dr. Phil, the directory robot operator gives them the number for the bogus 'Doctor Phil'. The person on the other end claims to be the producer of the show, and asks for money to set up an interview with him. Naturally, the money (at least a few hundred dollars, typically a thousand or more) has to be wired to the con-artist on the spot. He has an FBI investigator and others looking into it. Thus far, it has been traced to somewhere in Houston, TX, where the calls terminate on various phone lines. Two victims thus far have wired money to the scammer in Houston, each of them from desparate elderly people who were convinced to send large amounts of money to the bogus 'Dr. Phil'. On television they are trying to lure the con-artist out into the open. The scammer claims the money should be wired to 'Esther Hernandez' who is (the bogus) Dr. Phil's secretary. More details on this in the next issue of the Digest. Now I want to go in and watch the rest of it on television myself. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #165 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 14 15:49:37 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 31944224D; Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:49:36 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #166 Message-Id: <20070614194937.31944224D@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:49:36 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:50:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 166 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Google Searches Web's Dark Side (BBC News Wire) Malicious Code On Rise: Web Sites Responsible (BBC News Wire) Teenage Internet Addict Kills Mother, Assaults Father (Reuters News Wire) Lawsuits Mounting Over Massive Customer Data Breach at TJX (Monty Solomon) That iPhone Has a Keyboard, but It's Not Mechanical (Monty Solomon) Re: Twenty Percent Increase in NY Verizon Rates (T) Re: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist (Sam Spade) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Re: When it Rains, it Pours (John Mayson) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:20:46 -0500 From: BBC News Wire Subject: Google Searches Web's Dark Side One in ten web pages -- about ten percent -- scrutinised by search giant Google contained malicious code that could infect a user's PC. Researchers from the firm surveyed billions of sites, subjecting 4.5 million pages to "in-depth analysis". About 450,000, or ten percent of those examined, were capable of launching so-called "drive-by downloads", sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user's knowledge. A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user's computer, the team report. To address the problem, the researchers say the company has "started an effort to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious". Phantom sites Drive-by downloads are an increasingly common way to infect a computer or steal sensitive information. They usually consist of malicious programs that automatically install when a potential victim visits a booby-trapped website. "To entice users to install malware, adversaries employ social engineering," wrote Google researcher Niels Provos and his colleagues in a paper titled The Ghost In The Browser. Finding all the web-based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web Avoiding attacks "The user is presented with links that promise access to 'interesting' pages with explicit pornographic content, copyrighted software or media. A common example are sites that display thumbnails to adult videos." The vast majority exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to install themselves. Some downloads, such as those that alter bookmarks, install unwanted toolbars or change the start page of a browser, are an annoyance. But increasingly, criminals are using drive-bys to install keyloggers that steal login and password information. Other pieces of malicious code hijack a computer turning it into a "bot", a remotely controlled PC. Drive-by downloads represent a shift away from traditional methods of infecting a computer, such as spam and email attachments. Attack plan As well as characterising the scale of the problem on the net, the Google study analysed the main methods by which criminals inject malicious code on to innocent web pages. It found that the code was often contained in those parts of the website not designed or controlled by the website owner, such as banner adverts and widgets. Widgets are small programs that may, for example, display a calendar on a webpage or a web traffic counter. These are often downloaded from third-party sites. The rise of web 2.0 and user-generated content gave criminals other channels, or vectors, of attack, it found. For example, postings in blogs and forums that contain links to images or other content could unwittingly infect a user. The study also found that gangs were able to hijack web servers, effectively taking over and infecting all of the web pages hosted on the computer. In a test, the researchers' computer was infected with 50 different pieces of malware by visiting a web page hosted on a hijacked server. The firm is now in the process of mapping the malware threat. Google, part of the StopBadware coalition, already warns users if they are about to visit a potentially harmful website, displaying a message that reads "this site may harm your computer" next to the search results. "Marking pages with a label allows users to avoid exposure to such sites and results in fewer users being infected," the researchers wrote. However, the task will not be easy, they say. "Finding all the web-based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web as a whole," they wrote. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6645895.stm Copyright 2007 BBC 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/BBC.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:23:42 -0500 From: BBC News Wire Subject: Malicious Code On Rise: Web Sites Responsible Malicious code rise driven by web The number of new pieces of malicious software has doubled in the last year with the web being used increasingly to distribute the code, a report says. In the first quarter of 2007, security firm Sophos identified 23,864 threats, up from 9,450 on this time last year. In the same period the firm said it was identifying 5,000 web pages per day infected with so-called malware. The report was released during InfoSec, Europe's largest conference on online security issues, in London. "With computer users becoming increasingly aware of how to protect against email-aware viruses and malware, hackers have turned to the web as their preferred vector of attack," said the report. Legitimate sites Sophos reported that 70% of infected websites were legitimate sites hijacked by hackers because they had not been sufficiently protected. Visitors to websites -- even legitimate sites -- can protect themselves by ensuring they have up-to-date virus and anti-spyware software installed. "What's most worrying is that so many websites are falling victim because the owners are failing to properly maintain them," said Carole Theriault, Sophos. Search engine Google will warn users if they are visiting a website which is known to have malware hidden on it. While malware is a growing problem for users of Windows operating systems, there is little evidence of the problem affecting users of Apple Macs running OS X or PCs installed with Linux. Sophos cited the example of the Miami Dolphins official website which was hijacked in the week of the SuperBowl and was infected with malicious script. The code exploited Microsoft security vulnerabilities to install malware located on a Chinese server on to visitors' computers. "What's most worrying is that so many websites are falling victim because the owners are failing to properly maintain them and keep up to date with their patches," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. "The average internet user assumes sites like the Miami Dolphins homepage are safe to access, but by targeting a whole range of internet pages, hackers are successfully infecting a larger number of unwary surfers. Any ill-maintained website can fall victim." According to the report, China hosts more than 40% of all websites containing malware. The United States hosts almost 30% of all sites, while the UK has 3% of the sites. 'Bad reputation' "China has traditionally had a bad reputation when it comes to cybercrime, consistently coming in the top two spam relaying countries month after month, so its position in this chart should come as no real surprise," said Ms. Theriault. Now, 'Two for the price of one' In a separate report, security firm MessageLabs warned that it was beginning to see e-mails which were _both spam and contained a virus._ "While the cyber-criminals have long used e-mail viruses to create botnets to send spam, this is the first time MessageLabs has seen viruses hidden within stock scam spam," the firm reported. Spammers sent out millions of fake stock e-mails in an attempt to influence the price of stock so it rises and can then be sold at a profit by the fraudsters. It is a practice known as "pump and dump". "Why use two emails when just one will do? These latest techniques are part of a new boldness being shown by certain criminal gangs we are tracking," said Mark Sunner, chief security analyst at MessageLabs. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6591183.stm Copyright 2007 BBC. 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/BBC.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Indeed, why make two efforts at mass mailing spam/scam when it can all be done in one mailing. I've received a few of those; spam/scam/viri wrapped up all in one jumbo package. Whoever thought of this time and money-saving technique of doing it all at once deserves our special commendation (or would you say damnation). A special, reserved spot in Hell, eh? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:20:01 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Teenage Internet Addict Kills Mother, Assaults Father Over Money A teenage boy in southern China, "heavily addicted" to the Internet, killed his mother and severely injured his father with a kitchen knife after he was refused money to go to a cybercafe, state media said on Thursday. Wang, from Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, stabbed his mother to death at home during a heated argument, the Beijing Youth Daily said. "After his father got home, Wang hacked at him causing serious injury. Seeing what he had done, Wang went to his room and sat on his bed," the paper said. Wang's father ran bleeding to his brother's house, who then alerted the police, it said. Wang had resolved to kill his parents a month earlier, and had once prepared to kill his father with an iron bar. He had also recently bought sleeping pills, the paper said. He said he had seen this earlier in a video game he liked to play at the cybercafe. Wang, who was "less than 16" but had left school a year before, would spend his spare time in Internet cafes when not working for his father who made a living selling barbecue food in their neighborhood. He had dreamed of being an outstanding politician or economist and believed his parents were stifling his development, the paper said. "They were mean to me when they would not give me the money I wanted to play internet video games at the cybercafe", he explained. China has seen an alarming rise in the number of Internet addicts in recent years, who it says may be responsible for up to 80 percent of juvenile crime. In recent months, China has banned the opening of new cybercafes in 2007 and issued orders limiting the time Internet users can spend playing online games. 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: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:48:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Lawsuits Mounting Over Massive Customer Data Breach at TJX http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/business/x1289425994 By Mark Jewell/Associated Press Boston - The TJX Cos. Inc. faces federal lawsuits in five additional states over a data theft that exposed at least 45 million credit and debit cards to potential fraud, according to a regulatory filing Thursday by the owner of stores including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. A quarterly filing said TJX was named in nine new lawsuits filed since the Framingham-based company's March 28 update on a theft believed to be the largest in the U.S. based on the number of customer records compromised. Thursday's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission says complaints seeking class-action designation on behalf of customers were filed in April and May in the federal courts of five additional states: Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Texas. Three new lawsuits were filed over the past two months in Massachusetts, where cases had previously been brought earlier in the year. The March 28 filing had listed more than a dozen lawsuits in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico and six Canadian provinces. The Massachusetts cases against TJX have been consolidated. In addition to listing TJX as a defendant, some of the lawsuits also name Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp, which processed some payment card transactions for TJX. TJX said in Thursday's filing that it "intends to defend all of these actions vigorously," and Fifth Third has said it believes there are "substantial defenses" against the claims it faces. Most of the complaints have been filed by TJX customers whose personal data was stolen. But some have been brought by financial institutions saddled with costs to replace cards and cover fraudulent charges tied to the theft. In April, bank associations in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine sued TJX, the owner of nearly 2,500 discount stores. TJX disclosed the breach on Jan. 17, and said March 28 that one or more intruders unearthed data from at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards from transactions as long ago as early 2003. Independent organizations that track data thefts say the TJX case is believed to be the largest in the U.S. based on the number of customer records compromised. TJX says about three-quarters of the 45.7 million cards had either expired by the time of the theft, or the stolen information didn't include security code data from the cards' magnetic stripes. However, TJX also has said the intruders could have tapped the unencrypted flow of information to card issuers as customers checked out with their credit cards. The only arrests so far have come in Florida, where 10 people who aren't believed to be the TJX hackers are accused of using stolen TJX customer data to buy Wal-Mart gift cards. Last month, TJX said its first-quarter profit dipped 1 percent, in part due to a $12 million after-tax charge from costs related to the theft. Nevertheless, TJX reported a 6 percent increase in revenue as customer traffic remained strong despite negative publicity about the theft. On Thursday, TJX said sales at stores open at least a year rose 5 percent. Shares of TJX fell 77 cents, or about 2.7 percent, to close at $27.74, after the May sales report and before TJX's SEC filing. Besides its T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores, TJX operates HomeGoods, A.J. Wright and Bob's Stores in the United States, Winners and HomeSense stores in Canada, and T.K. Maxx stores in Europe. Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted. Copyright 2006-2007 GateHouse Media, Inc. Some Rights Reserved. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 23:17:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: That iPhone Has a Keyboard, but It's Not Mechanical By JOHN MARKOFF The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO, June 12 - If there is a billion-dollar gamble underlying Apple's iPhone, it lies in what this smart cellphone does not have: a mechanical keyboard. As the clearest expression yet of the Apple chief executive's spartan design aesthetic, the iPhone sports only one mechanical button, to return a user to the home screen. It echoes Steven P. Jobs's decree two decades ago that a computer mouse should have a single button. (Most computer mice these days have two.) His argument was that one button ensured that it would be impossible to push the wrong button. The keyboard is built into other phones, those designed for businesspeople as well as those for teenagers. But the lack of a keyboard could be seen as a clever industrial design solution. It has permitted the iPhone to have a 3.5-inch screen. A big screen makes the phone attractive for alternative uses like watching movies and that could open up new revenue streams for Apple and its partner, AT&T. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/technology/13phone.ready.html?ex=1339387200&en=cb1776bd5e878ba2&ei=5090 ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Twenty Percent Increase in NY Verizon Rates Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:41:29 -0400 In article , dannyb@panix.com says: > from a "Legal Notice" in today's newspaper (reformatted) [a] > "Notice of proposed tariff filing for certain rate changes > .. they will go into effect on June 16, 2007 > "Dial tone monthly access line rate > - residence service > - current rate: $ 9.85 > - new rate: $11.85 > [a] NY Daily News Tues 11-June-2007 p. 70 > _____________________________________________________ > Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key > dannyb@panix.com > [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It appears to be a twenty percent > increase doesn't it? PAT] Ah, the dying gasps of Verizon. It's the same here in RI, they've lost 43% of their local loop business and their answer is to hike rates. Granted, I think the biggest hike is 13% but still, now they'll be MORE expensive than their competitors. The Providence Journal recently did a comparison between Verizon and Cox. The cost per month between the two only varies by a couple dollars. This is what happens when a duopoly is in control. Fortunately I found a way around it all. A 20mbps net service from Cox is $51 a month. My Vonage service is $33 a month. I'm loving it. I also have a decent TV antenna (Made of copper AWG 24 wire of course!) and a joost membership. So I'm not missing anything. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can't get by _quite_ that inexpen- sively here in Independence, KS. TV antennas are basically useless unless mounted quite high with expensive rotors attached. Being 80-125 miles away from the nearest television stations (Tulsa, to the south; Wichita and Topeka to the northwest/north and Pittsburg/Joplin, MO to the east) and much further away to Kansas City, we can choose to turn the antenna north by northwest for a choice of two stations and forget about Tulsa, or south/southeast for a compromise between Tulsa and Pittsburg, KS/Joplin, MO, but forget about Wichita/Topeka. Cable TV is almost an essential even if 'basic cable' is sort of skimpy by itself; at least the cable grabs all three 'markets', Tulsa, Wichita and Pittsburg/Joplin; in addition one or two of the KCMO stations. And we get Fox! Cable channel 3 although it is the 'Tulsa Market Fox' rather than than the 'Pittsburg/Joplin market Fox Network.' But -- CableOne does offer internet as well, and they are starting phone service in a month or so. Rates quoted on both are inexpensive. I suspect I will discontinue Vonage once CableOne gets its phone service started. One thing in its favor for me is that CableOne has a local office here in Independence and a local, in-town crew working in the office and in the field. Whenever -- quite rarely -- I call them on any sort of repair matter, they are here in an hour or less. They say once telephone service starts they will be in a position to port our existing 620-331 phone numbers as desired, using a 'phone modem' which is sort of like my 'cable modem' but for phone and cable internet in one unit. I doubt I will move my 620-331 phone number, in which case they will give me a 620-330 number to replace Vonage, most likely. When I call on the phone or stop by their office on Penn Street downtown, I get whatever I want in five minutes or less. Like yourself, I am not missing anything, except the crowds of people in line waiting to get service. That's why I love Independence: every thing I deal with, cable internet/TV, telephone service, gas, electric, even Social Security, has a _local_ office here in town with _local_ employees handling it. We now even have WiFi for our internet all over the downtown area; it would be nice if it was all over town, but having it in three or four downtown areas is a quite good start. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:48:20 -0700 Organization: Cox Anyone who would pay money to speak with the real "Dr." Phil is probably no worse off with the con artist. ;-) TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > We get 'Dr. Phil' on Channel 7 on CableOne here in Independence each > weekday at 3:00 PM. It just now came on today, and the good doctor > is complaining that his name and reputation has been ripped off by > some Nigerian-407 style con artists. Someone got a toll free 800 > number listed as 'Doctor Phil' and when anyone calls 800 directory > assistance for (the real) Dr. Phil, the directory robot operator > gives them the number for the bogus 'Doctor Phil'. The person on the > other end claims to be the producer of the show, and asks for money > to set up an interview with him. Naturally, the money (at least a few > hundred dollars, typically a thousand or more) has to be wired to the > con-artist on the spot. He has an FBI investigator and others looking > into it. Thus far, it has been traced to somewhere in Houston, TX, > where the calls terminate on various phone lines. Two victims thus > far have wired money to the scammer in Houston, each of them from > desparate elderly people who were convinced to send large amounts of > money to the bogus 'Dr. Phil'. On television they are trying to lure > the con-artist out into the open. The scammer claims the money should > be wired to 'Esther Hernandez' who is (the bogus) Dr. Phil's secretary. > More details on this in the next issue of the Digest. Now I want to > go in and watch the rest of it on television myself. > PAT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am amused by your comparison. :) You are probably correct. On the Wednesday show, Dr. Phil was outraged by this ripoff; he spent the entire hour dealing with it, and it will be continued on today's show. The imposter is apparently not all that sophisticated; the wo(man) claiming to be his producer/secretary is sort of crude, but smart enough many of his would-be guests were decieved by the trick. It has all been traced thus far to Houston, TX, at least that's where Western Union wires money to the imposter. I do not know which I like better on the afternoon television lineup around here: Dr. Phil, Judge Judy or Jerry Springer. Maybe I will stick with the classical music programming on KOSU, along with the NPR newscasts. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:24:03 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 14, 2007 ******************************** Investing in the Future http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24909?11228 Virtually everyone now agrees that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not a management fad but rather a key part of doing business in today's marketplace. The CSR agenda presents genuine risks to many areas of corporate performance and to a company's overall reputation. Communications providers need to stay ahead of the ... Uncertainty as TeliaSonera's CEO Quits http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24908?11228 Nordic telecoms giant TeliaSonera has announced that its chief executive officer (CEO), Anders Igel, will quit the company, following declining profit margins and the failure of the company's leadership to resolve ownership disputes in Turkey and Russia. Igel, who has been chief executive for five years, engineered the merger of ... EU Rules Out Scrutiny of Telecom Italia, Telefonica Deal http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24906?11228 The European Union (EU) will not rule on a bid by a consortium led by the Spanish telecoms giant, Telefonica, to take a controlling stake in Telecom Italia as the deal does not fit the criteria for EU anti-trust involvement, according to reports from Dow Jones. The report notes that EU competition regulations state that the ... Microsoft to License Instant Messaging, Digital Media Code to Linspire http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24901?11228 SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corp. has announced it will license instant messaging and digital media technology to a small desktop Linux distributor, Linspire Inc., adding to a growing number of deals meant to help the Windows operating system work more smoothly with open-source software. San Diego-based Linspire's relationship with ... Clearwire: Making the Internet Mobile http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24898?11228 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Speaking at the Wireless Communications Association (WCA) in the nation's capital yesterday, Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff described his company as "doing for the Internet what cellular did for voice." Wolff went on to say that Clearwire's strategy is to give consumers what they want, that being ... Zhone Electrifies FTTH http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24895?11228 Zhone earlier this week took the wraps off of what looks to be the world's first Optical Line Terminal/Optical Network Terminal (OLT/ONT) Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Gateway that doesn't need to be powered by the home electric circuit. Theoretically that eliminates the big power outage bugaboo surrounding fiber -- but of course ... AlcaLu Plays the Patents http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24888?11228 Alcatel-Lucent is pumped about the top-line potential of its patent portfolio, with CEO Pat Russo spending a great deal of her time focused on how to extract the maximum payback from the company's combined intellectual property, according to industry sources. That the vendor regards its patent portfolio as a strength is ... FastSoft Wades Into the WAN http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24886?11228 Caltech spinoff FastSoft is the latest entrant to the WAN optimization arena, with a TCP technology it claims can significantly speed file delivery over the Internet. The startup, which launched its first products earlier this year, also clinched a $4 million funding round this week, led by Miramar Ventures. ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:31:08 -0500 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Re: When it Rains, it Pours Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com PAT, I know you're feeling about like Job now. What else can the Big Man dish out to you? Just guestimating your age, I could be your oldest son. But even in that short of a time span I have seen my share of ups and downs. I have had days where I literally did not want to get out of bed because something else bad would happen. If it's any consolation, things won't stay bad forever. I sometimes think that it's good when bad things happen all at once. It gets them out of the way and doesn't spoil it when a good thing happens. I think you're not alone in your Social Security predicament. People who either remember the New Deal or perhaps their parents did, think the government can work wonders for the people. I grew up during a much more cynical era, that the government is full of incompetent morons who have never heard the term "budgeting money". I'm at least 30 years away from retirement. I am assuming Social Security will provide me nothing. Unfortunately many, many, many people assumed the government would keep its word and that Social Security would see them through. The next decade in this country is going to be very interesting. Millions of baby boomers are going to join the "government payroll" all at once. I don't see how we're going to do it. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My age is 65 as of September 24. So how old are you? Had I not become disabled I would still be working for another few months and eligible to retire at 65 years and a few months. Because I became disabled (by the goverment's harsh defintion of same) and because _not all of_ the rules pertaining to Social Security had been changed at the time at the age of 58, I squeezed into the disabled person's 'special rules' at SSD. The rule _had been_ if you became permanently disabled at 58 or older, the government treated you as 'disabled' until age 65 and then 'on paper only' made you fully retired at age 65. Now I understand the rules have changed for that as well, and had my brain aneursym occurred a few months after it did (I became effectively disabled as of 11-24-99) I would have gotten a few months' additional squeezed out me as well. 'Permanent' disability is defined by the government as seven years. 'Disabilty' is thus defined when SSD's own payroll doctor makes it such. SSD had a psychiatrist come here to my house in late winter, 2000 to examine my brain and associated functions. In his estimation, my 'disability' was 'permanent'. Therefore, I would be scheduled for another visit to have my brain examined in seven years, or 2007. But the 'special rules' kicked in because of my age. So, in two months, or September, 2007 I will be 'cured' on paper and become 'retired'. I do not yet understand _why_ I came out of the coma I had been in for more than two months. Social's doctor could not understand it either, saying "most people with any aneurysm -- let alone a brain aneurysm -- usually die on the spot, or certainly they expire in their comatose state." My own doctor and therapists at Storemont Vale Medical Center in Topeka said the same thing. They all thought I was really sort of a curiosity. To the medically unsophisticated, an 'aneurysm' is similar to, but not identical to a 'stroke'. In the former, a blood vessle swells up like a balloon before breaking. They all attributed my partial paralysis to 'permanent brain damage' in some part of my brain. Although in some ways I _have_ improved physically (not as confused as at first, but speech still remains slurred) I still limp around and use my motorized chair to get around and cannot walk more than a half block or so without being extremely winded and tired. Everyone agreed that the majority of the brain damage I endured was as a result of the delay in getting me into the hospital for surgery, etc. (125 mile ride in back of the ambulance from Western Kansas over to Topeka down I-70 in evening traffic, after a cursory examination at Geary County Hospital first.) I suppose I am glad I lived another day to write more Editor's Notes, but I cannot imagine why I was given that courtesy. Must have been some reason for it. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #166 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 15 03:20:34 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 5791A227E; Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:20:34 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #167 Message-Id: <20070615072034.5791A227E@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:20:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:22:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 167 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Texas Sex Police Arrest Seven MySpace Members (Reuters News Wire) NATO Says Urgent Need to Tackle Cyber Attack (Reuters News Wire) Reloading a Cell Phone's Microprogram? (Lisa Hancock) Alcatel-Lucent Platform Gives Service Providers More (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Cleaning up Some Odds and Ends (Lisa Hancock) Re: When it Rains, it Pours (mc) Re: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist (Linc Madison) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:41:57 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Texas Sex Police Arrest Seven MySpace Members Texas police arrested seven convicted sex offenders after MySpace handed over identity details about the former members of the Internet social network, the Texas attorney general's office said on Thursday. The seven, whose profiles on MySpace had already been removed under an internal program to weed out sex offenders prowling the News Corp.-owned site, were arrested for breaking parole or probation rules. The arrests, which occurred over a two-week period, come after authorities in several states asked MySpace to hand over information on convicted sex offenders. The seven offenders had been convicted of sexually assaulting girls as young as 4 years old. Most victims were between 13 and 21 years old. Six of the men were arrested because they had MySpace profiles even though their parole conditions banned them from using the Internet. One was arrested because he had failed to register as a sex offender with local authorities. MySpace began working with authorities in May after tense negotiations over the legality of divulging its users' information. "Texans will not tolerate criminals who prey on our children," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement. "These convicted sex predators established online identities on a Web site that is popular with teenagers and children." Most states require convicted sex offenders to register their contact information with local authorities after being released from prison. Lawmakers are now pushing for the registration of valid e-mail addresses as part of the requirement. MySpace commissioned background verification firm Sentinel Safe Tech Holdings Corp. to create a national database of sex offenders last year, after reports that some of its teenage users were abducted by sex predators. "We partnered with Sentinel Tech to build this technology to remove registered sex offenders from our site and to ensure that law enforcement could arrest those who were violating their probation or parole," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a statement. Before the national database was created, information on convicted sex offenders was available only locally. 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: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:45:17 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: NATO Says Urgent Need to Tackle Cyber Attack NATO defense ministers agreed on Thursday that fast action was needed to tackle the threat of "cyber attacks" on key Internet sites after Estonia suffered a wave of assaults on its computer networks last month. "There was sentiment round the table that urgent work is needed to enhance the ability to protect information systems of critical importance," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told a news conference at a two-day meeting in Brussels. "They (the attacks on Estonia) were sustained, coordinated and focused. They had clear national security and economic implications," he said. "That will be the subject of work here." Estonia suffered an onslaught of cyber attacks on private and government Internet sites, peaking in May after a decision to move a Soviet-era statue from a square in Tallinn prompted outrage from Russian nationals in Estonia and a diplomatic row with Moscow. The attacks appeared to have stemmed initially from Russia although the Kremlin denied it was behind the assaults. Network specialists said the attacks consisted of a barrage of clicks on a given Web site, leading to overload. Some sites faced up to 1,000 clicks a second, compared with a normal level of 1,000 to 1,500 clicks a day. Estonia said they affected thousands of sites and were akin to a terrorist attack in their potential to cripple key infrastructure. It urged NATO to recognize such incidents as an emerging threat. "We got more support than we expected, particularly with this acknowledgement of an urgent need to react," Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo told Reuters during a break in the meeting. NATO officials said the 26-member alliance, which sent a technology expert to Estonia at the height of the onslaught, would study how it could step up existing work within NATO and national capitals on tackling the cyber threat. 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/internet-news.html ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Reloading a Cell Phone's Microprogram? Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:40:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com When I got my new cell phone I had to dial in a special code for the phone to download some microcode. I was told to do so periodically so as to get fresh updates. I assume these downloads are protected from viruses and sabotage by dialed direct to the carrier. But is there any risk? Is there anything checking I as a lay consumer can do? I've heard that there are malicious downloads out there. I use the phone for voice only, but given the insidious nature of computer malware*, perhaps some party could shoot some crap at me without me knowing it. Frankly, I know nothing of cell phone technology. (I didn't even know it had updatable microprgramming). Suppose down the road I want to try to download music or some other advanced optional feature. How can I protect myself? Thanks! *I recall even back in BBS days a virus would mute the modem speaker, then dial a very expensive overseas country and do stuff, all without the computer user aware of it since the modem speaker was muted and most lay uers had no idea of background operations. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:33:14 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Alcatel-Lucent Platform Gives Service Providers More Options USTelecom dailyLead June 14, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hirAfDtusXtMyoCibuddPchp TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Alcatel-Lucent platform gives service providers more options BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Verizon adds FiOS franchises * Filings reveal Alltel talked to other buyers * Ericsson strategy gives it an edge in China, India USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Experience What's Hot at NXTcomm! TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Group mulls ultrawideband over coax standard * AT&T taps Networx subcontractor * Bharti Airtel starts FMC pilot tests * Microtek to distribute Wavecom products in Japan IP DOWNLOAD * Raketu uses VoIP as foundation for new social-net portal REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Court halts NTT from selling stake in Sri Lanka Telecom Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hirAfDtusXtMyoCibuddPchp ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Cleaning up Some Odds and Ends Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:55:11 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 9, 6:05 pm, ptown...@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote: > I apologize for earlier this week when I interuppted the conversations > in progress for one of my periodic money requests. Can money be sent to your PO box? > I also, once each year, get two interesting benefits: food sales tax > exemption (a flat payback of $72 for the prior year) for whatever I > paid in food sales tax. In Penna and NJ, regular food (not junk food [ie candy and soda] or restaurant food) is exempt for sales tax. Also most clothing. I don't know why this isn't that way in all places. > That's another thing: the monthly federal payout on Disability is Your lucky you can get Social Security Disability. Some years ago they steeply raised the qualification. Most people were turned down and had to appeal, which meant they had to get an expensive lawyer. One day I was at the post office when a frail man asked me for help to interpret a letter. It was from the Disability determination unit. It was printed in all caps and completely (at least to me) confusing. How could a frail or uneducated people make sense of it? I was angry. Fortunately, at least the letter was signed by a real person with a real direct telephone (not a answer battery) number. I circled the name and number and suggested the man call her to discuss what needs to be done. Back in the Depression, the New Deal created an alphabet soup of government programs to help people in trouble. These programs indeed literally saved thousands of lives (and the country from revolution). But they created a bureacratic nightmare that exists to this day. During WW II the government paid a stipend to the dependents of soldiers. A massive bureacracy was created with an enormous IBM information processing data center (IBM's biggest set up). One thing that bothered me was that if a soldier was killed, the checks stopped immediately, indeed, they would go through the mail trays (envelopes ready to go out) and search out checks already printed and stuffed, to pull payment. (This was detailed in their Annual Report). I guess they had to do it that way to be fair, rather than let one family slide for 3 months and another family not slide at all depending on how fast the death notice came through. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To answer your first question; yes, asolutely on the address: PO Box 50, Independence, KS 67301. If you use that address, obviously a check is safer than cash. In Kansas, 'food stamps' (actually an ATM card called 'Vision' with a credit card number in the Discover Card range, i.e. '6034xxxxxxxxxxxxx' is used. Those cards are exempt from sales tax and CAN be used for 'junk food', but NOT for 'ready to eat' food, for example microwave sandwhiches in convenience stores, nor tobacco nor liquor, nor animal (or any non-human edible) food. I do _not_ receive any variation on 'food stamps', either state or federal. The latter of these are none the less administerd by state welfare programs, as agents for the federal government. Although the federal (versus state) requirements are a bit looser, my 'income' (almost entirely SSD, as paltry as it is) is still too high. As a separate thing, state of Kansas chooses to rebate a flat-rate $72.00 annually to senior citizens or certified disabled persons against the food sales tax they paid all year long at the cash register. If I had a Vision Card and swiped it at the cash register, food sales tax is automatically calculated from the total amount due (when the grocery purchase is deducted from the allotment given.) If I tried to claim the $72.00 also, or 'double-dipped' I am sure before too many years they would catch up with me. As a senior, either I get the $72 once a year _OR_ I pay no food sales tax at all with the Vision card; but not both. One good thing about living in a small town like Independence is that everyone knows everyone else and many times are friends. It also helps that we have a full service Social Security office here in our town. The office has _three_ employees plus the male manager.(Two clerks and a 'service representative'). The manager is also a member of the 'Friends of the Independence Public Library' committee, the same as myself, and perhaps has other pursuasions similar to my own. I know every person (all three of them!) working in that office. We do not socialize, but we know each other and are friendly aquaintences. Maybe I pass one of them in a local restaurant and nod, etc. When I go in their office, there are never any other clients there, or maybe one or two. Talking to a woman working there one day I asked her, "Have you ever been to Chicago, or worked for Social Security there?" She said, "no, but I have heard the SSA office there is a large place." I explained to her that customers go in, take a number and wait 30-45 minutes for the number to be called, _then_ go stand in a line behind other customers approaching one of several booths with service reps. She clucked her tongue, rolled her eyes and said it sounded pretty awful. Yeah, I guess so. There are definite advantages to rural s.e. Kansas culture, not the least of which is lots of personal aquaintences in 'good' places. Everyone, literally, knows everyone else in this town. Now days also, Social does not mail out _nearly_ as many checks as they used to. They much prefer direct deposit which gives them up to a matter of a few hours the day before payment to put a stop on the payment if they wish. And payments are scattered all through the month. If your payment previously was on the third of each month, then it stayed that way. But 'newer' clients (like myself) fall into payment 'groups' based on our social security numbers. Some on the first of each month, some on the third, and for most of us, the four payment groups are the first four Wednesdays of each month. I am in the fourth (Wednesday) pay group. If First Wednesday is also the first or third day of the month, then checks are issued to first pay group on the second day of the new month, otherwise if Wednesday X pay group is a holiday, the checks are delivered on Tuesday. In other words they space them all out over a month. I always get my direct deposits between the 22nd of the month and the 28th for the _prior_ month. And they do not hesitate to pull it back if, in their opinion, you have lost your entitlement. They do not pay if you go to a nursing home under a state welfare program; they do not pay if you have been convicted of a crime and are currently incarcerated. They are getting quite tough. I never have a single problem with Social ... the deposits are always in the bank on the day they say they will be. I did have a hassle with food sales tax/homestead tax rebate once, in 2002. I had put in the form at the county clerk's office early in January, which means the refunds come in about two weeks via mail, but in that year, 2002, instead I got back a copy of a warrant from the accounts recievable offset office of the state treasurer. It seems the City of Junction City, KS (where I was at when I had the aneurysm) had filed a tax refund offset for the overdue ambulance bill between Junction City and Topeka for a few hundred dollars. I got Junction City to release the warrant, and shortly thereafter the state treasurer sent my food/homstead tax rebates to me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: When it Rains, it Pours Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:14:23 -0400 Pat, remember that with brain injuries, 5 years can make a big difference even if 1 year seems not to. We all wish you a long life and continuing recovery. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I remember getting email from someone in 2000 commenting on my (then, just recent) aneurysm experience. He complained that never having taken a drink in his life, several years earlier he had been driving a car that had been struck by a drunk driver. It left him in pretty dreadful shape, and even at that time, then ten years following the accident, he was still walking around with a limp. He said to me, "go figure', and that things 'happen' in life. I do not know if I have 'recovered' any in the past five or six years, or if it is only a case where I have learned to compensate for my new shortcomings. I do know in a few cases, my heath has gotten worse. I had gotten to the point I was able to walk around with a limp; now I cannot go a block on my own without my motorized chair and oxygen supply. Please remember that since getting back home after the aneurysm I have since had another heart attack (stent now installed) and had peumonia. I also have COPD to deal with. But thanks for your good wishes on my eventual recovery. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:03:32 -0700 From: Linc Madison Organization: Linc Mad dot com In article , PAT wrote: > I do not know which I like better on the afternoon television lineup > around here: Dr. Phil, Judge Judy or Jerry Springer. Maybe I will > stick with the classical music programming on KOSU, along with the NPR > newscasts. Oh, but there are so many other choices: Star Trek on channel 42, the afternoon political lineup on channel 43, King of the Hill and That 70's Show on channel 55, or even Golden Girls on channel 29. For talk shows, you've got Ellen Degeneres on channel 13, followed by Oprah on channels 6 and 9. Failing that, there's always Al Jazeera English via the Internet feed. You can watch the low-bandwidth feed for free at http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1EBB4C7F-7F2E-4257-A04C-56678862 E31A.htm (or click on "Watch Now" on the main page) Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom at Linc Mad d0t c0m URL: < http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits Read my political blog, "The Third Path" US, California, and Washington State laws apply to LINCMAD.COM e-mail. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We get all those shows you mentioned on our own cable at our own time, etc. King of the Hillbillies is on Fox Channel 3 following the Simpsons (America's favorite disfunctional family) at 6:00 PM nightly. Oprah is on here in the morning on two or three cable channels, mercifully not all at the same time. Among the cartoons such as King of the Hillbillies (as I call Hank Hill and his friends) and the Simpsons, my favorite is probably 'South Park' featuring those bratty children. Oh, and I must also mention 'CSI-Special Victims Unit' with those two lying, no-good police officers, Elliot Stabler and his partner Olivia Benson. They are always getting into some trouble or another it seems, as we might expect with the sterling good-as-gold reputation of the New York PD. In one of tonight's adventures, Olivia and Elliot are telling one of their prisoners, "If you want us to help you, then help us." The prisoner replies, "You mean like you helped Abner Louima by sodomizing him with that plunger handle?" Elliot flinches when he hears that comment. _Of course_ the prisoner refuses to talk further to either of the two clowns without having his attorney present. Those two are such a barrel of laughs, and quite inspirational, several times daily on USA Network. I guess you may have heard that at the end of season eight, all four of them get canned along with their captain, by the NY police internal investigations board, which Elliot and Olivia and Officer Munch and Ice-T refer to as the 'rat squad', "because they are always making trouble for us good police officers".. Say, Linc, do you know how to tell the difference on USA Network between a regular programming day and a CSI-SVU 'marathon' like they had last weekend? Well, if it is a 'marathon' then it is at least a couple dozen CSI-SVU shows back to back, hours on end; they alternate with a couple of would-be pedophile episodes, then a rape or two, and some other kinky crap such as a gay guy who they accuse of being a cannibal, but all straight SVU. If it is a regular programming day, then they only run three or four CSI-SVU shows in a row, take a break for CSI-Criminal Intent; (another goofball detective and his hilarious sidekick), and then go back to three or four more SVU programs. And don't forget the good folks at MSNBC: Their thing now at night seems to be alternating between their boy with the hidden cameras and the Perverted Justice group of vigilantes and the documentary they frequently play on life in the Los Angeles County Jail. I would give up my cable entirely if it were not that I want internet connections and NPR out of Tulsa (KOSU) comes in a lot better with the cable connected to the radio also. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #167 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 15 16:04:40 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id B323221B2; Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:04:40 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #168 Message-Id: <20070615200440.B323221B2@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:04:40 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:07:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 168 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Data on Ohio State Workers Stolen (Stephen Majors, AP) GE Money Teams up With eBay to Start eBay Master Card (Deepti Chaudhary) Single-Slot Payphones (History) (Lisa Hancock) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Surveys Show AT&T Faces Massive Demand for iPhone (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist (John Hines) From Our Archives: A Quaint Relic on Computer Spying (Archives Reprint) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:11:03 -0500 From: Stephen Majors, AP Subject: Data on Ohio State Workers Stolen By STEPHEN MAJORS, Associated Press Writer A data storage device with the Social Security numbers and other personal information on all 64,000 Ohio state employees was stolen from a state intern's car last weekend, Gov. Ted Strickland said Friday. "I don't mean to alarm people unnecessarily," Strickland said. "There's no reason to believe a breach of information has occurred." He said it takes special equipment to access the information on the device, so he doesn't believe the workers' privacy is in jeopardy. Strickland said an Office of Budget and Management intern assigned to an interagency computer project mistakenly left the disk, a backup, in a vehicle parked outside an apartment Sunday. The intern, who informed his supervisor of the theft Monday, is being investigated, the governor said. Strickland said he was not allowed to specifically describe the computer device, or other details surrounding the theft, under direction from law enforcement investigating the theft. It was just the latest case of personal information on thousands of employees disappearing or being inappropriately accessed. Several universities, corporations and even the Veterans Affairs Department have reported lost or stolen data. In the Ohio case, Strickland said the state would provide employees access to free identity protection services for the next year, a cost he estimated at about $660,000. He also issued an executive order to change state procedures for handling such data. Under protocol in place since 2002, a first backup storage device is kept at a temporary work site for a state office along with the computer system that holds all the employee information, and a second backup device is given to employees on a rotating basis to take home for safekeeping, officials said. Strickland said it was inappropriate for an intern to be designated that responsibility, and he ordered an end to the practice of employees taking the devices home. State Budget Director Pari Sabety said the device now would be stored in another location in a locked, fireproof box. 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: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:14:42 -0500 From: Deepti Chaudhary, Reuters n Subject: GE Money Teams up With eBay to Stsrt eBay Master Card GE Money, the consumer lending unit of General Electric Co., said it will offer eBay Mastercard in partnership with eBay in late June. EBay will provide promotional and branding support for card and GE Money Bank will be responsible for issuing the card, and providing customer service, billing and credit management, the company said in a statement. (Reporting by Deepti Chaudhary in Bangalore) Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Single-Slot Payphones (History) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:10:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The original 3-slot payphone, where coins dropping rang bells to indicate amounts, is now seen only in old movies. It was a very long- lasting design. In the 1960s the Bell System developed a replacement model that would be more efficient, suitable for automation, and more vandal resistant. It contained a single slot for coins and was in a boxy shape. Originally introduced in high demand locations, it eventually became the standard. Externally at least, the single slot phone offered by the baby Bell successors, looks the same. Many still say "BELL SYSTEM Western Electric" on some part. They have real mechanical ringers, not electronic. However, I presume the innards, even of basic models, are more advanced than that of the 1960s model. For the basic models in baby Bell service, would anyone know if there are significant changes from the 1960s version? Or, are they just using old units that they have a large inventory of? Thanks. ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:42:43 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 15, 2007 ******************************** State Regulation of VoIP Services: Get Ready, It's Coming http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24926?11228 Soon, in a hearing room at the Missouri Public Service Commission, state regulators will try to make the case that Comcast's 'Digital Voice' VoIP service should be regulated as a competitive telephone service. If they succeed, the Missouri Commission may not only take a significant step toward establishing VoIP - or ... Becoming Pivotal Part of Communications http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24923?11228 The Sprint joint venture with cable companies has started to roll out across the country with bundled quad-play services. Names of new corporations these days often don't provide a clue about what the company's business may be or how the company views itself. Not so with Pivot, the weeks-old name of the Sprint joint venture ... Croatian Government to Sell Up to 23 Percent of Croatian Telecom http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/24921?11228 ZAGREB, Croatia -- The Croatian government decided Friday to sell 20-23 percent of shares in the Croatian telecommunications company -- controlled by Deutsche Telecom -- on the stock market. The sale is tentatively set for September, the deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec said. The shares of HT-Hrvatske ... Report: Mobile Operators Slow Spending http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24919?11228 According to a report from research and analysis firm Pyramid Research, capital expenditures by mobile network operators will slow in 2007. Even though network operators increased spending at double-digit rates in 2005 and 2006, new technologies and changing business models are affecting the mobile landscape and consequently the ... Cable to Face Second 'Family' Act http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24914?11228 Two legislators have proposed a bill that would require MSOs to offer family-friendly programming and looks to push Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin's desire to push an ala carte programming model on the cable industry. The bill, introduced by Reps. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Jeff Fortenberry ... Sprint: WiMax Options Open http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24911?11228 Sprint Nextel Corp. is promising a WiMax 'market update' at the NXTcomm show in Chicago on June 21. This follows a report that the company may be considering more partnerships centered around the wireless broadband technology or even a spinoff of its WiMax unit. Sprint tends to announce new towns and cities where ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:55:41 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Surveys Show AT&T Faces Massive Demand For iPhone USTelecom dailyLead June 15, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hjgIfDtusXtSjdCibudduofI TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Surveys show AT&T faces massive demand for iPhone BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Analysts high on three regional phone carriers * AT&T adds $10 broadband plan * Hutchison Whampoa increases stake in Hutchison Telecom * Verizon forges retransmission deal with Nexstar USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * CNBC'S Bartiromo to moderate Washington Policy Makers panel at NXTcomm TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Clearwire extends reach with satellite-provider deals * Nortel helps deliver Rev A to Mexico * Canada's ISPs look for ways to make money off infrastructure investments * Free 411 service wants license fees from competitors * AMI, MagnaChip push forward in ultra-low-power space IP DOWNLOAD * ATIS releases IPTV standard for end-to-end IPTV * Granada, Orange sign deal for video-on-demand in France REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Spectrum-public-safety plan debated at Senate hearing Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hjgIfDtusXtSjdCibudduofI ------------------------------ From: John Hines Subject: Re: 'Dr. Phil Show' Gets Ripped Off by Con Artist Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:55:54 -0500 Organization: www.jhines.org Reply-To: john@jhines.org > In article , PAT wrote: > Oh, and I must also mention 'CSI-Special Victims Unit' with those two > lying, no-good police officers, Elliot Stabler and his partner Olivia > Benson. I think you mean Law & Order: Special victims, as it has those actors. CSI:whatever is on CBS, where L&O:spinoffs is on NBC, at least for original runs. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct on the title, and I stand corrected. Sorry. I still maintain that Unlawful & Disorderly (all flavors of it) is on USA Network sooooo much. On a typical day, Unlawful & Disorderly and the 'stories' presented by the cops takes up too much time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ptownson@telecom-digest.org Subject: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Spying Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:00:00 CDT For a special treat this weekend, I have a book review on the 'Rise of the Computer State' which was published more than 23 years ago in this Digest, in 1984, when people were talking about the book by the same name which had been published thirty or forty years before _that_. I assume David Burnham who wrote the book we are reviewing today, has himself grown wiser over the years. In fact, if he is still around, he might favor us with a 2007 'revision'. I think Rob Kling might have grown more wise also. As usual, ignore all these email addresses; I doubt any of them are used any longer. PAT =============================================== 11-Jan-84 22:49:51-PST,24630;000000000000 Return-path: Mail-from: DECNET site ECLA rcvd at 11-Jan-84 2248-PST Date: 11 Jan 1984 1353-PST From: Rob-Kling Subject: Review- Rise of the Computer State To: telecom@USC-ECLC Received: from UCI-20b by UCI-750a; 11 Jan 84 14:08:56 PST (Wed) Via: UCI; 11 Jan 84 21:21-PDT Via: Usc-Cse; 11 Jan 84 22:41:56 Rise of the Computer State by David Burnham Published by Random House, New York - 1983. Review by Rob Kling Department of Information and Computer Science University of California, Irvine (KLING.UCI@RAND-relay) This book examines the ways that Federal agencies and elected officials have employed computer-based information systems (CBIS) to increase their power unfairly. Burnham's main theses are: 1) that CBIS have often been effective media for extending the surveillance potential of the host organization; 2) overall, citizens have lost substantial power in their routine dealings with computer-using organizations; 3) attempts to regulate the use of CBIS containing personal records have been frail and largely ineffective relative to the scale of operations that should be regulated; 4) some organizations which employ sophisticated CBIS for intelligence, such as the National Security Agency, are unaccountable to the larger public. These theses have a sinister tinge. As we enter 1984, the United States is far from a police state. However, Burnham fears that the slow, steady, consistent adoption of new surveillance systems and the expansion of existing ones is eroding democratic political processes in the United States. If he is correct, these are arguably the most important consequences of computerization in the United States. This is a trade book aimed at the same audience that reads "Megatrends", "The Third Wave", or "Fifth Generation". Unlike these highly popular books which are permeated with happy talk about the social possibilities of widespread computerization, "The Rise of the Computer State" examines the seamy underside of organizations that employ CBIS to collect, manipulate, and communicate sensitive data about all of us. Burnham, a New York Times reporter, has written this book for a popular audience. Its strengths lie in Burnham's sensitivity to the civil liberties issues in practices that might simply appear "expeditious" and in his eye for graphic detail in explaining how organizations employ CBIS to make their operations efficient and "effective." Burnham examines two themes that link computerization with a certain kind of organizational power: surveillance of "targeted" people or groups and opinion polling. In a separate chapter he examines the National Security Agency which he labels "the ultimate computer bureaucracy." SURVEILLANCE Some organizations act under legislative mandates that many people would label "pro-social". For example, the Bureau of Child Support of the Los Angeles District Attorney's office uses CBIS to seize California State tax refunds from certain runaway fathers who are delinquent in their child support payments. A second group act within the boundaries of legal, but unduly permissive information practices. For example, a company called U.D. Registry provides landlords with histories of disputes with previous landlords, maintains records which are usually unknown to tenants and does little to insure that they are treated fairly. A third group of organizations engage in action that are either illegal or nearly so. For example, U.S. Army's surveillance of liberal and leftist activists in the late 1960's, extended well beyond the scope of "national security." Burnham portrays these activities with sharp detail that give color to routine practices and their participants. Burnham is a staunch civil libertarian and sees all social surveillance as problematic. It is easiest to criticize organizations like the U.S. Army when they intrude upon political minorities and thereby threaten First amendment rights. It is also easy to criticize some of the "holes" in CBIS such as those operated by U.D. Registry, which are unknown to people on whom records are kept, and who are not legally obligated to enable people to see their records, correct errors, or annotate their files case of disputes. Burnham's criticisms reach much further than identifying the problems with CBIS employed by the second and third groups of organizations. He questions the first group as well. Burnham's questions about organizations and systems for tracking runaway fathers who leave their children on welfare illustrates of his concerns about social strategies which depend upon extensive surveillance for enforcement: 1) will the original target group be slowly enlarged until it is much larger than originally intended in the enabling legislation? 2) can the information system be extended by local officials for surveillance upon "others who fall into disfavor?" Burnham reports how the scope of these systems has expanded from locating parents who were avoiding child support payments and whose children were receiving funds from Federal welfare programs to include any parent whose (ex)spouse seeks the other parent of their children. Burnham notes that there are few constitutional limits on the scope of such an surveillance system. Why not, for example, expand its scope so that creditors can track down their debtors? Or why not expand it expand it so that people can locate lost relatives and old friends? While these "information needs" are less heart wrenching than the situations of women who turn to public assistance when their ex-husbands refuse to pay court-mandated child support, they are also "pro-social." Burnham argues that little prevents surveillance systems such as this one from being slowly expanded to track ever larger groups of people than legislative sentiment and a fragile coalition of legislators who are sympathetic to civil liberties values. Burnham uses this example to illustrate another key feature of recent surveillance systems: records systems which are set up for rather narrow purposes of one organization are used by investigators in another organization. The Parent Locator System, for example, is not a particular, specialized CBIS. Rather, it is a set of procedures and arrangements which enable certain investigators to send lists of "missing parents" to the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, the Defense Department, the Veterans Administration, and the National Personnel Center. Each of these organizations honors these requests, searches its CBIS for the current locations of the "missing parents" and returns the information to the requestors on magnetic tape. While many CBIS could be operated as manual systems, these searches would be prohibitively expensive add-ons with manual record systems. However, the marginal costs of search are affordable with computerized record systems. The Parent Locator "System" is one of many "matching programs" in which public agencies use existing files to search for deviants. Organizational payroll files have been "matched" against welfare files to find gainfully employed people who are committing welfare fraud. State Department of Motor Vehicle files have been matched with Selective Service files to identify eligible 18 year olds who have not registered for the draft. In each of these cases, the records of thousands of people who have broken no laws are matched to find the few that have. Burnham finds the principle offensive, even though the applications are expedient and have so far have been aimed at lawbreakers. In his eyes, expediency and efficiency should not be preeminent values for administrative action. PRIVACY REGULATIONS Burnham briefly examines some of the Federal privacy initiatives of the last decade, including the Privacy Act of 1974, the proposals of the Privacy Protection Study Commission, and the 1978 Financial Right to Privacy Act. These laws have provided minimal protections, and important protections of the Federal Right to Privacy Act have been undermined in implementation by Federal agencies under Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Only a few of the 155 recommendations reported by the Privacy Protection Study Commission in 1977 have been enacted in law. Burnham mentions these laws and examines some of their limitations. However, he doesn't evaluate their potential. Would many of the problems of CBIS operated by firms like the U.D. Registry be ameliorated if they were brought under laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act? Would civil liberties be better protected if the remaining recommendations of the Privacy Protection Study Commission were enacted in law? Unfortunately, Burnham is mute about these possibilities. Burnham is strongest in identifying concrete problems. Most serious there is no permanent institutional counterweight to Federal agencies when they propose new, more efficient, or enlarged personal record systems. Agencies such as the FBI, the IRS, or the Social Security Administration can return to Congress every few years with proposals for massive CBIS which have problematic privacy aspects and expect that sooner or later, the civil libertarians who restricted their last proposal will be weaker or pre-occupied with other matters. POLLING Burnham examines opinion polling as another form of organizational intelligence which has been rendered substantially more efficient and sophisticated by computers. He views opinion polling by elected officials and organizations which are campaigning for specific legislation as selective intelligence which places the target public at an unfair disadvantage. The main problem he sees in market research in the service of electoral politics is the extent to which it helps make propaganda less transparent and the public more manipulable by marketing strategists who target different messages to different groups. While there is nothing new in political actors tailoring their appeals to different audiences, Burnham fears that the modern versions of sophistry are less obvious and consequently far more successful for those who can afford to employ them. He also views opinion polls as easily subject to manipulation by politicians seeking legitimacy or publicity. Polling is not simply a reporting device. Pollers gain leverage relative to the larger public since much of the audience for polls will read headlines and short news items which distort the scientific meaning of a poll by neglecting to explain the nature of the sample, the detailed distribution of responses, or the questions asked. Political polling is not only "information gathering;" it can be a devise for persuading larger publics about the popularity of one's position. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY In a dramatic chapter, Burnham reports how the National Security Agency (NSA) has operated under a charter which has remained secret it was initiated by President Truman in 1952. The NSA specializes in electronic surveillance. A large fraction of its efforts probably go to observing military force deployments and strategic resources worldwide. Burnham reports how the NSA has also illegally eavesdropped on a significant fraction of international telephone calls and telex messages which leave the United States. Burnham reports on the character of specific programs of domestic surveillance which were illegal. According to Burnham, the NSA developed files on political dissidents including civil rights activists, antiwar activists, members of Congress, and ordinary citizens who were critical of official government policies. While most of the domestic political surveillance appeared to take place in the late 1960's through mid-1970's, the shroud of secrecy that surrounds the NSA makes it difficult to have significant Congressional oversight of its policies and practices. During the last 5 years, the NSA has moved to control cryptographic research in the United States. Recently developed encryption schemes are based on sophisticated algorithms which require digital circuits for rapid coding and decoding. Some of the new schemes even allow the code keys to be public, rather than secret. As more business operations in the United States is computerized, organizations seek ways to protect the privacy of data such as large funds transfers. Thus the market for efficient and effective data encryption devices has expanded beyond the intelligence community to include financial institutions. The NSA has recently taken control of this research out of the hands of the National Science Foundation, even though it has no publicly documented legal mandate for its action. There are deep policy questions about whether national security is well served by the availability of cheap encrypting devices which are effectively unbreakable. These questions are not being raised in public debates, nor does Burnham shed much light on them. Rather he simply adopts the libertarian critique of surveillance. Like other political labels with strong moral content, it has been abused as a cover for unsavory actions carried out by government operatives. The term in not wholly vacuous and Burnham glosses most of the knotty policy issues. TOWARD A POLICE STATE? Burnham's theses are loosely fabricated from dramatic examples. He does not offer explicit hypotheses, strong organizing concepts, and a way of placing his examples in a context which enables a reader to understand their overall significance. Examples of bad outcomes can elicit sympathy for "victims." But systematic information about the frequency and extent of problems and abuses are necessary to demonstrate that the overall social setup within which they happen is badly flawed, corrupt, or perverse. Some of his examples of people victimized by slips in CBIS and organizational practices suggest that Kafka has provided better guiding images than Orwell for appreciating a computer-based, mobile, organizational society. Burnham has little taste for irony, and explores Orwellian abuse rather than Kafkaesque happenings. Do the events Burnham describes indicate that Federal agencies and other large computer users are pushing the the US along a path of political development that is leading to a much less democratic form of Federal government? Unfortunately, Burnham does not describe the changing nature of Congressional oversight and public accountability sufficiently well to provide a clear answer to that question. He succeeds in generating sentiments in favor of this hypothesis by his accumulated cases of organizational seaminess and occasional abuse. But he relies heavily upon a reader's distrust of elected officials and large bureaucracies to help cement his case. He also relies upon general theses about power, such as Lord Acton's maxim. Unchecked power often corrupts and organizations are often less willing to be fair to their clients than efficient and autonomous. But general principles do not make the particular case since the variations in actual organizational practices are significant and vast. One peculiar feature of contemporary police states, such as those in Eastern Europe and Latin America, is the extent to which they have relied upon low technologies for extensive social control and even mass terror. Many abusive ruling cliques rely upon neighborhood informants, secret trials, and mysterious disappearances to maintain control. They don't need database management systems, teleprocessing, and spy satellites. Low technology strategies are especially effective in "small town" societies. Burnham's implicit argument is that less obtrusive forms of surveillance and social control can harm the political culture of liberal democracies. CBIS are attractive to administrators and politicians because they promise heightened efficiencies and sometimes enhanced fairness in providing services to large mobile populations. However, the anecdotes of errors with a human cost and even abuses which Burnham piles on the reader, illustrate problems but do not make his case. Burnham's strongest case is his critique of the NSA's abuses of authority. Like, the secret Law Enforcement Intelligence Units, much of the problem with the NSA comes from its shroud of secrecy and freedom from significant legislative oversight. It's use of computer-based monitoring systems is incidental to its problematic place in American political life. I suspect that one basic issue is accountability of these agencies to the public through the legislatures. At times this is no easy task when the administrative agencies can shroud their actions with the complexities of high technologies. There is a strong case to be made that in the clashes between branches of government, administrative agencies have found legal and technological loopholes to temporarily free themselves from regulatory restraint. Congressional actions are not always right. But there is an argument that administrative agencies have been able to exploit computer-based technologies to shift the balance of governmental power away from elected officials. This systematic shift of power has been best documented in the case of local governments. It is likely to be happening at other governmental levels as well. COMPUTERS AND POLITICS Burnham is sensitive to the shifts of power to executive agencies. But he is at a loss to explain them very well. He misses the deeper politics of computing. I find a clue to his misperception, a very common one, in his reference to "the computer's system of thinking." For Burnham, CBIS are simply highly structured, logical, possibly hierarchical information processing "tools." He misses the ways in which CBIS designs often reflect the "systems of thinking" of those who propose them. CBIS promoters may label their preferences as "required by computers" to help their case, but they often ignore or discourage many technical and administrative alternatives. Many CBIS are usefully viewed as forms of social organization. They are composed of many layers of data, programs, and communications support stretched across different organizations. Those who oversee them need some ability to appreciate technical alternatives and also have some substantive expertise in the organizational functions which have computer support. This dual expertise is rare, particularly among elected officials at all levels of government. As a consequence, they have trouble in providing sensible guidance to executive agency staff. QUALITY OF BURNHAM'S ANALYSIS I would like to like this book more than I do. I like Burnham's eye for detail and his relentless questions about the underside of computer-based surveillance systems. Some new data brokering organizations start up each year. Each year, many existing organizations expand the scope and scale of their record keeping. Laws and administrative practices also change slowly each year. Over ten year periods, these gradual small scale changes accumulate. Periodic reviews of these practices are useful. As a consequence of continuing changes in organizational practices, legal arrangements, and technology, studies published in the early 1970's such as Westin and Baker's "Databanks in a Free Society" or James Rules' "Public Surveillance and Private Lives" have become dated. Both of these studies pre-date the use of computer matching, and several Federal privacy initiatives. Unfortunately, this book is weak in analysis. Even the chapter headings don't guide the argument. The first three chapters are labelled "surveillance," "data bases," and "power." However, themes of power, surveillance, and data bases are strong elements in each of them. The chapter labelled "power" primarily examines political polling. This lax labelling of chapters signifies the way that Burnham eschews tough analysis in favor of easy sentimentalizing. It should be hard for Burnham, a reporter and hence a kind of intelligence agent, to find observation, reporting, and persuasion to be inherently sinister acts. However, Burnham colors his narrative so that people who administer a CBIS are stigmatized in descriptions such as "(speaking) in the quiet monotones of many long-time government employees," or are "slightly Mephistopholean." People who sympathize with civil libertarian values are portrayed without any frailties. Burnham is deeply suspicious of pollsters and politicians who manipulate the public with numbers, but he is very adept at manipulating his audience with images. These images which equate personal goodness with political philosophy grossly mislead. Despite these limitations, "The Rise of the Computer State" is particularly important because it helps articulate and illustrate important questions about computing and social power. Unfortunately, there is no other up-to-date inquiry into organizational surveillance and high technology. "The Rise of the Computer State" is an important contribution to the tiny stream of literature which examines the political dimensions of computer-based technologies in public life. I hope that many people read this book despite its analytical flaws. It helps dramatize the current problems of computer-based surveillance systems. Burnham's graphic episodes can help give people who are not intimate with CBIS a keen appreciation of the dilemmas which their use and users are now creating. It can help more systematic investigators by providing a rich set of clues from which to continue this inquiry. These questions will not go away after 1984 has passed. ================================================================ It is interesting, is it not, how so much of what shocked the public in 1983 is today treated as ho-hum. I wonder what Mr. Burnham thinks about computer surveillance today, a quarter-century later? And what about Mr, Kling, our book reviewer at that time? What about you readers? PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #168 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jun 16 13:03:38 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id BF1B122AB; Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:03:37 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #169 Message-Id: <20070616170337.BF1B122AB@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:03:37 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:04:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 169 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Selects Vendors for U-verse G-PON Fiber Deployment (PRN Newswire) Internet Content Providers Urge FCC Not to Regulate Net (PRN Newswire) Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity (Jason Szep, Reuters) EBay Sees no Near-term Price Rise on Auction Sales (Jim Finkle, Reuters) Re: Single-Slot Payphones (History) (T) Re: Single-Slot Payphones (History) (Mr Joseph Singer) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Spying (Lisa Hancock) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 11:15:20 -0500 From: PRN NewsWire Subject: AT&T Selects Vendors for U-verse G-PON Fiber Deployment AT&T Selects Vendors for U-verse G-PON Fiber Deployment in New Residential Construction Areas New-Generation Gigabit Passive Optical Network (G-PON) Equipment From Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson Will Be Used in 'New Build' Neighborhoods Across AT&T's Local Communications Footprint SAN ANTONIO, June 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T Inc. has announced that Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson have been selected to provide equipment for the planned deployment of Gigabit Passive Optical Network (G-PON) in "new build" areas of AT&T affiliates' local service territories as part of the overall U-verse(SM) network strategy. Financial terms of the awards were not disclosed. G-PON is the newest standard for fiber-to-the-home technology, with capacity to deliver greater speeds than current-generation Broadband Passive Optical Network (B-PON) technology. With its U-verse strategy, AT&T is deploying fiber-to-the-home technology, including PON, in new-build residential areas throughout the local communications service territories and will deploy a fiber-to-the-node network infrastructure in existing neighborhoods. Both of these network infrastructures enable delivery of the U-verse portfolio of IP-based services. AT&T U-verse service offers customers a combination of next-generation digital television -- including access to more than 25 High Definition (HD) channels -- and high speed Internet access. The award-winning AT&T U-verse TV includes cutting-edge features that are unmatched in the market, while the new U-verse enabled AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet builds on AT&T's position as the nation's leading provider of broadband DSL. The Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson G-PON solutions consist of several passive optical network-based elements, including equipment for the central office and home terminals. Both suppliers will soon begin lab testing and certification by AT&T Labs before field testing, which will include configurations for general deployment in single-family residences, apartment and condominium complexes. Pending successful resolution of testing and certification, general deployment of G-PON is expected to begin in 2008. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available as part of an RSS feed at http://www.att.com/rss. About AT&T AT&T Inc. is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T operating companies, are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. Among their offerings are the world's most advanced IP-based business communications services and the nation's leading wireless, high speed Internet access and voice services. In domestic markets, AT&T is known for the directory publishing and advertising sales leadership of its Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM organizations, and the AT&T brand is licensed to innovators in such fields as communications equipment. As part of its three-screen integration strategy, AT&T is expanding its TV entertainment offerings. Additional information about (C) 2007 AT&T Knowledge Ventures. AT&T Web site: http://www.att.com/ Copyright 2007, PRNewswire ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 11:11:58 -0500 From: PRN NewsWire Subject: Internet Content Providers Urge FCC Not to Regulate Net WASHINGTON, June 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Three Internet content and application service providers filed formal comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission's Notice of Inquiry today urging the Commission not to regulate the Internet by adopting network neutrality rules. The Internet content providers, MovieFlix, Doctors TeleHealth Network, and KinderStart differ from some other content providers who think the government needs to adopt network neutrality regulations. The MovieFlix/Doctors TeleHealth/KinderStart comments state, "there is growing evidence that [network neutrality regulation] could slow the deployment of the super-fast local broadband networks that are crucial to continued growth of our industry. Evidence of this risk comes from the cable, cellular, and telephone carriers who have begun to deploy these extraordinarily expensive networks, from Wall Street analysts, from telecom researchers, and from scores of companies that produce the hardware and software products necessary to make broadband networks work. If investment in local broadband networks were to slow as a result of net neutrality regulation, the Internet content industry would be hurt by forcing it to rely on existing and less desirable network technologies." The comments note that MovieFlix, Doctors TeleHealth, and KinderStart are not alone among Internet content companies opposing network neutrality regulation. They cite by name a number of other Internet content providers whose public statements indicate that they likewise oppose such regulation because they believe that such regulations run the risk of harming the Internet industry as well as consumers and future broadband network development. MovieFlix.com is an Internet movie download service. Its web address is http://www.movieflix.com. Doctors TeleHealth Network provides real-time data and video communications between physicians and their patients. Its web address is http://www.doctorstelehealthnetwork.net. KinderStart owns a web search engine at http://www.kindercare.com for information about parenting and child care. MovieFlix/Doctors TeleHealth/KinderStart Web site: http://www.movieflix.com/ http://www.doctorstelehealthnetwork.net/ http://www.kindercare.com/ Copyright 2007, PRNewswire 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/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:59:16 -0500 From: Jason Szep, Reuters Subject: Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity By Jason Szep It bills itself as the world's "most prestigious college discussion board," giving a glimpse into law school admissions policies, post-graduate social networking and the hiring practices of major law firms. But the AudoAdmit site, widely used by law students for information on schools and firms, is also known as a venue for racist and sexist remarks and career-damaging rumors. Now it's at the heart of a defamation lawsuit that legal experts say could test the anonymity of the Internet. After facing lewd comments and threats by posters, two women at Yale Law School filed a suit on June 8 in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Connecticut, that includes subpoenas for 28 anonymous users of the site, which has generated more than 7 million posts since 2004. According to court documents, a user on the site named "STANFORDtroll" began a thread in 2005 seeking to warn Yale students about one of the women in the suit, entitled "Stupid Bitch to Enter Yale Law." Another threatened to rape and sodomize her, the documents said. The plaintiff, a respected Stanford University graduate identified only as "Doe I" in the lawsuit, learned of the Internet attack in the summer of 2005 before moving to Yale in Connecticut. The posts gradually became more menacing. Some posts made false claims about her academic record and urged users to warn law firms, or accused her of bribing Yale officials to gain admission and of forming a lesbian relationship with a Yale administrator, the court papers said. The plaintiff said she believes the harassing remarks, which lasted nearly two years, cost her an important summer internship. After interviewing with 16 firms, she received only four call-backs and ultimately had zero offers -- a result considered unusual given her qualifications. Another woman, identified as Doe II, endured similar attacks. The two, who say they suffered substantial "psychological and economic injury," also sued a former manager of the site because he refused to remove disparaging messages. The manager had cited free-speech protections. LIFTING THE MASK "The harassment they were subjected to was quite grotesque," said Brian Leiter, a professor at University of Texas Law School. "Any judge who looks at this is going to be really shocked, and particularly shocked because these appear to be law students." The suit is being watched closely to see if the posters are unmasked, a step that could make anonymous chat room users more circumspect. It also underlines the growing difficulty of protecting reputations online as the Web is used increasingly to screen prospective employees and romantic partners. "They can't hide behind anonymity while they are saying these scurrilous and menacing things," said Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles. He said the site was not liable under federal protections that are more lenient on Web sites than TV and newspapers. Prosecuting the manager could also be difficult because he did not write the posts, Volokh added. But the anonymous posters look liable and their careers could be jeopardized, he said. "This ought to be a warning to be people that if you say things that are not just rude but arguably libelous and potentially threatening and perhaps actionable on those grounds then their identity might be unmasked," he said. Finding and identifying the posters -- including one called "The Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah" -- could be tough but is not impossible. The process involves subpoenas issued to Internet Service Providers for records, and then more subpoenas to companies, institutions or people identified on those records. "I've said in my blog the most vile posters on that board are two subpoenas away from being outed," said Leiter. "This led to much amusement by the anonymous posters on the board. "But they are about to find out that this is how it works." 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, 16 Jun 2007 10:54:21 -0500 From: Jim Finkle, Reuters Subject: EBay Sees no Near-term Price Rise on Auction Sales By Jim Finkle EBay Inc. plans no near-term rate increases for online auction sellers, Bill Cobb, president of its North American business, told the company's annual sales conference on Thursday. A year ago at the same conference, the online auction leader raised fees to list items on stores within eBay's site. Those fee increases had varied, depending on the final sales price of items. The changes took effect in August 2006. "There will be no increase in selling fees this July," Cobb told the crowd of roughly 4,000 of its "power-sellers" who attended the opening night of "eBay Live" in Boston. An eBay spokesman said Cobb was committing to no new fee increases over the next few months, seeking to reassure the crowd that "what happened last year ... wasn't going to happen this year." Several power-sellers in the audience said they remained skeptical more fee increases would not arrive sooner or later. "We battle constant fee increases," said Milvy Carrasco, director of customer service for eBay store Auction Inn. "It makes it more and more difficult for power sellers to sell on eBay," said Carrasco of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She said such increases drive her company to do more business on other e-commerce sites, including Amazon.com Inc. Power-sellers, many of whom make their living from eBay, are worried that Yahoo Inc.'s recent move to shut down a far smaller auction site will give eBay more pricing power. EBay's core auction business has been undergoing constant changes in the past several years as the world's largest online auctioneer seeks to retain its stable of high-volume sellers, who are becoming more sophisticated about sales alternatives. In April, eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman signaled to Wall Street analysts that the company may be gun-shy about contemplating further fee increases over the next two years. "As we think about fees, as you know, we typically do something once a year. January would be sort of the time that we would do something, and we have not made any decisions at this juncture," Whitman said on a quarterly conference call. "But I would not be putting fee increases necessarily into your model for 2008 and 2009," she told analysts, referring to the spreadsheet models they use to predict future results. Rather than boosting price, she said eBay aimed to make money by driving increased volumes and average selling prices. Ahead of speeches by top executives, the all-ages crowd was entertained by a folk group dressed up as hippies singing a variant of the 1960s anthem of "Age of Aquarius." Lyrics were changed to "Sell on eBay and pay with Pay with PayPal and call on Skype," referring to the three pillars of eBay's business. (Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in San Francisco) 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/internet-news.html ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Single-Slot Payphones (History) Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:12:40 -0400 In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > The original 3-slot payphone, where coins dropping rang bells to > indicate amounts, is now seen only in old movies. It was a very long- > lasting design. > In the 1960s the Bell System developed a replacement model that would > be more efficient, suitable for automation, and more vandal resistant. > It contained a single slot for coins and was in a boxy shape. > Originally introduced in high demand locations, it eventually became > the standard. > Externally at least, the single slot phone offered by the baby Bell > successors, looks the same. Many still say "BELL SYSTEM Western > Electric" on some part. They have real mechanical ringers, not > electronic. > However, I presume the innards, even of basic models, are more > advanced than that of the 1960s model. > For the basic models in baby Bell service, would anyone know if there > are significant changes from the 1960s version? Or, are they just > using old units that they have a large inventory of? > Thanks. Those were known as Fortress phones and for good reason. Yes, they still rehab old WE gear but now they just make them COCOT phones. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 21:57:09 PDT From: Mr Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Single-Slot Payphones (History) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com on Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:10:14 -0700 wrote: > The original 3-slot payphone, where coins dropping rang bells to > indicate amounts, is now seen only in old movies. It was a very long- > lasting design. > In the 1960s the Bell System developed a replacement model that would > be more efficient, suitable for automation, and more vandal resistant. > It contained a single slot for coins and was in a boxy shape. > Originally introduced in high demand locations, it eventually became > the standard. > Externally at least, the single slot phone offered by the baby Bell > successors, looks the same. Many still say "BELL SYSTEM Western > Electric" on some part. They have real mechanical ringers, not > electronic. > However, I presume the innards, even of basic models, are more > advanced than that of the 1960s model. > For the basic models in baby Bell service, would anyone know if there > are significant changes from the 1960s version? Or, are they just > using old units that they have a large inventory of? Yes, the inner workings have changed somewhat and the way the phone signals the network or the operator is different. Originally the phones emitted "deedle" tones one deedle for a nickle and two for a dime and five for a quarter unlike the three-slotters which had a ding for each nickle or two dings for a dime and a bong gong for a quarter. The later 1A1 (single slotters) had relays which signaled the operator on their consoles or let the automatic equipment know that you had deposited the correct amount of coins. Modern 1A2's in some areas such as Bell South's territories have all been "COCOTised" i.e. they are no longer central office controlled. The new "smart" phones such as the Millennium marketed by Nortel are also chip controlled rather than CO controlled. The Millenniums also can take payment in multiple ways with coin, credit card or with a smart card with a chip in it. This site has a lot of information on the fortress: http://www.dmine.com/phworld/payphone/weco.htm ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Spying Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:26:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 15, 1:00 pm, ptown...@telecom-digest.org wrote: > For a special treat this weekend, I have a book review on the 'Rise of > the Computer State' which was published more than 23 years ago ... > What about you readers? Very simply, the biggest change has been the way computers so easily index and share information. Sure a ton of information was collected and computerized for years. But digging it out and sharing it with 1980s technology was cumbersome. They had to pull off a file and dump it on mag tape and mail the tape in most cases. On-line systems were small and limited. Today it's real easy to strip out data and email it and even publish it worldwide via net. Often data gets stolen and published (see article on Ohio data theft). Likewise, it's real easy to index and search out stuff via the Internet. Court records are interlinked now. Many people fear the "government" in this issue. Actually, there is much to fear, maybe more, from the private sector. The private sector NOW extensively uses your credit rating to decide whether you may get a job, insurance, and a place to live and how much you will pay for it. To me, that is wrong. Your credit history should be used solely to judge your credit risk, not employability, insurability, or rental. Undoubtedly more private information will be available to the business world. If you have any kind of criminal past they may know about it. The truth is we ALL have skeletons in our closet, many we forgot about. But maybe that incident back in college will come back to haunt you years later. For example, maybe you want a job that requires clearance and they discover 20 years ago you were arrested for some major drug use. You had made a mistake long ago and never again, but now it is held against you. Maybe someone in your family did bad. I could see some businesses uses adverse information to legally "blackmail" prospective applicants into getting less salarly or paying more interest or rent. I think anyone who runs for political office or becomes an entertainer these days is crazy. Even if you seek a minor office, any dirt in your past will be dug up and used against you. Computers make it easier. There are of course some laws protecting privacy and use of personal information. But it seems based on experience these laws are woefully inadequate to protect against sloppy security or secret data collection and usage. Again, what was once buried in an obscure file cabinet is now on the 'net for everyone to see, and that makes a big difference. For example, juvenile law violations are supposed to be secret but there are leaks. In the future, some stupid act could come out. (Recently some drunken kids did some pretty digusting things to a private house. I think they deserve punishment, but not be branded for the rest of their lives.) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #169 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jun 17 23:55:36 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7E9822275; Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:55:35 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #170 Message-Id: <20070618035535.7E9822275@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:55:35 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:57:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 170 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FBI Stresses Uniting Against Bots (Frederick Lane, Telecom News) FBI Turns up Heat on Bot Herders (Frederick Lane, Telecom News) Paranoia Regarding Changes at Google (Eric Auchard, Reuters) Swedes Revolt Against Online Snooping (Louise Nordstrom, AP) Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone (Dave Hunter) Movie Trivia: 'All the President's Men' (Lisa Hancock) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (David B. Horvath, CCP) Re: Single-Slot Payphones (Duncan Smith) Re: Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity (mc) Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 (George S Thurman) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:16:52 -0500 From: Frederick Lane, Telecom News Subject: FBI Stresses Uniting Against Bots By Frederick Lane In our interview regarding Operation Bot Roast with Deputy Assistant Director Shawn Henry of the FBI's Cyber Division, Henry emphasized that consumers need to take the botnet problem seriously and take the basic steps needed to protect their computers. The FBI singled out Microsoft for its work on solving the botherder issue, along with the Botnet Task Force. The global nature of the Internet is posing new challenges to law enforcement agencies like the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. In response, the FBI is reaching out to new partners, both in the private sector and in the international community, to help fight online identity thieves, computer hijackers, and other digital desperadoes known as "botherders." The ongoing effort has been dubbed "Operation Bot Roast." The problem begins when criminal botherders use "botnets" to take remote command and control of other people's computers. The FBI reports that most owners of the compromised computers don't even know their computers are being used to facilitate other crimes, such as denial of service attacks, phishing, click fraud, identity theft, and the mass distribution of spam and spyware. Because of their widely distributed capabilities, the FBI says, botnets are a growing threat to national security , as well as the national information infrastructure , and our economy as a whole. In a telephone interview with us on Thursday, following announcement of the FBI's preliminary results in Operation Bot Roast, Deputy Assistant Director Shawn Henry of the FBI's Cyber Division stressed the value of the high-tech partnerships. "The FBI has been very pleased and appreciative of the cooperation and assistance that it has received from private companies during Operation Bot Roast," Henry said. "This is an issue that affects them as well, and they have been very helpful." Henry added that the FBI had received extensive cross-border cooperation with law enforcement agencies in other countries, both for investigations that originated in the United States, and those launched elsewhere. Global Problem, New Partners Because of the global nature of the Internet, Henry said, no country or company is immune from the risks posed by botherders and other types of hackers. As a result, companies and governments that might otherwise be reluctant to work together are finding ways to collaborate. "There's another ongoing investigation," Henry said, "the details of which I can't discuss right now, that has led a number of business competitors to share information and data with the FBI and each other in an effort to respond to a particular threat they are all facing." In its press release yesterday, the FBI singled out Microsoft for its work on the botherder issue, along with the Botnet Task Force, an international private-public partnership launched by Microsoft in 2004. In another sign of the growing level of international cooperation on this issue, the Botnet Task Force is now working with Interpol to train law enforcement agents in the field. Plea for Personal Responsibility Henry reiterated that one of the chief reasons that the FBI announced its preliminary results was to raise the public profile of the botnet issue, and encourage people to take the basic steps needed to protect their computers: antivirus software, firewalls, strong passwords, and good e-mail and download behavior. "This is an issue that individuals need to take seriously," Henry said, "because a lot of consumers don't realize that their computer can be or has been hijacked and is doing harm to someone else. It's not enough to simply bring the computer home and start surfing the Internet. Consumers have to learn how to protect their computers and make sure that their software is up to date." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:21:02 -0500 From: Frederick Lane, Telecom News Subject: FBI Turns up Heat on Bot Herders By Frederick Lane So far, three people have been arrested in connection with "Operation Bot Roast," an initiative by the FBI and Department of Justice to disrupt networks of hijacked computers. The most infamous is "Spam King" Robert Soloway, who was charged with 35 counts of hijacking computers and using them to send spam messages. On Wednesday, the FBI and the Department of Justice announced the preliminary results of "Operation Bot Roast," an ongoing effort to identify and disrupt networks of hijacked computers know as "botnets." According to the agencies' joint press statement, the botnets are used to commit a wide variety of electronic crimes, including identity theft, denial-of-service attacks, phishing, click fraud, and the mass distribution of spam and spyware. The FBI and the DOJ have identified more than a million computer IP addresses associated with these networks, and said that there might be additional unidentified victims. "The majority of victims are not even aware that their computer has been compromised or their personal information exploited," said FBI Assistant Director for the Cyber Division James Finch. "An attacker gains control by infecting the computer with a virus or other malicious code and the computer continues to operate normally." Soloway, Others Arrested So far, three people have been arrested and charged with crimes in connection with "Operation Bot Roast." The most infamous is Robert Alan Soloway, of Seattle, Washington, the so-called "Spam King," who was charged a couple of weeks ago with 35 counts of hijacking computers and using them to send millions of spam messages advertising his e-mail marketing abilities. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Also charged was James C. Brewer, of Arlington, Texas, who is accused of infecting thousands of computers, including a large number at two Chicago hospitals. The hospital computers had to be rebooted repeatedly, resulting in the delayed delivery of some medical services. Lastly, Jason Michael Downey, of Covington, Kentucky, was charged with causing up to $20,000 in damages during an 11-week spam assault in 2004. "Operation Bot Roast is only about three months old as a national initiative," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko in a phone interview. "But the cyber division has hundreds of open investigations; this is just the tip of the iceberg. There will be additional arrests and legal action in the weeks and months ahead." User Responsibility The FBI warned that news reports about "Operation Bot Roast" could generate new phishing schemes. "The FBI will not contact you online and request your personal information so be wary of fraud schemes that request this type of information, especially via unsolicited e-mails," the agency said. Instead, people who believe that their computer might be infected are urged to contact the FBI and to use the online complaint form at the Internet Crime Complaint Center Web site, www.ic3.gov. In addition, the FBI is urging computer users to implement good security habits, including updating antivirus software, installing a firewall, and using strong passwords. Additional information about botnets and online crime prevention tips are available on the FBI Web site at www.fbi.gov. "If you own a car," Kolko said. "You have to take it in every six months for an oil change or tune-up. Computers require regular care as well. You can't just buy it and plug it in. You need to take the time to get the knowledge you need to protect your computer and prevent these kinds of attacks from happening." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 21:36:02 -0500 From: Eric Auchard, Reuters Subject: Paranoia Regarding Changes at Google Google's breakneck changes stoke privacy fears By Eric Auchard Most people missed the announcement about how Google Inc. wants to burrow inside your brain and capture your most intimate thoughts. That's because it never happened. But Google, the world leader in Web search services, is the focus of mounting paranoia over the scope of its powers as it expands into new advertising formats from online video to radio and TV, while creating dozens of new Internet services. True, the Silicon Valley company has millions of people telling it daily what's apparently on their minds via simple Web searches, generating mountains of information about consumer behavior. The company uses this information to make money by selling advertisements, but people who are used to browsing anonymously around stores or channel-hopping on TV find it unnerving to realize that in a digital world, their every move is recorded. As people spend more time online and realize just how much information Google is collecting about their habits and interests, the fear develops that true or false revelations of the most personal, embarrassing or even intrusive kind are no more than a Web search away. The company mission statement reads: "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" and, famously, "You can make money without doing evil." With Google search a fact of life, some suggest our notions of privacy need to move with the times. "We are in transition in our idea of privacy and we are still discovering ways to make sense of the implicit traces people leave behind," writes David Weinberger in a new book, "Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder." INCONVENIENT TRUTHS Nicole Wong, the Google attorney who oversees a team of lawyers who consider privacy and other policy issues that go into the making of each product, says she isn't surprised people are anxious or concerned about these innovations. "The pace of change in technology is so much faster now," Wong said. "Instead of a generation, or even years, we are seeing breakthrough technologies emerging in the space of months." Social norms have a hard time keeping pace. Privacy policy activists complain Google's $3.1 billion plan to acquire DoubleClick, which connects buyers and sellers of online advertising, would double the number of Internet users on which Google keeps tabs to upward of 1 billion. For several years now, friends, enemies and first-time daters have had to face up to the inconvenient truths that turn up with a little Web snooping -- dubbed Google-stalking. Just by searching on Google for the names of ex-lovers, schoolmates, or people they have just met, they can find out more about them than they bargained for. Other services which stir concerns Google may know too much about us: its e-mail service, Gmail, which puts advertisements up alongside mails people receive based on a scan of their contents; Google Desktop, which helps users search the local contents of computers; and Google Earth -- satellite maps which go down to street level. Another map feature has produced random surveillance-like shots of individuals going about their days. Also last month, Google took a big step to unify its different categories of Internet search -- for images, news, books, Web sites, local information, video -- in one service. Unified Search offers no information not already available on Google, but by putting it all in one place, it is turning up sometimes disconcerting links between previously unconnected types of data. And Google is testing various forms of personalized Web search, including Web History, a feature that allows individual users to look back at a chronological history of their search activity over several years. Users learn what predictable creatures they are -- what good and bad habits they have -- when their entire Web search record is revealed, stretching back days, months, even years. By offering a digital record of users' daily interests, Google is giving those who choose the service an unprecedented level of insight into their own thinking. Computers have begun to play the confessional role once reserved for the local priest, or psychotherapist. RULES NEED CHANGING Modern privacy fears, and legal thinking on the topic, date back to the invention of aggressive flashbulb photography and the electronic distribution of tabloid news more than 100 years ago, historians say. Every major privacy panic since then has occurred against a similar backdrop of rapid technology change, and the psychological dislocations that inevitably follow until a new period of social adaptation and understanding evolves. "A lot of these things are not about Google in particular but we've become the focus of that debate and as a leading company that's an appropriate role for us to play," says Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel. Google has responded by calling for comprehensive legislation to harmonize laws of various governments, all of which want their say over the World Wide Web. Self-regulation by the Internet industry has not worked, the company says. "Patchwork regulation is confusing for consumers because they don't know which privacy regulations should apply in different situations," Google attorney Wong says of U.S. privacy laws. New rules are needed to fend off governments which might try to force companies to divulge customer data, Google argues. It fought off just such a court request by U.S. authorities last year and argues that for the limited purposes it keeps customers' data, it is a reliable custodian. "Google is working with companies across an array of industries to get baseline privacy legislation that would be much closer to the comprehensive protections in Europe and some other countries," says Wong, whose title is associate general counsel. She also is working on laws with Asian countries. Google has initiated a plan to limit the amount of time the company stores personal data to no more than two years across its massive collection of hundreds of thousands of computers. The proposal spurred debate with privacy regulators in the European Union. Google last week agreed to scale back its data retention plans to 18 months. It argues that everything from spell-checking on its Web search service to anti-fraud protections to government data retention laws won't work over any shorter timeframe. Rivals have not set time limits on storing personal data. To comment on this story or see more on the theme, go to http://uk.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/onlinePrivacy (Additional reporting by Reuters TV reporters Matt Cowan in Paris and Laura Wells in New York) 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: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 21:45:00 -0500 From: Louise Nordstrom, AP Subject: Swedes Revolt Against Online Snooping By LOUISE NORDSTROM, Associated Press Writer Want to know how much your boss earns? Or whether your daughter's fiance is in debt? For Swedes, it takes just a few clicks on the Internet to find out. But many feel the Web has taken things too far, and proud though they are of Sweden's unusual history of openness, they have pressured providers to put some limits on a service that allowed Swedes to snoop through each other's finances anonymously and free of charge. "Your neighbor knows what you're making, your brother-in law knows what you're making, and people around you can know whether you're on any records for outstanding payments. It's private and a bit embarrassing," said Hans Karnlof, a lawyer at the Swedish Data Inspection Board. Things came to a head in November when a Swedish Web site, Ratsit.se, started publishing financial details, free of charge, from the national tax authority. The site has some 610,000 registered users -- in a country of 9 million -- and handled an average of 50,000 online credit checks a day. Regular credit check companies are required to notify those they check. But on Ratsit, anonymous snoops could uncover financial information simply by typing in a name and clicking "search." Authorities said Sweden's transparency laws were being abused, and pressured Ratsit and similar Web sites to impose some restrictions. Information on personal income and debt is still available, but now costs money -- $21 for 10 requests a week, and $3.60 for each additional request. A more extensive report, including information on financial and property assets, costs $6.90 per search. And there's no more anonymity; anyone whose finances are viewed will be notified by mail and told who asked. Openness is ingrained in Swedish society -- its freedom of information act dates to 1766. Today Swedes have unfettered access to almost all records that the state keeps on the population. Only some 10,000 people who live under some form of threat, are excluded from the public records. "This type of access to financial information is in no way available in other countries like it is here," said Karnlof, the data board's lawyer. "Visitors we've had from Ireland and Germany, for example -- their jaws just drop when they hear about it." But until the Internet arrived, citizens had to visit the local tax office to ask about others' finances. "There's a big difference between sitting hidden at home and being reasonably anonymous, and trotting off to the tax office and ... telling a person eye-to-eye whom you want to check," said Karolina Lassbo, a 27-year-old lawyer. Lassbo said she used Ratsit once "because I wanted to see what it said about me." But her curiosity got the better of her: "Then I checked friends and celebrities." "I do think our service is justified because things like wages should be transparent," said Ratsit's chief executive, Anders Johansson. Employers use it to check whether potential hires are in debt, he said, and "A lot of people use it to negotiate their pay." Ratsit's service was made possible by a 2003 change in the law protecting media freedom, which allowed Web sites to get publishing rights. That enabled Ratsit to become one of Sweden's most popular Web sites, but also one of the most controversial. The Data Inspection Board was inundated with complaints, "like an avalanche," said Karnlof. Apart from the privacy issue, fears that the online openness would aid identity thieves also pushed the National Tax Board into action. While the law obliges the board to give out tax information, it doesn't say in what form. So tax authorities simply threatened to supply the information on paper, instead of electronically, which would have forced credit checkers to scan millions of records. To avoid the hassle, the companies agreed to the new restrictions on how the material is accessed. Before the new rules kicked in a week ago, Ratsit's traffic nearly tripled to over 140,000 hits a day, said Johansson, the company boss. Ratsit expects credit-snooping to fall off by half, but is offering new attractions, such as a "singles index" showing how many people in a particular zip code live alone. It plans to include phone numbers. On the Net: Ratsit: http://www.ratsit.se/ 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 ------------------------------ From: Dave Hunter Subject: Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 11:11:38 GMT Im looking for a power connector for a Nortel/Quortech Millenium payphone in the museum's collection so that it can be shown with its display lighted on display. I realize that it won't be able to be used for calls ... The needed connector is the one which +/- 24 volts is connected to, and also ring and tip and which then plugs into the the NT5U01 BR rear terminal board assembly. I believe the part number for the missing connector is CPD13S04P2. I realize I could solder the connections directly to the board if absolutely necessary, but would prefer not to go that route if the correct connector can be found. Thanks, Dave Telephone Museum of P.E.I. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: "All the President's Men" (still more movie phone trivial) Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:21:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com As mentioned, in TV and films the dialing of a telephone can slow down the pace. Often characters improperly "spun" the dial or dialed fewer digits to speed up the scene. But in this movie they purposely dailed deliberately as part of the drama. Indeed, they not only dialed the full seven digit number, they also dialed the 9 for the outside line and even paused waiting for the second dial tone. This was when Redford was calling various CREEP officers to track down money given to the Watergate burglars. There was a TV set on in the background, adding to the scene. I think of this movie as "modern" since it is in color and relatively recent as compared to the B&W films shown on TCM made in the 1930s and 40s. But of course this film is 30 years which is not very new, obviously. The other notable aspect of this film was the _lack_ of computers and other automated devices to help them in their research, all the things we take for granted today. Redford had a _manual_ typewriter, as was common for reporters in newsrooms in those years. Wire service came over classic Teletypes operating at the princely speed of seven characters per second. After typing their copy, it was edited by hand, then sent to Linotype machine operators to set type. There were mobile phones in those days, but probably only the newspaper's owner had one. All the rest made do with pay phones. All reporters kept a mental note of where pay phones were located so as to be able to call in stories. Other reporters were on duty at phone banks (spacesaver sets with headsets) to take down the information phoned in. If they wanted to research anything historical, it meant a trip to the library and _serially_ scanning through microfilm reels. Slow and tedious. It's amazing the differences in a reporter's work then vs. now. One difference was that newspapers had much larger circulation in those days. Anyone else familiar with that movie care to comment on the technology of the time? (public replies, please) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:09:54 -0400 From: David B. Horvath, CCP Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer PAT: Please obscure my email address, name is fine. > On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:26:56 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > The truth is we ALL have skeletons in our closet, many we forgot > about. But maybe that incident back in college will come back to > haunt you years later. > For example, maybe you want a job that requires clearance and they > discover 20 years ago you were arrested for some major drug use. You > had made a mistake long ago and never again, but now it is held > against you. Maybe someone in your family did bad. I always find arguments like this amusing. If the rules for the job prohibit employment, then it doesn't matter if you "forget" some college "incident". There is a difference between an "incident" (no conviction) and a drug conviction. I work in an industry that has federal regulations prohibiting the employer from hiring anyone convicted for a crime of dishonesty (things like theft, embezzlement, etc.). It doesn't matter if I forgot about some conviction for stealing while in college, it would be improper for me to be hired for that job. Fortunately, there are no such convictions in my background. I'm sure I'd remember if there was. But if there was, and I got the job, I would be violating the regulations. It doesn't matter that no one realized it. Computers and data indexing make the information easier to find but do not change the underlying issues! If you have to report a conviction or not get a job because of one (regulations) or not get a security clearance (again regulations), then you should not! An employer can not apply these rules against you if it was another family member who was convicted. In addition, some convictions cause a loss of rights and can result in additional charges for attempting to participate. For instance, a felony conviction causes a federal prohibition on ownership of firearms. It is illegal to own one, hold one, or even attempt to buy one! Forgetting about an earlier conviction can result in another with hard federal time. - David [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The difficulty with laws like this is they make no allowance for people who have geuinely changed their direction in life. If you commit some crime, and you 'do the time', then *theoretically* at least, you have been forgiven by society, have you not? The rules and laws you mention make a lie out of the rehabilitation model, and effectively punish the offender forever. Ditto on firearm ownership: The federal and various state/local governments absolutely _despise_ the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which plainly allows citizens to own firearms. Because of this hatred and their wish it did not exist, the various governments try throwing up every roadblock of which they can think. If you did thus and so, then you cannot own a gun, etc. All of these 'negative' laws on what you cannot own or cannot do once your term has been finished have the effect of punishing the offender forever, in a backdoor sense. When you are no longer being punished, your full rights as a citizen should be returned to you, but that would, in turn, make mock of the corrections industry, which the governments really support. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:47:14 -0700 From: Duncan Smith Subject: Re: Single-Slot Payphones Joseph Singer wrote: > The new "smart" phones such as the Millennium marketed by Nortel are > also chip controlled rather than CO controlled. The Millenniums > also can take payment in multiple ways with coin, credit card or > with a smart card with a chip in it. I've noticed that the Nortel Millennium phones take a loooong time to make toll calls. I assume this is because they have to dial out to interrogate a database for the charges. Does anyone know much more about this? (I live in Seattle, Questland, NPA 206.) Duncan Smith --------\ http://students.washington.edu/f/ /--- () ascii ribbon \--- Signed/encrypted mail preferred ---/ /\ campaign [ against html mail ] [ support open formats ] ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:37:51 -0400 Almost all of the news media are spelling the name "AutoAdmit" rather than "AudoAdmit". I haven't looked, but presumably, by now both will exist. ------------------------------ Reply-To: George S Thurman From: George S Thurman Subject: Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 10:22:41 -0500 Very interesting reading this. I was living in Chicago at the time, so I remember it very well. One question is how long did it ACTUALLY take to replace the switch and restore full service to the area. George "Skip" Thurman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Illinois Bell stated that the restoration was about 90 percent finished within a month, in mid-June, 1988. It was about 95 percent finished within a month or two after that. A couple telco repair technicians in the area noted to me that the restoration was never _totally_ i.e. 100 percent (as in things operated _exactly_ as they had before the fire). It got to be 'the equivilent of' 100 percent during August of that year, but trained and experienced ears which listened _closely_ said the 'action' (if you want to call it that) was never completely replicated. I do not know if you recall this or not, Skip, but _you_ were the person who tipped me off to the fire in progress that Sunday afternoon in a phone call to my home. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #170 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 18 13:50:21 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 29FD822DC; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:47:07 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #171 Message-Id: <20070618174708.29FD822DC@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:47:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:50:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 171 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson I-Bill Porn Billing Leak For Sale on the Internet (Spam Daily News) Porn Webmasters: Did You Ever Get Your Check From I-Bill? (Dash Hamilton) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions (John David Galt) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:41:01 -0500 From: Spam Daily News Subject: I-Bill Porn Billing Leak For Sale on the Internet From Spam Daily News Customers of the online payment service iBill have had their names, phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses released onto the Internet, where it's been bought and sold in a black market made up of fraudsters and spammers. Other fields in the compromised files appear to be IP addresses, logins and passwords, credit-card types and purchase amounts, but credit-card numbers are not included. The transactions are dated between 1998 and 2003. Two caches of stolen iBill customer data were discovered separately by two security companies. Secure Science found the first data file containing records on 18 million individuals on a private website set up by scammers. The site was part of a so-called "phishing" scheme. Secure Science found that data in February 2005, and reported it to the FBI's Miami field office. Last month, Sunbelt Software found an additional list of slightly over 1 million individual entries on a spamming website. Sunbelt found the file by tracing zombie computers as they connected to the Internet to refresh their list of spam targets. The files appear to have been generated by exporting an SQL database into a CSV format -- a procedure that would be unusually extravagant for a quick, furtive hack attack. Moreover, at 4.5 gigabytes in size, the larger file would have been tough to download unnoticed over iBill's Internet connection. The breach has all the markings of an inside job, say Lance James of Secure Science and Adam Thomas of Sunbelt Software. Thomas speculates that an employee or other insider may have simply walked out of iBill with the transaction records to sell on the data black market. "The fact that a total of 17,781,462 iBill records have been found in the hands of criminal hackers is quite disturbing, be it an inside job or the successful work of criminal hackers," says Thomas. Because the information didn't include Social Security, credit-card or driver's-license numbers, no U.S. laws require iBill or the companies for which they provided billing to warn victims. An FBI spokeswoman says the bureau wouldn't investigate the breach unless the source of the leak comes forward to make a complaint. The stolen data has been on sale since 2003 on a number of boards. Founded in 1997 by executives of a Florida-based BBS software developer, by 2002 iBill was a big player in Internet billing, processing approximately $400 million in credit card transactions per year, according to SEC filings. The company took 15% off the top in fees. Todd Dugas, a former inside sales representative for iBill, estimates that pornography made up 85% of the business. 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/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:37:12 -0500 From: Dash Hamilton Subject: Porn Webmasters: Did You Ever Get Your Check From I-Bill? I Bill, You Bill, We All Scream for iBill: Is the check finally in the mail? AVN Online.com By: Dash Hamilton The Deerfield Beach, Fla., Chamber of Commerce boasts that it's "the pride of Broward County, located on the Atlantic Ocean, just two miles south of the Palm Beaches and 20 miles north of Fort Lauderdale." Known for its serene beaches, Deerfield Beach was primarily an agricultural village until the late 1940s. Today it's considered a tourist mecca. And it is also the new home and corporate headquarters for Internet Billing Company LLC, better known as the beleaguered credit card processor iBill. The story of iBill's rise and fall and possible resurrection is a tale so complicated it would take a whole team of SEC lawyers and a couple of round-the-clock paralegals just to make sense of it all. Without question, the financial and ethical integrity of iBill has been sorely compromised. When Deerfield Beach-based Interactive Brand Development (IBD), formerly Care Concepts I, completed its acquisition of the third-party processor from Penthouse International on January 21, 2005, they were taking on a company with a smoldering history of corporate takeovers, accusations of gross mismanagement, a flurry of lawsuits, and the revocation of the company's merchant account. On September 16, 2004, iBill's contract with First Data Merchant Services -- their bank -- expired and was not renewed. Penthouse International reportedly knew First Data was backing out several months beforehand, yet did not have another bank lined up. First Data subsequently withheld the release of millions of dollars due to webmasters. That's a large responsibility for IBD to assume, yet a careful examination of the company's chess moves reveals a business strategy based on risk. IBD corporate officers Steven Markley and Gary Spaniak Jr. either enjoy hazard-fraught enterprises or they are engaged in a series of deadly miscalculations that will perhaps remand iBill to the dustbin of corporate history. "Are we crazy? Probably, but the reality is we bought this thing and took it on when we could of thrown it in bankruptcy and not paid the webmasters," Spaniak said. "We've paid back over $30 million because we believed in the concept and believed we could fix it." On April 12, 2005, IBD announced that it would begin making long past-due payments to affiliates using iBill, payments that would only represent a portion of what webmasters are owed because IBD does not have the capital to pay everyone in full. Affiliates were asked to log into their merchant accounts and download the note payable for 100 percent on the dollar -- in 50 percent increments over two years with a meager 3 percent interest. On April 29, 2005, after several webmasters who maintained affiliate programs with iBill complained about not being paid, IBD blamed a temporary accounting glitch. The money, iBill president Gary Spaniak said, had been accidentally diverted to another account. Still, the question remains. Why would IBD want to buy a company that was obviously in serious trouble to begin with? Spaniak says IBD essentially didn't have a choice. On October 5, 2004, IBD announced the purchase of 35 percent of Penthouse Media Group, formerly General Media Inc., an acquisition that had been in the works for some time. The caveat, according to Spaniak, was that IBD also had to buy iBill. "When we did the financing to buy Penthouse, the bondholders made us use iBill as collateral when we closed on it. I had no choice but to close on iBill. If I didn't close on iBill, I lost the $20 million we borrowed for Penthouse Media Group. All of those notes would have been called if I didn't close on iBill. I had no choice but to close and that's why we got delisted on the American Stock Exchange," Spaniak said. "It's in the contracts with the people who loaned us the money to buy Penthouse Media Group. They said you have to have that asset in your portfolio or we're going to foreclose." Sometimes a great notion The company that would become Interactive Brand Development was originally established in Nevada in July 1988 as Amsterdam Capital Corporation. In November 1992, the company changed its state of incorporation to Delaware. On November 26, 2002, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amsterdam Capital merged with and into iBid America Inc., a Florida corporation, and Care Concepts I was born. Care Concepts bloomed into a self-dubbed "media and marketing holding company" with assets that included: a controlling interest in Foster Sports Inc., a sports-oriented, multimedia company that produces sports radio talk shows in the Florida marketplace; and its flagship enterprise, iBidUSA.com, a website showcasing products and services in an auction format. If Care Concepts was attempting to muscle in on eBay's territory with iBidUSA -- which is reasonable to assume -- the most fitting analogy would be an online bookseller offering only 20 unique book titles and hoping to position itself to compete with Amazon. At iBidUSA, consumers bid to acquire gift certificates redeemable for such items as hotel accommodations, restaurant meals, concerts, golf courses, shopping experiences, and personal services. The certificates are provided by regional commercial establishments seeking to promote their businesses, introduce new products and services, develop new customers, and generate consumer awareness. Indeed, when Care Concepts first made overtures to acquire iBill the company boasted in a press release: "Similar to the combination of PayPal and eBay, the acquisition of iBill provides our auction operations with an exciting strategic solution to vertically integrate online payment services into an auction environment." After Care Concepts was reborn as Interactive Brand Development with a new business plan to build a presence as a media holding company in the adult entertainment industry, the company licensed its flagship and wholly owned subsidiary iBidUSA to a second party, LTC Group Inc. on March 1, 2005, proclaiming the following in its annual report for 2004: "The Company believes that the limited revenue generated by this division, which consum[ing] a disproportionate amount of the Company's man-hours in training, advertising, and marketing, will be increased over time by this agreement. The Company receives 20 percent of the gross earnings of the business, while its resources are allocated to other areas of the company growth." The key words in the statement are "limited revenue." When the relationship just isn't working ... Certainly Foster Sports was turning a profit for Care Concepts/IBD but in November 2004, shortly before the ink was dry on the iBill acquisition, the company divested its ownership interest in Foster and discontinued its "pursuits of business combinations with entities involved in radio media." One month before shedding itself of Foster Sports, IBD consummated a transaction to acquire a 34.7 percent minority equity interest in the post-bankruptcy, reorganized Penthouse Media Group Inc. A little background on Penthouse is necessary here in order to see not only the strategic blunder of IBD's investment but the incestuous nature of the iBill enterprise. Founded by Bob Guccione in 1965, the Penthouse trademark became one of the most recognized consumer brands in the world and was widely identified with premium entertainment for adult audiences. The magazine's closest competitors were Playboy and Hustler. Maxim(um) threat By 1998, Penthouse publisher Guccione found himself stuck between the widespread saturation of adult product on the Internet and the monumental popularity of nonexplicit men's magazines like Maxim. Penthouse's response to the threat was to change its format and begin featuring sexually explicit photo layouts that included oral and vaginal penetration and female models urinating. The latter taboo firmly put Penthouse's foot on the third rail of the defining limits of illegal obscenity. The new format for Penthouse cost General Media, the parent company of the magazine, dearly. The magazine lost subscribers and newsstand circulation dropped significantly. On August 12, 2003, General Media, the publishing and distribution arm of Penthouse, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection when it could not meet its bond payments. Two months later, it was announced that Penthouse was being put on the auction block as part of a deal with its creditors. Penthouse International, an umbrella company for several business units that include Penthouse magazine, was not involved in the petition. Crime, drugs, and soft drinks! Soft drinks! Enter Garrett Bender, former president and CEO of iBill, and Jason Galanis, who described himself to Forbes magazine as "part of the investment banking team" that took Penthouse magazine public in 2002. Jason Galanis is the son of John Peter Galanis, a convicted and highly prolific white-collar criminal. The Philadelphia Inquirer called the father of Jason Galanis "a brilliant and charming swindler who uses a maze of national and foreign corporations to carry out his deals," a businessman who "has faced law enforcement scrutiny, a six-month jail term, indictments in the United States and Canada, civil suits, and a lengthy fight in U.S. Bankruptcy Court." By his own admission in court, according to the Inquirer, Galanis "plundered a Panamanian investment fund, Armstrong Capital, in 1970, and the investors are still trying to collect $3.5 million in principal and interest." Jason Galanis has never been convicted of a crime. He was arrested on October 19, 2001, along with his brother and business partner Derek in part of a two-day Drug Enforcement Agency takedown of a methamphetamine and Ecstasy trafficking organization. The DEA found that Jason's involvement in the narcotics operation was "minimal" and charges were dropped. But Derek Galanis was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in jail. Through a complicated set of maneuvers that would outwit even Donald Trump, former iBill CEO Garrett Bender and Jason Galanis helped form Media Billing LLC and seated Dr. Luis Enrique Molina as one of the principal stockholders of Penthouse. A Mexican soft drink entrepreneur, Molina reportedly ponied up more than $70 million to pay off Guccione's debts and the liens on his New York mansion. Molina and Penthouse agreed to purchase General Media preferred stock from the sellers for approximately $10.25 million, payable on March 31, 2008, under an 8 percent increasing rate note given by Molina and guaranteed by Penthouse. Molina reportedly also sunk another $107 million into Penthouse in a real estate and equity swap. Confused yet? It gets more torturous. Deceit, betrayal On March 23, 2004, InterCept Payment Solutions -- embattled by investors for not disclosing just how much of iBill's revenue was derived from porn processing -- sold iBill to Media Billing LLC, a 99 percent-owned subsidiary of Penthouse International. When InterCept sold iBill, the processor was a mess. Not only were the company's own shareholders suing it, but iBill also had a substantial debt. Media Billing purchased iBill for a mere $700,000 in cash and an $800,000 short-term note. They agreed to assume a $22 million working capital deficit. Where _the hell_ did all that money go? Well, an iBill insider says it went with InterCept, who reportedly rode off into the sunset with nearly $31 million that was owed to iBill clients. On paper, Media Billing essentially paid $23.5 million for iBill. A few more disastrous bumps occur in the road, and on July 30, 2004, Care Concepts announced it was buying both Media Billing LLC and iBill from Penthouse for $55 million in an all-stock deal. On October 4, 2004, General Media emerged from bankruptcy protection and was renamed Penthouse Media Group. Boca Raton, Florida, financier Marc Bell, who heads the private equity firm Marc Bell Capital Partners, led an investment group that collected 89 percent of the magazine's approximately $45 million in bonds and announced plans to invest up to $50 million to turn the magazine around. "We want to realign the magazine and take it to the center," Bell told the Miami Herald in February 2004. "It's got very hardcore and lost a lot of readership because of that." It's anyone's guess why IBD would consider the purchase of 34.7 percent ownership in Penthouse Media Group "part of a strategic investment that is synergistic" with its desire to become a major player in the "highly-fragmented multibillion-dollar adult market" (according to an April 2005 IBD Press Release,). Penthouse's circulation is down from 5.2 million copies in its heyday to a current circulation of roughly 460,000. Judging from posts on a July 5, 2005 discussion thread at http://Xxxporntalk.com, the new and improved Penthouse is less than enthralling: "Has anyone seen the newest Penthouse issue?" photographer Holly Randall asks. "The centerfold is blah, and the printing is absolute crap. In fact, every layout in this issue is horrible. The softcore angle on this mag just ain't working. What are they trying to do, a really bad version of Playboy? Just when I thought the magazine couldn't get any worse, it does. Bob may have been a bit nuts, but at least he could put out a decent magazine. This is so amateur looking it blows my mind." Another poster adds: "[Penthouse is] running on fumes, I think. If they don't have hot photos, they don't have anything. The articles haven't been much for a long time. They've stuck with such a tired formula, it's antiquated. The only thing it had that was great were some of the photo sets, which were far hotter than Playboy[s] and more classy than Hustler[s]. "They've probably worked out a bottom line budget that allows the mag to run on cruise control and generate a little profit while they work the licensing end," another ads. "But it looks like the glory days are over for good." In the company's annual report for 2004, IBD notes that "the actual current commercial value of the Penthouse brand name is not determinable at this time, but it will not impact the company's financial position or results of operations except to the extent such value indicates that an impairment has occurred." On March 31, 2005, IBD acquired a minority equity interest in Interactive Television Networks, Inc (ITVN), formerly XTV Inc., an IPTV broadband video content provider with a strong emphasis on direct-to-consumer adult programming delivery. Aside from its Pay-Per-View revenue sources, ITVN also offers video-phone sex. IBD acquired 6,250 shares of ITVN common stock from XTV Investments LLC for a 25 percent equity ownership of ITVN, in exchange for 4,000 shares of Convertible Preferred Stock Series H, which will convert into 40,000,000 shares of IBD common stock and $1,700,000 in cash. On June 15, 2005, Radium Ventures Inc., a public company based in Canada, announced that it had acquired ITVN in a merger. As part of the deal, Radium canceled 750,000 of the outstanding shares of its common stock and issued 22,117,550 shares of its common stock to the existing stockholders of ITVN. IBD received 5,500,000 restricted common shares of Radium. Ruined reputations? What is Radium Ventures? Until acquiring ITVN, Radium was a two-man enterprise that provided document-editing services and used an Internet marketing plan and the proprietary software Einscribe. In fiscal year 2005, Radium completely discontinued its editing operations and announced plans to rename itself after the acquired company, Interactive Television Networks. While IBD doesn't have a controlling interest in ITVN, there is a bit of acrimony between the companies, at least on ITVN's part. Part of that, Spaniak says, is because the relationship to iBill has made XTV's affiliates concerned about getting paid. Ironically, the CEO of ITVN is Charles Prast, former CEO of Private Media Group and president of iBill during the Media Billing days, who is quick to dismiss any IBD involvement in ITVN. "We don't have a relationship with IBD. We don't have a bad relationship or a good relationship, we just don't have any relationship whatsoever," Prast says. "They have no board seats. They have no representation whatsoever in the management or the direction of the company. They are purely a passive investor; We have nada to do with them." Between iBill, Penthouse International, Media Billing LLC, ITVN, Radium Ventures, and, of course, Interactive Brand Development Inc., nee Care Concepts, at the center of it all, millions of dollars in stock and cash are exchanging hands, and yet there is not a company of established value anywhere in the mix. The reputations of both Penthouse and iBill have been seriously damaged, perhaps permanently, and ITVN is not yet a proven entity. In its Annual Report for 2004, Interactive Brand Development invokes generalities to predict its future growth, an evasive business ploy that was a favorite of the many now-defunct dot-com boomers. In the dot-com days, an online bookseller, for instance, would cite analyst reports that reflected an upward trend in consumer book buying in the next fiscal year, coupled with another analyst report that reflected a wave of new Internet users on the horizon. Here is an example of how those same overly optimistic forward-looking statements sound like coming direct from IBD's report: "Demand for adult entertainment products has grown substantially in recent years. According to a 2003 Reuters report, the total worldwide adult entertainment market exceeds $31 billion annually -- The proliferation of easy to use electronic equipment, such as VCRs and DVD players, has boosted demand for adult media content compatible with these formats. Also, the evolution of the Internet as a channel of commerce and content distribution has stimulated additional demand for adult media content. The next generation of mobile devices provides a global opportunity for growth in content distribution." In the same report, IBD says that it has "depleted the cash resources that it has available." The company currently believes, however, that operating cash flows and borrowings will be adequate to meet the company's operating needs and capital requirements through 2005. "Such operating needs and capital requirements include short-term commitments, and market penetration of our iBill and ITVN services," the report states. As for iBill, IBD warns in its report that its "competitors have substantially greater capital and other financial resources than iBill does" and that any sharp competitive change in the credit card processing business can "make it more difficult for iBill to retain and attract customers." Not to mention the numerous lawsuits filed against iBill in both federal and state circuit courts. From the 2004 report: "The Company believes that the results of operations from iBill should improve as the Company regains lost customers and increases operating efficiencies. However, the Company must obtain additional financing to permit it to expand its iBill operations and facilitate its business plan." In the absence of financing, IBD warns, "the Company will be unable to satisfy its past due and other obligations." Spaniak insists, and recent developments look promising, that IBD will bring iBill back. "I think we're pretty close to being fixed. We've paid back over $30 million, our processing is up and our clients are getting paid, he said. "We feel good about the direction we're going. We're going to save this thing." In other words, the check is in the mail. Note: A former newspaper editor and amateur boxer, Dash Hamilton lives in the Pacific Northwest. He is currently writing a critical study on the works of Jacqueline Susanne. MJ MacMahon also contributed to this story. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ah ... internet porn ... what a wonderful business to be in. As we read here, if you did business with a porn company over the past three or four years, chances are likely your email address has been spammed internationally; and the webmaster you signed up through has never yet gotten paid for it. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:37:12 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 18, 2007 MTS Identifies Potential Delay in Russian 3G Roll-Out http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24956?11228 The roll-out of 3G networks by Russia's three major mobile operators, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), VimpelCom, and MegaFon, could be subject to regulatory delays, according to MTS vice-president Yury Gromakov, reports Prime-Tass. Although all three operators have acquired licences following a beauty contest earlier this year, Gromakov ... TeliaSonera Adds VoIP to Swedish Triple-Play Package http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24953?11228 The Nordic region's largest telecoms group, TeliaSonera, has launched a residential VoIP package as part of its triple-play package. In a statement today, TeliaSonera said it is extending its IP telephony package to its 2.4 million Swedish households, which can now choose between three different triple-play packages with broadband, ... Security via Satellite http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24949?11228 Most commercial home and business security systems remain firmly mired in landline telephone technology that hasn't changed much in several decades. But at least in Europe this situation may soon change. The Satellite Alarm and Surveillance System (SASS), developed under the European Space Agency's ARTES Start-up Projects ... Mmm, mmm, good! http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24948?11228 Practical cooks know that when you have a wide range of ingredients at hand, it's time to consider mixing them into a hearty stew or gumbo. The cable industry has a variety of new technologies to work with, and dozens of products it can put in the mix. The NCTA Cable Show 2007 in Las Vegas last month was a metaphorical pot for all of ... Nokia Unveils 3 New Mid-range Cell Phone Models http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24946?11228 SINGAPORE -- Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. unveiled three new models designed for the mid-range market, the company said in Singapore Monday. The Nokia 6267, Nokia 6121 classic and Nokia 3500 classic are expected to begin shipping in the third quarter of this year, the Espoo, Finland-based company said in a statement. The ... AT&T Picks GPON Players http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24943?11228 AT&T Inc. announced Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson AB as its GPON vendors late Friday. Alcatel-Lucent's inclusion isn't a surprise, considering the company is an incumbent in fiber deployments by AT&T and the former BellSouth, since acquired by AT&T. For Ericsson, though, this is a ... Report Examines iPhone Awareness http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24940?11228 M:Metrics released results today from its Benchmark Survey surrounding consumer awareness and intention to purchase the iPhone. The measurement firm found that 56% of British and 64% of American mobile phone users were aware of the iPhone. In the United States, where the device will launch first, 14% of those who had heard about the ... Protecting IT Enterprise Networks From 'Consumerization' http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24938?11228 One of the most significant threats to enterprise security is the 'consumerization of IT', as Gartner Inc. puts it. As more consumer technologies enter the enterprise, security managers must prepare for and manage new security risks as staffers expect to use more of their personal equipment and services while at work. ... AlcaLu Signs SFR, Thinks Mobile http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24936?11228 Alcatel-Lucent has won a router contract with French mobile operator SFR , part of what AlcaLu claims is a wave of mobility business underway in IP routing. Alcatel-Lucent has already contracted to provide UMTS equipment to SFR, and the two have been doing research into mobile TV. But it turns out the wireless provider, ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: eHarmony Sued For Discriminatory Actions Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:39:50 -0700 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Mark Atwood wrote: > I *am* a member of (and lord help me, even a leader of sorts) in the > "LGBT Community", and I have to agree with Fred. Relationships are > the most personal of things, and forcing someone to take part in them, > when they expressly don't want to, is worse than counter productive. Totally agree. More to the point, this is the kind of problem that the market can solve better, faster, and cheaper than any "solution" a court or legislature might produce. At least one competing site, chemistry.com (which is open to all persuasions), has already started a major ad campaign aimed at people turned down by eHarmony, offering (IIRC) two weeks free. This is why the free market will ultimately prevail. Every problem is an opportunity for somebody to make money. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #171 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jun 19 14:27:00 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 5D9FE225B; Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:26:59 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #172 Message-Id: <20070619182659.5D9FE225B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:26:59 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:30:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 172 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, VOIP Problems (cerberus.perillo) We've Come So Far ... (John Mayson) iPhone Delivers Up to Eight Hours of Talk Time (Monty Solomon) NXTcomm Showcases Convergence (USTelecom dailyLead) AT&T Lets Users Share Live Video (USTelecom dailyLead) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (T) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (David B. Horvath, CCP) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (Sam Spade) Re: Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone (T) Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 (T) Re: EIA Address "Correction" (John Mayson) Re: Porn Webmasters: Did You Ever Get Your Check (David B. Horvath, CCP) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Phone Trivial) (Sam Spade) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: cerberus.perillo@gmail.com Subject: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and VOIP Firewall Problems Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:07:08 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com It has been along time since posted to the Telecommunications Digest, I was under the impression that like most Usenet groups this one had died, I am surprised that Pat did not try to contact me? Recently at a discussion with Steve Bellovin on cryptography in a bar at Foggy Bottom close to George Washington University after an ACM meeting, the discussion morphed into the question of SLIC's (Subscriber Line Interface Circuits), or Pair-Gains, essentially multiplexers to convert a one copper pair line to multiple lines, due to a long line repairman in our group. (I do not know why we wandered off of cryptography?) He was stating that when you had an AC power failure, the batteries in the SLIC's only last for about 8 hours, then everything will go dead. This confused me because as someone with limited experience with SLIC's only at the cross-connects near the Demarc, the F2, or the F3 (Demarc), that these things ran off of CO 48V, and usually there was no electric power to be had at the F2, or F3. Through an alcoholic haze when he started to talk about large currents it finally dawned on me that he was talking about SLIC's used around the Central Office (CO) or F1 that split one pair into thousands of lines? And I was talking about SLIC's that split one line into 2, 4, 8, or 16, so that an extra copper line did not have to be added on the street (F1 to F2), or from the F2 to the residence. With the glut of broadband, I was under the impression that all CO to CO, or CO to F1 traffic was done via optical fiber, so I'm not sure if these devices are still in use? And if this is a real risk? I do know that during the massive East Coast long lasting power failure in August 2003, that while there was no problem with landline telephone service due to CO 48V generation, the Key Telephone Sets (KTS) in all the New York City firehouses which are used to route the calls within the firehouse were dependent on AC power and only had batteries that lasted about 8 hours. So while the telephone lines coming in to the buildings were working, the phones on the desks stopped working after 4 to 8 hours. I believe this has now been fixed? Both Cell Phone Towers and Cell Switches immediately failed when AC Power went out, causing long cues at the Pay Phones around the city. This problem to my knowledge has not been fixed? The residential SLIC's or Pair-Gains that I was talking about do have a very high failure rate. Recently a friend of mine was constantly losing service at his Co-opt, Verizon did at least five service calls and kept on telling him that nothing was wrong and it had to be "inside wiring" if that. He asked me to look at it. It turns out that when the previous tenant wanted an extra line for his apartment, instead of running the line from the complex's basement junction box, which is normally the Demarc, Verizon added a 4 line SLIC in the closet of the co-opt apartment. When my friend moved in they still kept his single line through the SLIC, and that started failing. I disconnected the SLIC from the circuit and everything started working fine, when I got Verizon out there, they agreed, but had no record of the SLIC that they installed, including on the Line Maintenance Configuration System (LCMS) computer? One item that is relevant that Prof. Steve Bellovin, the father of Firewalls, talked about, is that current Internet Firewalls do not handle VOIP very well, are not suited or designed for voice, and there are many security problems with VOIP. The industry is well aware of this problem and has tried to develop standards for a specialized Firewall just for Voice, VOIP, called a "Boundary System", which is based on Telephony technology and terminology. For some reason Steve has not participated in this effort. Robert J. Perillo Principal Telecomm. Engineer dockmaster_perillo@Yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:24:40 -0500 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: We've Come So Far ... Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com About a year ago or so I came up with the idea of converting the TELECOM Digest archives into the mailbox format. I shared this with PAT who posted them to the TELECOM Digest website. Funny thing is I never got around to reading them. Until now. I participated in Georgia Tech's Cooperative Education (Co-op) Program. I started working for AT&T in September 1987. I was 14 going on 15 when January 1, 1984 hit, the day that saw the breakup of AT&T. I really didn't understand from a consumer standpoint what all the fuss was about. Three-and-a-half years later when I was an AT&T employee, I still didn't fully understand the magnitude of what had happened. It's all quite amusing to me now. I continually heard things from fellow, long-time AT&T employees like, "Oh, they're going to reverse the decision, you just watch!". Or "The government had no authority to do this to us.". They really had the mentality that the breakup of Ma Bell was only temporary. The government would eventually come to its senses and order it back together. The "we're still a monopoly" mentality was systemic throughout the corporation, which is what I think lead to its demise (anyone else have any thoughts on this?). I'm still in the 1981 archives. I cannot believe how pompous, protective, and bloated the phone company was then. Telling customers they couldn't have a business and a residential line in the same dwelling. Sarcastic operators and billing employees. Charging through the nose for a simple telephone. Calls to the next town over being a toll call. Metered local calling. Amazing. I really see why AT&T was broken up. I worked with many AT&T 3B2 computers while at AT&T. I found the announcement that there's a rumor of a 3Bx computer coming out, but AT&T won't say to be amusing. A Bell Labs employee chimed in not really confirming or denying it, but noting the government wouldn't let AT&T sell computers to anyone anyway. I've also noted that most (all?) of the contributors to the digest worked in the following areas: Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Chapel Hill, Chicago, New Jersey or Boston. I understand why. Still, it floors me the net was so limited. The January 1982 announcement that AT&T would in fact be broken up consisted of two postings with no apparent responses to either. Could you imagine an annoucement of that magnitude today? Poor PAT would be pulling 20 hour shifts just to process the flurry of postings and replies. :-) You can access the archives in many formats by visiting http://www.telecom-digest.org/archives/back.issues/back-issues-MBOX-format/ (or) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.dcom.telecom . Take some time to read them. It's been very educational for me. In 2007 I no longer get my dial tone from a "telephone company" and I don't give it a second thought if I'm calling down the street, across the county/country, or to Canada, as it's all part of my flat-rate package. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Many of the Digest readers in those days were more 'engineering and technical type' people than today. And, in the 1981-85 files in the archives, I am not certain how complete our files are. I have included everything I could find there, but I strongly suspect there are a few messages missing for one reason or another. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:39:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone Delivers Up to Eight Hours of Talk Time iPhone Delivers Up to Eight Hours of Talk Time Now Features Durable Glass Top Surface CUPERTINO, California-June 18, 2007-Apple today announced that iPhone will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.* In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours-more than 10 days-of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/18iphone.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:04:33 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: June 18, 2007 - NXTcomm Showcases Convergence USTelecom dailyLead June 18, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hjwsfDtusXtVtwCibuddxrUh TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * NXTcomm showcases convergence NXTCOMM 2007 NEWS * Introducing Mediaroom: Microsoft rebrands its IPTV service * Zycel introduces ADSL 2+ gateway BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * AT&T taps greenfield GPON deployment suppliers * Vodafone cuts fees for mobile broadband by almost half * DoCoMo eyes investments in Vietnam, China or India * Cincinnati Bell launches first commercial UMA service * Report: Telekom Austria looks to purchase ATV USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * NXTcomm kicks off in Chicago! HOT TOPICS * Qwest chief announces his retirement * Nokia Siemens takes aim at North American market * Embarq sees consolidation coming, eyes acquisitions * Stephenson: iPhone critical to AT&T strategy * Surveys show AT&T faces massive demand for iPhone TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Nokia, Malaysia's MiTV set to launch DVB-H mobile-TV service * Microsoft enters TV-Internet-networking deal with Chinese TV maker * Increased cell use causes shake-up in telephone-survey world IP DOWNLOAD * TeliaSonera brings VoIP to triple-play customers REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Australian government subsidizes broadband rollout Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hjwsfDtusXtVtwCibuddxrUh ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:13:52 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: June 19, 2007 - AT&T Lets Cell Users Share Live Video USTelecom dailyLead June 19, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hkiYfDtusXtYtzCibuddxqWV TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * AT&T lets cell users share live video NXTCOMM 2007 NEWS * Verizon executive hints at HD VOD * Consumer trust essential for service providers * IMS, IPTV and more on display at NXTcomm * NewStep announces expanded handset support BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * AT&T CEO denies rumors of Vodafone bid * Cinram expands, to provide manufacturing services for Motorola * Ericsson inks new China, India deals * AT&T accuses Cablevision of withholding regional sports networks USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * AT&T, Cisco CEOs, FCC chairman kick off NXTComm opening day keynote TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Apple touts iPhone's longer battery life * Survey: Half of Brits addicted to e-mail * Mobile gaming not popular with majority of cell phone users IP DOWNLOAD * Motorola unlocks software development for its IPTV set-tops REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Regulator mulls bringing mobile WiMAX to U.K. Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hkiYfDtusXtYtzCibuddxqWV ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:04:19 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 19, 2007 ******************************** Microsoft Relaunches IP TV Service, Motorola Launches Open Linux Set-Top Platform http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24988?11228 With the blame for delays to AT&T's U-Verse service deployments laid partially at the door of the Microsoft IP TV platform hopefully now in the past, Microsoft has announced the relaunch of its IP TV software platform-now re-branded as 'Mediaroom'. The new name reflects the platform's capabilities for multimedia ... PCCW's U.K. Unit Eyes WiMAX Mobile Service http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24984?11228 The U.K. telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has called for proposals on whether to allow WiMAX licence holders to offer mobile services using WiMAX technology. UK Broadband Ltd, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based PCCW Ltd, and one of the two WiMAX licence holders in the United Kingdom, has asked Ofcom to enable it to join the ranks of U.K. mobile ... GENBAND Intros New Gateways http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24979?11228 GENBAND Inc.'s product portfolio just keeps growing. The company this month takes the wraps off two new wireline/wireless media gateways, the G2 Compact Media Gateway and G9 Converged Media Gateway, which work with any softswitch or CSCF. According to Jody Bennett, vice president of marketing, GENBAND now offers 'the ... Telecom Equipment Maker Ericsson Gets Orders in China, India http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24977?11228 STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- LM Ericsson AB, the world's largest wireless network maker, on Tuesday unveiled a string of deals, including a mobile network contract in China and a mobile services order in India. The Stockholm-based company also announced a series of deals it had received through its networking equipment maker, ... Orange Doubles FMC Customers http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24973?11228 Orange France has left other European operators in the dust when it comes to fixed/mobile convergence (FMC). Since the end of March this year, Orange has more than doubled the number of unlicensed mobile access (UMA)-based handsets it has sold for its dual/mode GSM/WiFi service, called Unik. But Orange will have to change its game ... Expanding the Universal Network http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24970?11228 The in-building wireless technology company MobileAccess has expanded its Universal Wireless Network product for 802.11 a/b/g WLAN coverage, added multi-mode fiber support and introduced new management capabilities. These enhancements to our Universal Wireless Network enable enterprises to 'springboard' from their ... Enhanced MyCall Traverses Fixed, Mobile Networks http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24967?11228 Comverse, a subsidiary of Comverse Technology Inc., is touting a new release of MyCall Converged Communications, an integrated fixed and mobile communications solution for the delivery of seamless consumer services over fixed broadband and mobile networks. MyCall Converged Communications enables all types of service providers to ... NextWave Buys Into More Euro WiMax http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24964?11228 NextWave Wireless Inc.'s majority-owned European investment subsidiary, Inquam Broadband GmbH , has agreed to acquire a 65 percent controlling stake in European regional WiMax operator WiMax Telecom AG , for an undisclosed sum, continuing on a European broadband wireless spectrum spending spree. The deal expands ... Utility Computing Popular Among Large US Firms http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24962?11228 SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Utility computing is popular among US enterprise firms' decision-makers, and there is reason to believe its popularity will continue to grow, reports In-Stat. In-Stat survey results show that 27% (78 out of 288) of enterprise firms (with 1,000 or more employees) have currently adopted a utility computing ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:40:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 16, 8:09 pm, David B. Horvath, CCP wrote: > I always find arguments like this amusing. If the rules for the job > prohibit employment, then it doesn't matter if you "forget" some > college "incident". There is a difference between an "incident" (no > conviction) and a drug conviction. If the issue is black and white, such as a conviction on record and a prohibition of hiring people with that conviction, it's pretty clear cut. However, as Pat correctly noted, if someone has been 100% trouble free for 20 years since that conviction, should the conviction should still be held against someone? Also, some "convictions" may be improperly classified as more serious than they actually. Should a single conviction for public drunkenness or shoplifting 20 years ago deny someone from employment that has restrictions that you speak of? > I work in an industry that has federal regulations prohibiting the > employer from hiring anyone convicted for a crime of dishonesty > (things like theft, embezzlement, etc.). It doesn't matter if I forgot > about some conviction for stealing while in college, it would be > improper for me to be hired for that job. Fortunately, there are no > such convictions in my background. In the real world, often decisions are made on issues that are NOT "black and white" and this is where secret data bases can be troubling. Suppose someone was arrested but aquitted of the charges. A potential employer might be turned off by that history despite there being no conviction and even if there is no official company policy or federal regulations. > I'm sure I'd remember if there was. More insidious is the fact there may be inaccurate stuff on your record. You say you find this argument amusing, but I don't think you'd be amused to find distortions or blatant errors about you in some privately maintained database that is hindernig your chance of employment or mortage or apartment. Errors happen, particulary if there are no controls. Also, there is the chance of malicious entries. After four years of college, it is only natural for a person to be involved in some sort of misunderstanding with a fellow student, roommate, faculty, etc. These things do happen and people are hurt by them. It is very difficult to correct the record, especially when one doesn't even known where the "records" are maintained and by whom. You say you'd "remember" any incidents, but obviously not gonna remember something that never happened. It's 20 years later and the database says you were arrested but acquitted. How do you prove it's wrong? > Computers and data indexing make the information easier to find but do > not change the underlying issues! If you have to report a conviction > or not get a job because of one (regulations) or not get a security > clearance (again regulations), then you should not! Older people have been fired from jobs because of some distant indiscretion -- properly disclosed -- as a result of newly past laws; laws that make no allowance for time passed. The authorities say "oh the law wasn't meant to apply to people like him", but the guy is still out of job and his life ruined. > An employer can not apply these rules against you if it was another > family member who was convicted. An employer can, and will, do anything they damn well please. AFAIK, there is no law against discrimination because of family background (only ethnic discrimination is prohibited). An employer would just find an excuse anyway. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The difficulty with laws like this is > they make no allowance for people who have geuinely changed their > direction in life. If you commit some crime, and you 'do the time', > then *theoretically* at least, you have been forgiven by society, have > you not? The rules and laws you mention make a lie out of the > rehabilitation model, and effectively punish the offender forever. Very true, especially when the time since the conviction has been decades. ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:53:00 -0400 In article , dhorvath@notchur.biz says... > PAT: Please obscure my email address, name is fine. >> On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:26:56 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >> The truth is we ALL have skeletons in our closet, many we forgot >> about. But maybe that incident back in college will come back to >> haunt you years later. >> For example, maybe you want a job that requires clearance and they >> discover 20 years ago you were arrested for some major drug use. You >> had made a mistake long ago and never again, but now it is held >> against you. Maybe someone in your family did bad. > I always find arguments like this amusing. If the rules for the job > prohibit employment, then it doesn't matter if you "forget" some > college "incident". There is a difference between an "incident" (no > conviction) and a drug conviction. > I work in an industry that has federal regulations prohibiting the > employer from hiring anyone convicted for a crime of dishonesty > (things like theft, embezzlement, etc.). It doesn't matter if I forgot > about some conviction for stealing while in college, it would be > improper for me to be hired for that job. Fortunately, there are no > such convictions in my background. > I'm sure I'd remember if there was. > But if there was, and I got the job, I would be violating the > regulations. It doesn't matter that no one realized it. > Computers and data indexing make the information easier to find but do > not change the underlying issues! If you have to report a conviction > or not get a job because of one (regulations) or not get a security > clearance (again regulations), then you should not! > An employer can not apply these rules against you if it was another > family member who was convicted. > In addition, some convictions cause a loss of rights and can result in > additional charges for attempting to participate. For instance, a > felony conviction causes a federal prohibition on ownership of > firearms. It is illegal to own one, hold one, or even attempt to buy > one! Forgetting about an earlier conviction can result in another > with hard federal time. > - David > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The difficulty with laws like this is > they make no allowance for people who have geuinely changed their > direction in life. If you commit some crime, and you 'do the time', > then *theoretically* at least, you have been forgiven by society, have > you not? The rules and laws you mention make a lie out of the > rehabilitation model, and effectively punish the offender forever. > Ditto on firearm ownership: The federal and various state/local > governments absolutely _despise_ the Second Amendment to the > Constitution, which plainly allows citizens to own firearms. Because > of this hatred and their wish it did not exist, the various > governments try throwing up every roadblock of which they can think. > If you did thus and so, then you cannot own a gun, etc. All of these > 'negative' laws on what you cannot own or cannot do once your term has > been finished have the effect of punishing the offender forever, in a > backdoor sense. When you are no longer being punished, your full > rights as a citizen should be returned to you, but that would, in > turn, make mock of the corrections industry, which the governments > really support. PAT] Want to know what I find extremely interesting? To work in law enforcement you only have to do a few things. First, you have to submit for a BCI check which goes up against state and federal databases for criminal activity. There is also a psychological barrier too. To be a politician you don't have to be vetted other than signatures to get your name in there. And to work for the USCG, Navy, Air Force, etc. the standard checks apply plus a credit check. It's bizarre. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:08:21 -0400 From: David B. Horvath, CCP Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Please obscure my email address, you can show my name. On: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:09:54 -0400, I posted and PAT replied: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The difficulty with laws like this is > they make no allowance for people who have geuinely changed their > direction in life. If you commit some crime, and you 'do the time', > then *theoretically* at least, you have been forgiven by society, have > you not? The rules and laws you mention make a lie out of the > rehabilitation model, and effectively punish the offender forever. > Ditto on firearm ownership: The federal and various state/local > governments absolutely _despise_ the Second Amendment to the > Constitution, which plainly allows citizens to own firearms. Because > of this hatred and their wish it did not exist, the various > governments try throwing up every roadblock of which they can think. > If you did thus and so, then you cannot own a gun, etc. All of these > 'negative' laws on what you cannot own or cannot do once your term has > been finished have the effect of punishing the offender forever, in a > backdoor sense. When you are no longer being punished, your full > rights as a citizen should be returned to you, but that would, in > turn, make mock of the corrections industry, which the governments > really support. PAT] That is a completely different issue you are raising PAT. The original poster was commenting about computer indexes making it "too easy" for others to find out about youthful indiscretions preventing them from getting a job. If there was a conviction when the person was younger with rules prohibiting employment (hiring or security clearance) or the exercise of certain rights (voting or gun ownership), then the ability of employers/government agencies to find that out is not really a computer issue! Of course, there is a big difference between a youthful indiscretion (think appearance in a "girls gone wild" video) and a conviction for a crime. I agree that someone should not face job discrimination for appearing in a video (or consuming certain substances) 5 or more years ago. Or because a family member did something terrible (where the prospective employee was not involved). There was a discussion thread in one of the privacy lists (computer privacy digest IIRC) where the original poster complained about the privacy implications of old newspaper articles being published/indexed on the web. It suddenly made it hard for someone to hide from their past (that was important enough to make the news). My contention was that computerization of those records was not a privacy issue. The incident/information had already been made public (published -- notice how similar those words are?) and could've readily been found if someone wanted to go to the print archives. You do raise a good point about "paying debt to society". As a society we seem to have a duality in how we view criminal justice. We state that someone who has served their sentence (not on parole or probation) as paid their debt to society and yet we keep adding conditions to their lives. First it was the loss of the right to vote/own firearms. Then there are employment restrictions (regulations and laws); many jobs now require criminal background checks before being hired. Now we are requiring certain classes of criminal (sexual offender) to register their home addresses, have restrictions on where they can live, and even being thrown into psychiatric facilities. The biggest issue facing an "ex-con" is employment. Most employers do not want to hire convicted felons. These people tend to be lower educated and live in lower socio-economic brackets before being convicted. Afterwards, it is even harder for them to find a decent job -- even where regulations do not prohibit employment. I'm not sure how we can fix this as a society. Before someone yells at me, I know I am generalizing about education and socio-economic bracket. I am speaking about tendencies and generalities, not specific cases. - David ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 06:27:48 -0700 Organization: Cox > When you are no longer being punished, your full rights as a citizen > should be returned to you, but that would, in turn, make mock of the > corrections industry, which the governments really support. PAT] What about registered sex offenders? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, what about them? They have one of the longest 'supervision' periods of all -- I think, ten years in total, after their conviction, according to the uniform rules the federal government seems to enforce on all the states -- but at some point their punishment is, or should be complete; zip, nada, done, over, finished. There are a few people who claim that 'sex offenders are never rehabilitated or cured'; but if in ten or eleven years or however long their incarceration lasted _plus_ their registration period there have been no subsequent offenses, then why hang on to them, clutching them for dear life as the corrections industry is prone to do? Trouble is, sometime during that decade there will be some other heinous offender somewhere, and all the citizens will go on a rampage for 'justice' and demand the laws be changed, post-facto for _all_ offenders. Forget the double-jeopardy implications, _this is just too important_ claim the citizens. The sex-offender registration lists are too cluttered up, and were started, theoretically, to 'warn the neighbors' about offenders living in their midst. And the way police always pounce at the opportunity to get still more people listed (except of course themselves or their buddies in blue) the lists will only get longer and more cluttered. And some states have dropped the word-phrase 'sex' or 'sexual' from the name and started referring to the 'Registered Offenders List'. That's because in some places they now include drug (buying, selling, possessing) as a registerable offense. So, what were you saying about 'Registered Sex Offenders'? PAT] ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:56:00 -0400 In article , dhunter@isn.net says: > Im looking for a power connector for a Nortel/Quortech Millenium > payphone in the museum's collection so that it can be shown with its > display lighted on display. I realize that it won't be able to be used > for calls ... > The needed connector is the one which +/- 24 volts is connected to, > and also ring and tip and which then plugs into the the NT5U01 BR rear > terminal board assembly. I believe the part number for the missing > connector is CPD13S04P2. > I realize I could solder the connections directly to the board if > absolutely necessary, but would prefer not to go that route if the > correct connector can be found. > Thanks, > Dave > Telephone Museum of P.E.I. Hey Dave, why can't the display be used? You could probably use a PIC to control it. Tony ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:18:00 -0400 In article , gsthurman@gmail.com says: > Very interesting reading this. I was living in Chicago at the time, > so I remember it very well. One question is how long did it ACTUALLY > take to replace the switch and restore full service to the area. > George "Skip" Thurman > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Illinois Bell stated that the > restoration was about 90 percent finished within a month, in mid-June, > 1988. It was about 95 percent finished within a month or two after > that. A couple telco repair technicians in the area noted to me that > the restoration was never _totally_ i.e. 100 percent (as in things > operated _exactly_ as they had before the fire). It got to be 'the > equivilent of' 100 percent during August of that year, but trained and > experienced ears which listened _closely_ said the 'action' (if you want > to call it that) was never completely replicated. > I do not know if you recall this or not, Skip, but _you_ were the > person who tipped me off to the fire in progress that Sunday afternoon > in a phone call to my home. PAT] Of course -- there was probably some newer gear placed into service at the time. By 1982 I believe the #5 ESS was available. I'd imagine much of the gear in that office at the time of the fire was probably #1A ESS and #4 ESS for toll switching. A #5 ESS can handle both functions. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:24:55 -0500 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: EIA Address "Correction" Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Tue, 5 Jan 1982, John C. Gilmore wrote: > It's common practice to indicate "I" Street in DC as "Eye" Street. > It helps keeps the postal clerks from squinting. Sorry, I cannot help myself. I do not plan to make a habit of replying to digest postings 25 years after the fact. But I had to chime in on this one. The original poster had indicated an address on "Eye Street" in Washington, DC. Someone corrected this as being "I Street" which earned the response above. I pulled up Google Maps and confirmed that it'll accept either "I Street" or "Eye Street" for the same street in The District. Of course pulling up Google Maps in 1982 was not an option. When this was posted, both Sergey and Larry, founders of Google, were a mere 8 years old. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:12:24 -0400 From: David B. Horvath, CCP Subject: Re: Porn Webmasters: Did You Ever Get Your Check PAT: Please obscure my email address, name is just fine. > On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:37:12 -0500, Dash Hamilton > wrote: > "Are we crazy? Probably, but the reality is we bought this thing and > took it on when we could of thrown it in bankruptcy and not paid the > webmasters," Spaniak said. "We've paid back over $30 million because we > believed in the concept and believed we could fix it." Does "could of" annoy anyone else besides me (really "could've")? One would think a published article would get it right (or if the quote came from some release, the PR person). - David ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 06:25:30 -0700 Organization: Cox hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > As mentioned, in TV and films the dialing of a telephone can slow down > the pace. Often characters improperly "spun" the dial or dialed fewer > digits to speed up the scene. > But in this movie they purposely dailed deliberately as part of the > drama. Indeed, they not only dialed the full seven digit number, they > also dialed the 9 for the outside line and even paused waiting for the > second dial tone. This was when Redford was calling various CREEP > officers to track down money given to the Watergate burglars. There > was a TV set on in the background, adding to the scene. > I think of this movie as "modern" since it is in color and relatively > recent as compared to the B&W films shown on TCM made in the 1930s and > 40s. But of course this film is 30 years which is not very new, > obviously. Washington, DC had quite a few ESS offices when Watergate happened, which is a different environment than "Wrong Number" or "Dial M for Murder." ;-) > The other notable aspect of this film was the _lack_ of computers and > other automated devices to help them in their research, all the things > we take for granted today. Redford had a _manual_ typewriter, as was > common for reporters in newsrooms in those years. Wire service came > over classic Teletypes operating at the princely speed of seven > characters per second. After typing their copy, it was edited by > hand, then sent to Linotype machine operators to set type. But, typewriters had come a long way, with correcting Selectrics. ;-) > There were mobile phones in those days, but probably only the > newspaper's owner had one. All the rest made do with pay phones. All > reporters kept a mental note of where pay phones were located so as to > be able to call in stories. Other reporters were on duty at phone > banks (spacesaver sets with headsets) to take down the information > phoned in. When Watergate happened, the only mobile phones were those giant bricks mounted in the car, and which transmitted and received in the open on VHF low, where every sharp kid with a scanner could hear the conversation with ease. ;-) >> If they wanted to research anything historical, it meant a trip to >> the library and _serially_ scanning through microfilm reels. Slow >> and tedious. >> It's amazing the differences in a reporter's work then vs. now. >> One difference was that newspapers had much larger circulation in >> those days. Sadly, the daily newspaper is going the way of the buggy whip. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #172 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jun 19 19:06:39 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 694BE2275; Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:06:39 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #173 Message-Id: <20070619230639.694BE2275@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:06:39 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:08:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 173 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Google to Build $600 Million Data Center in Iowa (Daisuke Wakabayashi) Web Cam to Watch Test Takers (Justin Pope, Associated Press) Re: Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone (Dave Hunter) Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 (Ken Abrams) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (Lisa Hancock) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (L Hancock) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and VOIP Firewall (J Levine) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:31:55 -0500 From: Daisuke Wakabayashi Subject: Google to Build $600 Million Data Center in Iowa By Daisuke Wakabayashi Google Inc. plans to spend $600 million to build a data center in western Iowa, the latest site in a massive network of server farms holding the hundreds of thousands of computers which run its Web services. Construction of the new data center in Council Bluffs has started and Google plans to start operations by spring of 2009, Iowa Governor Chet Culver announced in a news release. Google said the region is a busy crossroads of Internet activity. The western Iowa facility, which sits on nearly 1,200 acres of land, with room for expansion, will employ about 200 workers whose responsibility will be to keep the facility running 24 hours a day. Google declined to offer specific details about its network of data centers, but said it has "dozens" of facilities around the world, including recently announced projects in Oklahoma, North Carolina and South Carolina. Data centers, also known as server farms, are nondescript buildings filled with row upon row of computer servers, data storage and network systems. They provide the infrastructure to power a variety of Web services, ranging from online video to hosted e-mail to Internet search. Google and other Web heavyweights like Microsoft Corp. are capitalizing on the declining cost of computing power and data storage to build enormous data centers in areas with cheap electricity. These companies see data centers as a competitive way to differentiate from smaller Internet service providers that can't afford to make the heavy up-front investments in infrastructure. MidAmerican Energy Co., which will supply the electricity to the facility, would not say how much electricity the data center will consume, citing a confidentiality agreement with Google. The energy company recently completed the expansion of its coal-fired plant in Council Bluffs, which can produce over 1,300 megawatts. Separately, Google told a news conference in Paris that the Mountain View, California-based company aims to cut or offset all of its greenhouse emissions by the end of the year. It is the latest in a string of corporations seeking to cutback emissions gases that scientists link to global warming. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in New York) 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: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:35:07 -0500 From: Justin Pope, AP Subject: Web Cam to Watch Test Takers By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer The number of college students taking courses online is surging, creating a tough dilemma for educators who want to prevent cheating. Do you trust students to take an exam on their own computer from home or work, even though it may be easy to sneak a peek at the textbook? Or do you force them to trek to a proctored test center, detracting from the convenience that drew them to online classes in the first place? The dilemma is one reason many online programs do little testing at all. But some new technology that places a camera inside students' homes may be the way of the future -- as long as students don't find it too creepy. This fall, Troy University in Alabama will begin rolling out the new camera technology for many of its approximately 11,000 online students, about a third of whom are at U.S. military installations around the world. The device, made by Cambridge, Mass.-based Software Secure, is similar in many respects to other test-taking software. It locks down a computer while the test is being taken, preventing students from searching files or the Internet. The latest version also includes fingerprint authentication, to help ensure the person taking the test isn't a ringer. But the new development is a small Web cam and microphone that is set up where a student takes the exam. The camera points into a reflective ball, which allows it to capture a full 360-degree image. (The first prototype was made with a Christmas ornament.) When the exam begins, the device records audio and video. Software detects significant noises and motions and flags them in the recording. An instructor can go back and watch only the portions flagged by the software to see if anything untoward is going on -- a student making a phone call, leaving the room -- and if there is a sudden surge in performance afterward. The inventors admit it's far from a perfect defense against a determined cheater. But a human test proctor isn't necessarily better. And the camera at least "ensures that those people that are taking classes at a distance are on a level playing field," said Douglas Winneg, Software Secure's president and CEO. Troy graduate students will start using the device starting this fall, and undergraduates a year later. Software Secure says it has talked to other distance learning providers, too. A potential future market is the standardized testing industry, which has struggled to find enough secure testing sites to accommodate growing worldwide demand for tests like the SAT college entrance exam and the GMAT for graduate school. An estimated 3.2 million students were taking online classes in the fall of 2005, according to the most recent figures from the Sloan Consortium, a group of online learning providers that studies trends in the field, and that figure is almost certainly substantially higher today. But many distance learning providers do very little testing, including some of the largest, for-profit ones such as the University of Phoenix, Capella University and Walden University. Officials at all three schools said they rely mostly on student writing assignments. They say that's the best method to assess their students, most of whom are working adults. Still, they need to be thinking about assessment. The military, whose tuition assistance programs are a huge source of revenue for online universities, is asking questions about testing to make sure students are earning credible degrees, Winneg said. Distance learning programs also need to keep their accreditation agencies happy, as well as Congress, so that the programs can continue to receive federal financial aid dollars. At Troy, like at many distance learning programs, past testing options have been less than ideal. One was to line up a proctor from a list of acceptable exam monitors such as clergy or commanding officers. "We just assumed and hoped the proctor would follow the instructions," said David White, direct of the Southeast region for Troy. "In some cases they did, and probably in some cases they didn't." The other was to arrange proctoring with a testing company and travel to one of their centers. But that was inconvenient for many students and, of course, impossible for soldiers in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The device will cost Troy students $125, White said. Richard Garrett, a senior research analyst at Eduventures who closely follows online learning, said he finds the technology promising, particularly for large companies trying to streamline a now-messy part of their operation. "The great unknown is, 'Will it be seen as too invasive?'" he said. Clearly, it won't be a good idea for everyone. Stephen Flavin, dean of corporate and professional education at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, said his institution is always looking at new technologies, but recording students by camera "would be probably pushing the boundary of our comfort level." White predicts some students will find it odd and even threatening, and may decide to drop out. "I think there will be some people who won't take any more courses with us because they feel like during the test they're being watched," he said. But he insists that's OK because it will improve the credibility of a Troy degree. For Sandra Kinney, a state employee from Stockbridge, Ga., pursuing a master's in public administration and one of the students on Troy's trial run, having a camera in her home was no big deal. It was worth it not to have to drive to an exam center. "For me in Atlanta, it outweighs sitting in two or three hours of traffic," she said. Once, that traffic made her an hour late to an exam. "At that point I was like, there's got to be a better way.'" On the Net: http://www.softwaresecure.com http://www.troy.edu/ecampus/ 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 ------------------------------ From: Dave Hunter Subject: Re: Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:36:13 GMT Hi T: You would have to -- either that, or re-write the program on its eprom, and I just don't have that ability ... The Millenium calls home for everything -- The Millenium is the most secure payphone on the market and to keep it that way, information on the phone is very hard to find. Only details which are publicly available on the phone will be noted here. Millenium phones call daily to their "hive" and contain internal alarms to monitor activity on the phone. Dial tone heard when the handset is raised is computer generated, and the rate tables are contained within the phone and programmed and updated by the Millenium manager. A scrolling advertising line on the phones may also be programmed via the Millenium Manager to show up to 20 advertisements on the display's second line. The Manager can provide constant checks of the phone right down to the number and denominations of coins in the box, credit card verification, self-diagnostics, logging of operational notes such as cleaning and delivery directory dates, and detailed call activity statistics which may be used for planning. The Millenium is available with or without a smart card reader or a multicard reader option allowing users to use magnetic stripe commercial credit cards, calling cards and smart cards / chip cards, and with an optional jack which allow users with portable computers to connect through the phone. The options are seemingly endless. -- E.T. Call Home - the Millenium Way! Dave T wrote: > In article , dhunter@isn.net says: >> Im looking for a power connector for a Nortel/Quortech Millenium >> payphone in the museum's collection so that it can be shown with its >> display lighted on display. I realize that it won't be able to be used >> for calls ... >> The needed connector is the one which +/- 24 volts is connected to, >> and also ring and tip and which then plugs into the the NT5U01 BR rear >> terminal board assembly. I believe the part number for the missing >> connector is CPD13S04P2. >> I realize I could solder the connections directly to the board if >> absolutely necessary, but would prefer not to go that route if the >> correct connector can be found. >> Thanks, >> Dave >> Telephone Museum of P.E.I. > Hey Dave, why can't the display be used? You could probably use a PIC > to control it. > Tony ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:54:49 GMT "T" wrote > By 1982 I believe the #5 ESS was available. I'd imagine much of the gear > in that office at the time of the fire was probably #1A ESS and #4 ESS > for toll switching. A #5 ESS can handle both functions. Indeed it was and indeed it did ! I don't remember much of the details of the fire since I was downstate but I do remember two things: The female Translations Engineer (and a few of her peers) who converted the rating, routing and trunking translations from the old 1A to the new #5E in about 48 hours ... a task that normally would have taken about 4-6 weeks. A cute little thing she was! ;-) I also remember all of the new and revised fire regulations that were implemented a few weeks after. The switch replacement was made somewhat easier by the fact that the #5E labs and the factory both were just "right down the road" a bit. Oh, and I also remember feeling relieved that it wasn't ME working (in the remote alarm and surveillance center) that night !!! ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:56:44 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 18, 10:08 pm, David B. Horvath, CCP wrote: > That is a completely different issue you are raising PAT. The original > poster was commenting about computer indexes making it "too easy" for > others to find out about youthful indiscretions preventing them from > getting a job. > If there was a conviction when the person was younger with rules > prohibiting employment (hiring or security clearance) or the exercise > of certain rights (voting or gun ownership), then the ability of > employers/government agencies to find that out is not really a > computer issue! Again, some things, such as aquittals or mere suspicions, could be buried in paper files never to see light again. With computerized indexes, that is less likely. > My contention was that computerization of those records was not a > privacy issue. The incident/information had already been made public > (published -- notice how similar those words are?) and could've > readily been found if someone wanted to go to the print archives. "Privacy" is a relative term. Thanks to the Internet, something "public" gets spread around worldwide instead of restricted to say one's own neighborhood. You say "could've readily been found if someone wanted to go to the print archives". But that is a huge IF. Most people do not have the time or resources to search through print archives. Often the archives are not indexed, so one needs a date in advance to narrow the search. Often the archives are serial microfilm, so that means physically travelling to an archive, loading a roll and checking each and every page for a reference. That takes time, lots of it. Having done it, I can say it's not easy. In contrast, electronics allow comprehensive searches from one's own desk. I submit that the Internet and computerized indexes and archives makes a HUGE difference in "privacy" compared to the past of paper files or microfilm. > You do raise a good point about "paying debt to society". As a society > we seem to have a duality in how we view criminal justice. We state > that someone who has served their sentence (not on parole or > probation) as paid their debt to society and yet we keep adding > conditions to their lives. First it was the loss of the right to > vote/own firearms. Then there are employment restrictions (regulations > and laws); many jobs now require criminal background checks before > being hired. Now we are requiring certain classes of criminal (sexual > offender) to register their home addresses, have restrictions on where > they can live, and even being thrown into psychiatric facilities. All true. The worst part is that these restrictions REDUCE our safety, not improve it. Many ex-offenders, unable to literally live with the new restrictions, simply go underground. They are no longer tracked by parole officers or counselors which increases their risk. Further, many get bitter and frustrated at not being able to earn a living and return to crime. But this is a very hot button issue in society; anyone who raises it is accused of coddling criminals. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:12:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 19, 9:25 am, Sam Spade wrote: > Washington, DC had quite a few ESS offices when Watergate happened, > which is a different environment than "Wrong Number" or "Dial M for > Murder." ;-) "Quite a few"? In 1973-74 ESS was still relatively new as a production item. I dare say that within a city most would be served by panel or #1 XBAR, maybe a few exchanges with ESS. Anyway, in 1973-74 I think most subscribers still had plain vanilla dial telephone service. In affluent neighborhoods, many people might have Touch Tone. My impressions of newspaper telephone service and hardware was based on visits to a major city paper of that time. > But, typewriters had come a long way, with correcting Selectrics. ;-) I'm not sure when correcting Selectrics came out, but I think it was after '74. In any event, they were a premium expensive model, probably more found with executive secretaries than with junior reporters. In those years, the secretary to a manager had a nice electric typewriter, but those using a typewriter for routine work (ie bank clerk or librarian) had manuals. (Remington and Underwood both made very nice manuals in that time frame.) By 1980 things would be very different, but it was a slow transition. Typewriters were rather expensive. > When Watergate happened, the only mobile phones were those giant > bricks mounted in the car, and which transmitted and received in the > open on VHF low, where every sharp kid with a scanner could hear the > conversation with ease. ;-) There were only a few frequencies available and a huge waiting list for mobile service despite the high cost. But in those days, when more people were in a city, payphones were everywhere. Lobbies of office buildings had banks of them (nice ones with a tiny chair, table, fan, light, and closed door). Often every floor of a commercial building had one too, in addition to the lobby bank. For some reason I don't know, when Bell and Motorola applied to test new cell service, the FCC sat on it for two years. The phones on the new Metroliner train (introduced 1969) were an early type of cellular service (albeit huge cells), but the principle of automatic handoff of call from one cell to the next was proven with that. To the caller, the phone was a standard pay phone with dial direct service. Somewhere online is a Bell Labs article describing it. Neat little system. I understand the Feds later yanked the frequencies away from the train, ironically, to use for White House communications. Some commuter railroads later made a big deal of having mobile pay phones available on their trains, which was a neat service. But within just a few years those phones became obsolete as people got their own cell phones. > Sadly, the daily newspaper is going the way of the buggy whip. Society will suffer as a result. Certainly news via the 'net has benefits. But a printed newpspaer is something of _record_ which is important, not fleeting eletrons on a screen. Newspaper articles have far more depth. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 2007 19:55:51 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems > He was stating that when you had an AC power failure, the batteries > in the SLIC's only last for about 8 hours, then everything will go > dead. This confused me because as someone with limited experience > with SLIC's only at the cross-connects near the Demarc, the F2, or > the F3 (Demarc), that these things ran off of CO 48V These are indeed different beasts. Around here (upstate NY) for many years they only used the CO powered version that turned a two-pair T1 into 24 local loops. A SLC is a much more sophisticated piece of equipment, originally multiplexing 96 lines onto 4 or 5 DS1s, and now handling up to 2048 lines onto various combinations of fiber and copper. SLCs are all locally powered, and if the power goes out, there better be a guy in a truck with a generator going around recharging them all several times a day. > Both Cell Phone Towers and Cell Switches immediately failed when AC > Power went out, causing long cues at the Pay Phones around the > city. This problem to my knowledge has not been fixed? Yeah. Verizon's FIOS in effect puts a SLC on your house, with a battery that it's your job to replace every couple of years, and when you forget and the power fails, you lose. The decreasing resiliency of the phone system to power failures is a real problem that nobody seems to be addressing. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #173 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jun 20 15:24:07 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 34C46224D; Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:24:07 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #174 Message-Id: <20070620192407.34C46224D@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:24:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:27:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 174 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Sprint Adds Some Flexibility to Service Contracts (Sinead Carew, Reuters) Help Setting Up a VoIP Regulatory Framework (Raqueeb Hassan) Cavallier Telephone / Talk America (amitnimail@gmail.com) Stop Cybersquatting (xabistuff@gmail.com) CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily) Networks Take Center Stage During NXTcomm Keynotes (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (T) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (J Thomas) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (Sam Spade) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (T) Re: Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone (T) Re: Web Cam to Watch Test Takers (Duncan Smith) Re: We've Come So Far ... (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems (Merrill) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems (Paul) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:19:21 -0500 From: Sinead Carew, Reuters Subject: Sprint Adds Some Flexibility to Service Contracts By Sinead Carew Reuters NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Sprint Nextel Corp. (S.N) said on Tuesday it would let customers change rate plans over the first six months of a contract without having to sign a new one, as the No. 3 U.S. wireless service provider looks to attract new customers and keep existing ones. U.S. wireless carriers typically make subscribers, who commit to one- or two-year contracts, start a new contract if they want to change rate plans, except during the first month when customers can typically end service without paying a fee. Sprint, which aims to boost subscriber growth after several disappointing quarters, had previously allowed customers to change plans without a new contract in the first three months. U.S. mobile service providers, struggling to add customers in a market where most people already own cell phones, tend to try to keep customers as long as possible by charging fees of as much as $200 if they leave a contract early. Sprint said it was common for customers to want to change their plan before their contract expires. Its latest move comes less than a fortnight before Sprint's biggest rival, AT&T Inc. (T.N), exclusively starts to sell the widely anticipated iPhone, Apple Inc.'s (AAPL.O) first cell phone which has a built-in music and video player. Some analysts had said Sprint could have the most to lose if the iPhone is a success because its customers typically like advanced data services such as music and video. AT&T said it "generally" lets users change service plans during a contract without signing a new one. Smaller rival Alltel Corp. offers a 15-day trial for a contract and said customers can change plans any time without extending it. No. 2 U.S. mobile provider Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L), asks customers to sign a new contract if they want to change service plans after a 30-day grace period. Copyright 2007 Reuters 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 ------------------------------ From: Raqueeb Hassan Subject: Help Setting Up a VoIP Regulatory Framework Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:49:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, Let's say country "A"s telecom regulatory board is trying to open-up the VOIP (call termination) which was branded illegal since long ago. The new regulatory commission wants to empower the people by introducing a transparent VoIP regulatory framework with two goals: a. Cheaper international call rate for the resident of "A". b. Building nationwide IP infrastructure with local entrepreneurs' e.g. cable operators, broadband companies. The country might be as small as New York State, but the estimated population can be 130 million. More than 60 per cent of the populations do not have telephone access which is one of the driving points for legalizing VoIP. The population is so huge that all the cell phone companies (which still lacks interconnectivity with incumbent PSTN) are earning record level profit margin. The country is connected to only one submarine internet backbone. Most ISP's are using low capacity VSAT's as backup service. So, if you are asked to help on setting up framework of VoIP regulation which might help earning revenue for this developing country "A", what would you do? If you ask me, here is my plan. Please correct me if I go wrong. a. Setting up a EMUM server. b. The ENUM server will resolve all the calls routed inbound for Country "A". c. The ENUM server will be connected to a "packet clearing house" for necessary revenue collection. d. Minimum entry fee for the service providers, with annually revenue sharing of 5% (for example) and collected as License Fees. e. Outgoing calls might not be charged when the system is inducted initially. The rate is low when compared to incoming calls. The residents mostly think that the expats will always call. f. The service providers (PSTN, cell phone, cable companies) should connect to that "packet clearing house" over IP, and they should own compatible softswitches for that. g. International bandwidth sold to VoIP operators will be through that "packet clearing house". VoIP operators won't be allowed to have VSAT or IPLC link. h. Operator should not by-pass IP packet (VoIP/Internet) using any other path (like VPN tunnels) other than they have registered. DPI (Deep packet inspection) technology can be utilized should any operator projects lower revenue as expected. I haven't thought of MNP, emergency services etc. which are yet to be implemented in Country "A". I'm not also sure about the interconnectivity switching solution for legacy SS7 signaling and VoIP. I saw some of the NGN switches in ZTE and Huawei channel, but I'm a little skeptical about that. Thanks in advance. Raqueeb Hassan Bangladesh ------------------------------ From: amitnimail@gmail.com Subject: Cavallier Telephone / Talk America Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:57:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am from Michigan and just curious to see if anyone in the Detroit area uses Cavalier Telephone (Also known as Talk America) for their telephone service and/or DSL. I am interested in signing up with them, but I've heard some horror stories but none of them are from Detroit area ... So if anyone has opinion about them let me know. ------------------------------ From: xabistuff@gmail.com Subject: Stop Cybersquatting Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:47:50 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com Cybersquatting has become an issue today; many business owners cannot buy thier desired website due to over pricing of cybersquatters. We encourage ICANN to set rules on this matter. I signed a petition at this link, check it out and tell everyone. http://youchoose.net/pledge/stop_domain_name_parking_and_cybersquatting/from/xavierr ------------------------------ Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update From: communicationsdirect Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:44:00 EDT ******************************** PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update For June 20, 2007 ******************************** FCC Chairman Backs USF Support for Broadband http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/25013?11228 FCC chairman Kevin Martin has revealed his approval for using Universal Service Funds (USF) to support the deployment of broadband services to rural areas, reports Dow Jones from the NXTCom Conference. The fund is not currently used explicitly to support the deployment of broadband, but Alltel, which spun off its wireline services to ... Regulator Considering CDMA 2000 Licence Tender in Russia, as SMARTS' 3G Appeal Fails http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/25011?11228 Regional Russian mobile operator SMARTS has failed in its first bid to overturn the rejection of its application for a 3G licence, reports Prime-Tass. The Moscow Arbitration Court has upheld the decision by the Federal Communications Agency (Rossvyaz) to disqualify SMARTS' application, on the grounds that the operator has existing ... Me.dium Offers a Rare Experience http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/25007?11228 The Web is not only allowing people to communicate in new ways, it's changing the very way people communicate. Take Me.dium, for example, a new Web-based communications tool that lets users 'see' people they may wish to contact. Me.dium is a free browser sidebar that uncovers the hidden people and activities that lurk ... AT&T's Wild About Wireless http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/25001?11228 CHICAGO -- NXTComm -- AT&T Inc. Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson unveiled a new video sharing service for mobile users this morning during his keynote address here. The service will allow consumers talking on cellphones to share cameraphone pictures during their conversation, in real-time. For now, the service is only ... Alereon to Release Worldwide Wireless USB http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/24997?11228 With an aim of encouraging computer makers to use wireless USB technology, chip maker Alereon announced this week that it would release the AL5100, a wireless USB chip that meets regulatory requirements worldwide. Previous wireless USB chips-which allow users to link computers with printers, cameras, external hard drives, and keyboards ... Energy Initiatives Will Drive Wireless Sensor Network Market http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/24995?11228 An announcement earlier this month by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) of a new federal plan to increase energy efficiency of buildings nationwide by 30 percent will have major resonance in wireless control network technologies. Schumer's plan addresses a critical energy issue at a time of ... Cisco Meshes With Cable http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/110/24993?11228 Cisco Systems Inc. has introduced a WiFi-based mesh system designed to give cable operators the tools they need to offer mobile Internet services wherever they have plant installed. The platform, called the Cisco Cable ServiceMesh, will target MSOs that are looking to offer such services in municipalities, tourism centers, and ... US Businesses to Spend More on Wireless than Wireline Services by 2010 http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/24991?11228 SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- US corporations' spending on wireless voice and mobile data services will exceed business spending on all wireline voice and data services by 2010, reports, high-tech market research firm, In-Stat. According to In-Stats' recent research, the arrival of this inflection point means that wireless carriers ... Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to: CommunicationsDirect Editor Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:19:56 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Networks Take Center Stage During NXTcomm Keynotes USTelecom dailyLead June 20, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hkxMfDtusXubBaCibudduKwj TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Networks take center stage during NXTcomm keynotes NXTCOMM 2007 NEWS * AT&T brings HD lineup to Homezone * FCC aims to facilitate video, broadband deployment * Windstream taps Actelis Networks BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Carriers tout reach of Rev. A coverage * Q-and-A: Clearwire CEO talks up WiMAX, upcoming auction * Verizon to announce mobile-payment partnership * Sprint extends service-contract flexibility * Deutsche Telekom forges union deal to end strike USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Communications, technology and entertainment execs on center stage at NXT= comm 2007 TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * EarthLink to sell municipal Wi-Fi access at retail level * Startup to do for Web what TiVo did for TV IP DOWNLOAD * T-Mobile, Truphone clash on fees REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Broadcasters ask tech companies to choose mobile standard Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hkxMfDtusXubBaCibudduKwj ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:17:09 -0400 In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > On Jun 19, 9:25 am, Sam Spade wrote: >> Washington, DC had quite a few ESS offices when Watergate happened, >> which is a different environment than "Wrong Number" or "Dial M for >> Murder." ;-) > "Quite a few"? In 1973-74 ESS was still relatively new as a > production item. I dare say that within a city most would be served > by panel or #1 XBAR, maybe a few exchanges with ESS. Anyway, in > 1973-74 I think most subscribers still had plain vanilla dial > telephone service. In affluent neighborhoods, many people might have > Touch Tone. I believe Providence, RI got the 1ESS in 1973. I distinctly remember the raspy dialtone and noises of what I recall was a panel system changing over to the pure tones of the ESS. But it wasn't phased in for the whole city, only certain exchanges were moved onto the platform. For example, my grandparents had a number in 401-521 and we had one in 401-751. The latter was the ESS. Pawtucket, RI was on a #5 xbar for the longest time, not getting their DMS-100 until close to 1990. In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > Society will suffer as a result. Certainly news via the 'net has > benefits. But a printed newpspaer is something of _record_ which is > important, not fleeting eletrons on a screen. Newspaper articles > have far more depth. I disagree. The important things get mirrored like crazy on the net. Just look at Michael Moore's "Sicko". As soon as one provider takes it down, another pops up. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I seem to recall that the first ESS in Chicago was in the Wabash CO in the downtown area, and the second one was in the Superior CO on the near north side. Those were both in 1973, then a few more were installed in 1974-75 in various CO's through out Chicago. The Chicago-Beverly CO was cut over in 1975 also. The reason I remember that one is that my downtown office phone number was 312-WEbster-9-4600, i.e. '939-4600'. The downtown Sears, Roebuck store, a few blocks away had 312-WABash-2-4600, i.e. '922-4600'. Whoever prepared the translations for Beverly CO as part of its cutover inadvertently got 922 and 939 confused. So my number, 939-4600 (a single phone line) was ringing off the hook all morning long with people trying to reach 922-4600 (a five-position switchboard which rocked around the clock at the Sears, Roebuck store and credit office). Sears, of course wouldn't miss the fifty or so calls which got misdirected to my office; on the other hand I was going insane from all the 'wrong numbers'. People would not listen to what I said when I answered, instead asking for things like 'extension 249' or 'credit department' or 'customer service'. I'd keep telling them 'wrong number' then they would argue with me instead. I finally sampled five of the calls, asking them what number THEY were calling from: always it was some number in the Beverly office, i.e. 238 (BEVerly), 445 (HILlside) or others. I had a pretty good idea what had happened. My service rep, Miss Prissy was of no help at all, but when I called repair service at 611, I found someone who would listen to me and said they were 'certain what had happened'; "we cut over Beverly just yesterday". They must have put in a call to the Beverly inside plant and found someone who got it repaired almost immediatly. The _only_ way I could seize my line to use it (by this point the calls were coming in just seconds apart) was by answering the ring of yet another call, announcing 'wrong number' and disconnecting and then immediatly flashing the hook for a new dial tone to call repair, etc. That was really quite a morning. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:32:01 -0400 Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) In <20070619230639.694BE2275@massis.lcs.mit.edu>, on 06/19/07 at 07:06 PM, a message said: >> But, typewriters had come a long way, with correcting Selectrics. ;-) > I'm not sure when correcting Selectrics came out, but I think it was > after '74. In any event, they were a premium expensive model, probably > more found with executive secretaries than with junior reporters. In > those years, the secretary to a manager had a nice electric typewriter, > but those using a typewriter for routine work (ie bank clerk or > librarian) had manuals. (Remington and Underwood both made very nice > manuals in that time frame.) By 1980 things would be very different, but > it was a slow transition. Typewriters were rather expensive. I bought a correcting Selectric (IBM employee purchase, so it wasn't brand new at the time) sometime around mid-72. Previously, the independent consultant that I was working for in 1961 or there abouts had bought a Selectric original model. Selectric innards were commonly used in the system 360 console typewriters, and in some of the (by today's standards) primitive terminal devices of the mid to later 1960's. Julian Thomas: jt at jt-mj dot net http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! -- -- The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My very first printer for my old (obtained it in 1977) C-1-P Ohio Scientific Computer was an IBM Selectric. No keyboard on it -- just a blank plate where the keys would usually go -- except for a 'backspace' key and a couple other control keys, and the cable to connect it to the printer port on the C-1-P. Stack of blank paper sat on the floor behind it, which fed into the roller and the pages could be perforated as they came out of the typewriter. Great printing, however; it used a carbon ribbon instead of cloth; I had four or five 'font balls' I could use changing them as desired. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:29:27 -0700 Organization: Cox hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Jun 19, 9:25 am, Sam Spade wrote: >> Washington, DC had quite a few ESS offices when Watergate happened, >> which is a different environment than "Wrong Number" or "Dial M for >> Murder." ;-) > "Quite a few"? In 1973-74 ESS was still relatively new as a > production item. I dare say that within a city most would be served > by panel or #1 XBAR, maybe a few exchanges with ESS. Anyway, in > 1973-74 I think most subscribers still had plain vanilla dial > telephone service. In affluent neighborhoods, many people might have > Touch Tone. Yes, quite a few. The first #1 ESS deployment was, as I recall, in 1967. It started off slow, but DC became the first place to experience a major deployment, for obvious reasons. ;-) The public wouldn't have known about it because calling features weren't promoted much, and not at all in some areas, until 1975, or so. Touchtone was available on No 5 XBAR in most of those areas in the the late 1960s. The AT&T network policy makers deliberately held back on offering calling features in the POTS environment for a number of reasons. But, Centrex government customers in DC were offered the full array as soon as the cuts were complete. > My impressions of newspaper telephone service and hardware was based > on visits to a major city paper of that time. >> But, typewriters had come a long way, with correcting Selectrics. ;-) > I'm not sure when correcting Selectrics came out, but I think it was > after '74. In any event, they were a premium expensive model, > probably more found with executive secretaries than with junior > reporters. In those years, the secretary to a manager had a nice > electric typewriter, but those using a typewriter for routine work (ie > bank clerk or librarian) had manuals. (Remington and Underwood both > made very nice manuals in that time frame.) By 1980 things would be > very different, but it was a slow transition. Typewriters were rather > expensive. Here is a ad featuring a Correcting Selectric II in 1973. http://www.etypewriters.com/history.htm I know, as I bought one then. ;-) The first Selectric came out in 1961. Reporters may not have had Correcting Selectrics in 1973 but all the bosses secretaries, including the White House I suspect, got them really quick. >> When Watergate happened, the only mobile phones were those giant >> bricks mounted in the car, and which transmitted and received in the >> open on VHF low, where every sharp kid with a scanner could hear the >> conversation with ease. ;-) > There were only a few frequencies available and a huge waiting list > for mobile service despite the high cost. But in those days, when > more people were in a city, payphones were everywhere. Lobbies of > office buildings had banks of them (nice ones with a tiny chair, > table, fan, light, and closed door). Often every floor of a > commercial building had one too, in addition to the lobby bank. > For some reason I don't know, when Bell and Motorola applied to test > new cell service, the FCC sat on it for two years. I'd have to look through my old BSTJ's but I recall the AMPS tests being conducted in New Jersey in the late 1970s. Chicago was the first launch of AMPS in 1983. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you recall one difference between the way 'call forwarding' was originally set up and later on? People could 'chain call-forward', that is, you forward yours to me; I then forwarded mine to some other party; they forwarded theirs onward, etc. Let's call them parties 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. People realized they could forward infinitly if they had enough co-conspirators to help them, and make a (considerable) long distance call for the price of a local call. The next generic of 'call forwarding' did not allow that. Yes, A could forward to B and B could forward to C, etc, but calls directed to A _stopped_ when they reached B. Calls directed to B _stopped_ when they reached C. Officially the theory was that persons calling A only wanted to talk to A. For A's convenience, his calls could be forwarded to B, but party A did not want to be forwarded onward to C or D. Or, so said telco. And originally, if A forwarded to B and contemporaneously B forwarded to A, it would start an endless loop until eventually all circuits in the CO were tied up. Telco quickly put a stop to that also. But that 'chain forwarding' was foolish anyway; people could rarely -- if ever -- make a series of short distance calls for less expense than a single long distance call. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:00:28 -0400 In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > On Jun 18, 10:08 pm, David B. Horvath, CCP > wrote: >> That is a completely different issue you are raising PAT. The original >> poster was commenting about computer indexes making it "too easy" for >> others to find out about youthful indiscretions preventing them from >> getting a job. >> If there was a conviction when the person was younger with rules >> prohibiting employment (hiring or security clearance) or the exercise >> of certain rights (voting or gun ownership), then the ability of >> employers/government agencies to find that out is not really a >> computer issue! > Again, some things, such as aquittals or mere suspicions, could be > buried in paper files never to see light again. With computerized > indexes, that is less likely. I have direct experience where that is concerned. I used to be the IT Director for the Rhode Island Department of Attorney General. That department held all charge data for all the police departments in Rhode Island. As such all departments had access to the database. The way it was supposed to work is that the charges went in, along with their dispositions. But it took a good long time to get the disposition data into the database. And then there are charges that never get disposed but live in the database. ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Need Power Connector for Millenium Payphone Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:08:49 -0400 In article , dhunter@isn.net says: > Hi T: > You would have to -- either that, or re-write the program on its eprom, > and I just don't have that ability ... The Millenium calls home for > everything -- The Millenium is the most secure payphone on the market and > to keep it that way, information on the phone is very hard to find. Only > details which are publicly available on the phone will be noted here. > Millenium phones call daily to their "hive" and contain internal alarms > to monitor activity on the phone. Dial tone heard when the handset is > raised is computer generated, and the rate tables are contained within > the phone and programmed and updated by the Millenium manager. A > scrolling advertising line on the phones may also be programmed via the > Millenium Manager to show up to 20 advertisements on the display's > second line. The Manager can provide constant checks of the phone right > down to the number and denominations of coins in the box, credit card > verification, self-diagnostics, logging of operational notes such as > cleaning and delivery directory dates, and detailed call activity > statistics which may be used for planning. > The Millenium is available with or without a smart card reader or a > multicard reader option allowing users to use magnetic stripe > commercial credit cards, calling cards and smart cards / chip cards, > and with an optional jack which allow users with portable computers to > connect through the phone. The options are seemingly endless. > -- E.T. Call Home - the Millenium Way! Oh nice! Do you happen to know what CPU the phone uses? I bet it's either a Z80 or a 68000 series. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:05:11 -0700 From: Duncan Smith Subject: Re: Web Cam to Watch Test Takers > The latest version also includes fingerprint authentication [...] > The camera points into a reflective ball, which allows it to capture > a full 360-degree image. [...] > The device will cost Troy students $125. Forget test-taking, this sounds like a fun device to play with! Buying the parts individually at retail would cost more than that. Duncan Smith --------\ http://students.washington.edu/f/ /--- () ascii ribbon \--- Signed/encrypted mail preferred ---/ /\ campaign [ against html mail ] [ support open formats ] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:50:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 18, 6:24 pm, John Mayson wrote: > I'm still in the 1981 archives. I cannot believe how pompous, > protective, and bloated the phone company was then. Telling customers > they couldn't have a business and a residential line in the same > dwelling. Sarcastic operators and billing employees. Charging > through the nose for a simple telephone. Calls to the next town over > being a toll call. Metered local calling. Amazing. I really see why > AT&T was broken up. I do not agree with your description for the reasons that follow. In 1983-84 my employer was involved in significant expansion of our voice and data communication lines and we worked with Bell and AT&T. Personally, at home I needed a second phone line and extensive long distance service. The following is based on my experiences at the time. Was the old Bell System perfect? Of course not. But it did offer excellent service at a fair price--given the state of the art _at that time_. Let's first look at rates: A common misunderstanding in discussing telephone history is a failure to understand the state of technology in 1983. Very simply, think about what a good PC cost to buy back then and how much horsepower came with it. Now think about what the same money, adjusted for inflation, will buy today. See the enormous difference? Electronics used to be enormously expensive. The Bell System used massive amounts of it to provide dial tone, switch local calls, and terminate carrier equipment for long distance calls. Today, the electronics are cheaper. Also carrier systems for long distance are much cheaper today, making those calls cheap, too. Public policy back then dictated that basic telephone service was to be cheap to encourage wide use. It was and it worked. Premium services were profitable, again, by public policy. When the company was divested and prices allowed to be free market, obviously the subsidized prices went up and the premium prices went down. In essence, a judge dictated a new public policy, overriding the FCC and Congress. So yes, you rented extensions (the main phone set was free, included in the service charge). That rent was deemed a premium service (of course, they provided all repair service for free). Per the above, the charge for a single plain telephone (telephone set and all maintenance included) was dirt cheap, cheaper than today adjusted for inflation. They did not "charge through the nose" for simple service, and most people had only that. Many communities did not meter local calls; that was more of a city function, and the calling area for cities was enormous, both in terms of land area and population. One could pay extra and get unmetered service, many did. In my dealings with Bell staff, both at work and at home, I found them to be almost always knowledgeable and helpful. Service qualtiy was far superior to that of today. When you called repair service, dialing only 611, you spoke to a real craftsmen at a test desk. I also professionally dealt with some government agencies in that time and they had a tough time of it. For their long distance services, Sprint and MCI sued and demanded to be given a share of the business, even if they didn't have the service quality or rate schedule to justify that. They litigated their way in instead of earning it. Somehow I don't think "competition" was intended to work that way, I thought the market place was supposed to be allowed to choose for itself. If the old Bell System was as screwed up as critics claimed, it would've been easy for Sprint and MCI to come in and take over. But the truth was that by and large the old Bell System was good and most customers were quite satisfied. A big problem after divesture (that continues today) was finger pointing when problems arose. In the old days, when the Bell System handled it all, we called them and they were responsible to fix it and fast. They did. But under the new arrangement, we had the modem maker pointing fingers to the local carrier who in turn pointed fingers at the long distance carrier. Also, the Bell System provided many free consulting services to businesses to help them plan their telecom needs and make good use of their phones. This included training for employees, in not only how to use the equipment (what buttons to push) but also how to best serve customers and create goodwill. After divesture that all disappeared. The quality of customer service over the telephone has declined along with it; nobody knows about the courtesy tips the Bell System once taught. As to telecom administration, large companies had to go out and hire their own administrators and technicians to do what used to be done for free. Small companies had to hire consultants. So the so-called savings were in reality a cost shifting. You may have paid less in your phone bill, but had to pay more in salaries. Lastly, I want to counter another myth and that is that divesture forced rates down. The truth is that technology caused rates to drop. The Bell System was reducing toll rates ever since the telephone was invented. Well before divesture AT&T implemented deep discounts for off peak calling and was expanding local calling areas. As technology improved (see above), customers were given price breaks. Likewise with technology, the Bell System's 1983 equipment offerings were pretty good for its day. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:57:09 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems John Levine wrote: > Yeah. Verizon's FIOS in effect puts a SLC on your house, with a > battery that it's your job to replace every couple of years, and when > you forget and the power fails, you lose. The decreasing resiliency > of the phone system to power failures is a real problem that nobody > seems to be addressing. I think that cell phones are now so prevalent that because they have a battery and are locatable for 911 purposes that few are worried about reduced reliability of POTS during power failures. > Regards, > John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", > Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor > "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. ------------------------------ From: Paul Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, VOIP Firewall Problems Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:44:24 UTC Organization: Me cerberus.perillo@gmail.com wrote in news:telecom26.172.1@telecom- digest.org: > He was stating that when you had an AC power failure, the batteries in > the SLIC's only last for about 8 hours, then everything will go > dead. This confused me because as someone with limited experience with > SLIC's only at the cross-connects near the Demarc, the F2, or the F3 > (Demarc), that these things ran off of CO 48V, and usually there was > no electric power to be had at the F2, or F3. Through an alcoholic > haze when he started to talk about large currents it finally dawned on > me that he was talking about SLIC's used around the Central Office > (CO) or F1 that split one pair into thousands of lines? And I was > talking about SLIC's that split one line into 2, 4, 8, or 16, so that > an extra copper line did not have to be added on the street (F1 to > F2), or from the F2 to the residence. With the glut of broadband, I > was under the impression that all CO to CO, or CO to F1 traffic was > done via optical fiber, so I'm not sure if these devices are still in > use? And if this is a real risk? As I have mentioned here a few times, whenever there is a power failure affecting my neighborhood, my Verizon line, from a SLIC across the street, dies within about 2 to 5 seconds. My Comcast digital phone line stays up and usable for about 30 minutes. When the SLIC was first put in, we seemed to have at least 4 hours of standby from Verizon (or Bell Atlantic, or NYNEX, or NET, whatever.) Before that, it would work for the extent of any outage, sometimes days. Bless CO power. Ironically, it is only recently that Verizon has been advertizing that their service is "always on." Paul ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #174 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 21 01:43:25 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id A3187224D; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:43:24 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #175 Message-Id: <20070621054324.A3187224D@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:43:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:45:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 175 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson "Vibranxiety" Afflicts Many Cellphone Users (John Mayson) IP PBX Reviews and Ratings (Forrest Nelson) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems (Hancock) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems (T) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (T) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (Sam Spade) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (C Anderson) Re: Web Cam to Watch Test Takers (T) Re: Help Setting Up a VoIP Regulatory Framework (Fred Goldstein) Re: Metroliner "Cell" Service (Mr Joseph Singer) Re: Sprint Adds Some Flexibility to Service Contracts (Mr Joseph Singer) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: "Vibranxiety" Afflicts Many Cellphone Users Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:40:56 -0500 http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/06/vibranxiety_aff.html "Ever think your cell phone was vibrating and reach into your pocket to answer it only to find it wasn't vibrating at all? You're not alone according to a report in USA Today. The story examines the phenomenon of phantom cell phone vibration and posits explanations ranging from behavioral (your phone has trained you to be on alert for vibrations) to neurological (your brain becomes wired to sensations you experience regularly). Whatever the answer may be, it's better than "You're nuts."" [JCM - I used to work around high voltage. I had both hands inside a high-power power-supply when my pager went off. It was set to vibrate. I literally threw my tools across the lab thinking I had been shocked. The rest of my days in that lab, I had my pager set to audible.] John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Subject: IP PBX Reviews and Ratings Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:24:01 -0700 From: Forrest Nelson If anyone has first hand experience with IP PBXs -- quality of service; uptime; features; ease of programming; cost to purchase, own, and maintain ... or if you know of published reviews would you please share that information. Thanks, F. Nelson e-mail replies are okay. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:08 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 19, 3:55 pm, John Levine wrote: > The decreasing resiliency of the phone system to power failures is a > real problem that nobody seems to be addressing. It used to be all basic telephones were powered by the central office which had diesel generators to recharge the batteries in case of commercial failure. While the likelihood of a power failure is fairly low, nasty storms or power company failures do create local outages that can last for 24-48 hours. During such an outage telephone service is especially critical since roads may be blocked. PBXs had batteries and hand generators for ringing. It seems most people at home have cordless phones powered by house current. How long, if at all, will such phones last in a power failure? People are supposed to have a plain landline phone, but do they? But I wonder today how many business PBXs have any battery backup at all for both talk and ringing, especially for an extended period of time. Some organizations have their own diesel generator power backup, but fail to test the switchover on a regular basis. This is vital because without good testing a changeover will fail when it is needed. (trust me on this) I know the cable TV system in my area depends on commercial power and stays out even after power is restored (I guess they have to reset it). That scares me if I dependended on cable TV for telephone service. I presume cell phone towers and relay stations have some battery backup, at least I hope they did. But is it enough? Likewise with "concentrators" or whatever is used for amplifiers between the home and distant Central Offices if direct copper isn't supplied. I think years ago they were supplied by CO power but I don't know about today. ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:11:57 -0400 In article , rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com says: > John Levine wrote: >> Yeah. Verizon's FIOS in effect puts a SLC on your house, with a >> battery that it's your job to replace every couple of years, and when >> you forget and the power fails, you lose. The decreasing resiliency >> of the phone system to power failures is a real problem that nobody >> seems to be addressing. > I think that cell phones are now so prevalent that because they have a > battery and are locatable for 911 purposes that few are worried about > reduced reliability of POTS during power failures. >> Regards, >> John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" >> Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor >> "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. But the cell phone is useless when the local towers lose AC power. Put it this way, I know that the NEXTEL box in back of our office has some big honkin' A/C units but I don't see any power backup at all. ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:07:36 -0400 In article , sam@coldmail.com says: > hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >> On Jun 19, 9:25 am, Sam Spade wrote: >>> Washington, DC had quite a few ESS offices when Watergate happened, >>> which is a different environment than "Wrong Number" or "Dial M for >>> Murder." ;-) >> "Quite a few"? In 1973-74 ESS was still relatively new as a >> production item. I dare say that within a city most would be served >> by panel or #1 XBAR, maybe a few exchanges with ESS. Anyway, in >> 1973-74 I think most subscribers still had plain vanilla dial >> telephone service. In affluent neighborhoods, many people might have >> Touch Tone. > Yes, quite a few. The first #1 ESS deployment was, as I recall, in > 1967. It started off slow, but DC became the first place to experience > a major deployment, for obvious reasons. ;-) > The public wouldn't have known about it because calling features weren't > promoted much, and not at all in some areas, until 1975, or so. > Touchtone was available on No 5 XBAR in most of those areas in the the > late 1960s. > The AT&T network policy makers deliberately held back on offering > calling features in the POTS environment for a number of reasons. But, > Centrex government customers in DC were offered the full array as soon > as the cuts were complete. >> My impressions of newspaper telephone service and hardware was based >> on visits to a major city paper of that time. >>> But, typewriters had come a long way, with correcting Selectrics. ;-) >> I'm not sure when correcting Selectrics came out, but I think it was >> after '74. In any event, they were a premium expensive model, >> probably more found with executive secretaries than with junior >> reporters. In those years, the secretary to a manager had a nice >> electric typewriter, but those using a typewriter for routine work (ie >> bank clerk or librarian) had manuals. (Remington and Underwood both >> made very nice manuals in that time frame.) By 1980 things would be >> very different, but it was a slow transition. Typewriters were rather >> expensive. > Here is a ad featuring a Correcting Selectric II in 1973. > http://www.etypewriters.com/history.htm > I know, as I bought one then. ;-) The first Selectric came out in 1961. > Reporters may not have had Correcting Selectrics in 1973 but all the > bosses secretaries, including the White House I suspect, got them really > quick. >>> When Watergate happened, the only mobile phones were those giant >>> bricks mounted in the car, and which transmitted and received in the >>> open on VHF low, where every sharp kid with a scanner could hear the >>> conversation with ease. ;-) >> There were only a few frequencies available and a huge waiting list >> for mobile service despite the high cost. But in those days, when >> more people were in a city, payphones were everywhere. Lobbies of >> office buildings had banks of them (nice ones with a tiny chair, >> table, fan, light, and closed door). Often every floor of a >> commercial building had one too, in addition to the lobby bank. >> For some reason I don't know, when Bell and Motorola applied to test >> new cell service, the FCC sat on it for two years. > I'd have to look through my old BSTJ's but I recall the AMPS tests > being conducted in New Jersey in the late 1970s. Chicago was the > first launch of AMPS in 1983. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you recall one difference between > the way 'call forwarding' was originally set up and later on? People > could 'chain call-forward', that is, you forward yours to me; I then > forwarded mine to some other party; they forwarded theirs onward, etc. > Let's call them parties 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. People realized they > could forward infinitly if they had enough co-conspirators to help > them, and make a (considerable) long distance call for the price of > a local call. The next generic of 'call forwarding' did not allow > that. Yes, A could forward to B and B could forward to C, etc, but > calls directed to A _stopped_ when they reached B. Calls directed to > B _stopped_ when they reached C. Officially the theory was that > persons calling A only wanted to talk to A. For A's convenience, his > calls could be forwarded to B, but party A did not want to be > forwarded onward to C or D. Or, so said telco. And originally, if A > forwarded to B and contemporaneously B forwarded to A, it would start > an endless loop until eventually all circuits in the CO were tied up. > Telco quickly put a stop to that also. But that 'chain forwarding' was > foolish anyway; people could rarely -- if ever -- make a series of > short distance calls for less expense than a single long distance > call. PAT] I remember proving the ridiculousness of RI's toll boundaries by doing just what you mention. If you lived in an area served by the Pawtucket rate center, you could only call as far as Providence to the south. The thing was, one of RI's more popular BBS's was in East Greenwich. So I setup a line in the house that had call forwarding to the EG phone numbers. I got use of the phone line and it would just forward calls like crazy. I love thinking how much I had to have cost then NYNEX in toll revenue. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had a similar thing going on in Chicago for all of three or four days, back in 1973, right after Illinois Bell started 'Call Forwarding'. Calls within the city itself were only one untimed unit. Calls to/from the suburbs were two or more units on a timed basis. This sometimes led to the situation where Chicago was on one side of the street and some suburb was across the street i.e. Chicago and Evanston, so those calls cost more. If you lived 'all the way out' in Joliet (815 area) for example, typically it cost 6 units for three minutes of talking if you wanted to call Chicago. But, if we wished, we could purchase an 'unlimited metro line' (much more money but no regard for the units used on the calls). I had my recorded telephone news/advertising telephone lines operating in Chicago. I had various users in the Joliet area calling me each day on my Chicago number. Now, I had a couple of 'Enterprise' numbers for my Indiana and Wisconsin callers, but I thought of a smart way to handle the Chicago west/south suburban calls to cost them less money. My friend who lived in Joliet offered to get a second phone line for his home; it would be an 'umlimited metro area' line. He would leave _that line_ on permanent call forwarding to my Chicago number and he would make his outgoing calls on that line, while using his existing phone (with a very tiny unit allotment) for all his incoming calls. He disconnected the bell on the new line so he did not get disturbed by the ringing. There were a couple times when there were _two_ calls at one via his phone line in Joliet to my service in Chicago (at six units minimum each had they not been on the unlimited metro line) all the while he was on the phone with an outgoing call to Zion, Illinois (as extremely far north as Joliet was south, also an eight unit call.) That line was unlimited, right? Not quite _that_ unlimited, said Miss Prissy, the service rep when she caught us by trying to call him on his new unlimited unit phone line one day. You cannot have two phones in the same house, one unlimited calling and one with a tiny, 'regular' package of units, she warned. Furthermore, she noted, the 'company' finds it very questionable when you leave your umlimited metro line call forwarded 24/7 to a business place in Chicago. No excuses were satisfactory. He told her that many times when he was at home, friends of his in Zion would call him and they were interested in what I had to say that day, so he would 'three way call' so they both could listen to me at the same time. So what was the problem when 'he went away to Chicago for the day to visit me' if he simply left his phone on call forwarding 'while he was gone for the day.' Miss Prissy said she didn't believe a word of it. Then she called and gave me hell for it also, particularly after she checked with her cohorts in downtown Chicago and learned about the extreme volume of inbound calls I was receiving to my taped messages on HARrison-7-1234 (six or eight _thousand_ calls arrived each day on about a dozen heavy duty answering machines which were wired in rotary hunt behind 427-1234, and there were a few times each day that all the lines would still be busy. Miss Prissy was shocked when she examined my call volume stats and made my friend disconnect his 'unlimited metro line', since a couple hundred calls each day were in fact coming via the Joliet line. But it was Bell's own fault; had the geographic arrangement of 'units' been more fairly allotted (as they were starting in the middle eighties) it would not have been very cost-effective for my friend and I. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:09:20 -0700 Organization: Cox Yes, I do, That was subsequently determined by WE Engineers to have been an unintentional mistake. Also, another undocumented feature on both the 1 and 1A ESS was that call waiting would work during a three-way call. This was carried over to the 5ESS, but later dropped. The DMS-10 and DMS-100 couldn't hack that level of porting, so WE (Lucent) dropped the capability in deference to the less robust DMS switches. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you recall one difference between > the way 'call forwarding' was originally set up and later on? People > could 'chain call-forward', that is, you forward yours to me; I then > forwarded mine to some other party; they forwarded theirs onward, etc. > Let's call them parties 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. People realized they > could forward infinitly if they had enough co-conspirators to help > them, and make a (considerable) long distance call for the price of > a local call. The next generic of 'call forwarding' did not allow > that. Yes, A could forward to B and B could forward to C, etc, but > calls directed to A _stopped_ when they reached B. Calls directed to > B _stopped_ when they reached C. Officially the theory was that > persons calling A only wanted to talk to A. For A's convenience, his > calls could be forwarded to B, but party A did not want to be > forwarded onward to C or D. Or, so said telco. And originally, if A > forwarded to B and contemporaneously B forwarded to A, it would start > an endless loop until eventually all circuits in the CO were tied up. > Telco quickly put a stop to that also. But that 'chain forwarding' was > foolish anyway; people could rarely -- if ever -- make a series of > short distance calls for less expense than a single long distance > call. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:43:38 -0400 From: Curtis R Anderson Organization: Gleepy's Chaotic Henhouse Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Sam Spade wrote: > Yes, quite a few. The first #1 ESS deployment was, as I recall, in > 1967. It started off slow, but DC became the first place to experience > a major deployment, for obvious reasons. ;-) > The public wouldn't have known about it because calling features weren't > promoted much, and not at all in some areas, until 1975, or so. > Touchtone was available on No 5 XBAR in most of those areas in the the > late 1960s. I remember even independent Rochester (NY) Telephone making their cutover to DTMF dialing in our corner of the town of Irondequoit where I was barely going to kindergarten, which would have put the cutover around 1969, give or take a year, on what I believe was their #5XB. Today that switch's CLLI is ROCHNYXFRS0 on Norton St on Rochester's north side. I remember the old dialtone from the #101A low tone generator being changed to the 350/440 Hz we know today and wondering why it changed. My aunt worked for Rochester Telephone and was able to get the freebies with tone dial when it was deployed on the south side of Rochester, on the switch now known as ROCHNYXCDS0 on Field St. That was done at about the same time as our dialtone cutover. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you recall one difference between > the way 'call forwarding' was originally set up and later on? People > could 'chain call-forward', that is, you forward yours to me; I then > forwarded mine to some other party; they forwarded theirs onward, etc. > Let's call them parties 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. People realized they > could forward infinitly if they had enough co-conspirators to help > them, and make a (considerable) long distance call for the price of > a local call. The next generic of 'call forwarding' did not allow > that. Yes, A could forward to B and B could forward to C, etc, but > calls directed to A _stopped_ when they reached B. Calls directed to > B _stopped_ when they reached C. Officially the theory was that > persons calling A only wanted to talk to A. For A's convenience, his > calls could be forwarded to B, but party A did not want to be > forwarded onward to C or D. Or, so said telco. And originally, if A > forwarded to B and contemporaneously B forwarded to A, it would start > an endless loop until eventually all circuits in the CO were tied up. > Telco quickly put a stop to that also. But that 'chain forwarding' was > foolish anyway; people could rarely -- if ever -- make a series of > short distance calls for less expense than a single long distance > call. PAT] BBSers knew all about doing that around Buffalo throughout the '80s, especially people living in and around the cities of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda (The Tonawandas), served by what is now a #5ESS whose CLLI is TWWNNYTWDS0. It might have been a #1AESS at that time. From the Tonawandas, it was a local call to Buffalo and Niagara Falls, but not all of Buffalo's southtowns. So a BBSer would set up a call forward for his Niagara Falls friends from his number at 716-69[023456]-XXXX to, say, a north Buffalo buddy whose number was either 716-83[2345]-XXXX at the #1AESS (then) at Buffalo Main St (BFLONYMADS0) or 716-87[1345678]-XXXX at the DMS-100 at Buffalo Hertel Avenue (BFLONYHEDS0) to then forward to 716-627-XXXX at the Lake Shore Rd switch in Wanakah (WNKHNYWKRS0 now). I knew folks who would do just these things. And I believe New York Telephone put a stop to it by limiting the time a call forward was active. Just seeing that post reminded me of those interesting pre-Internet days of BBSing and those times I got to meet the folks I would converse with online. Curtis R. Anderson, Co-creator of "Gleepy the Hen", still "In Heaven there is no beer / That's why we drink it here ..." http://www.gleepy.net/ mailto:gleepy@intelligencia.com mailto:gleepy@gleepy.net (and others) Yahoo!: gleepythehen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But see my earlier note in this issue. It was not the length of time for the connection (all my callers listened to me for exactly three minutes or less, but there were so damn many of them. On the other hand, a BBS'er could easily stay on line for 30-45 minutes; I know there were times that I was on line that long to a BBS or someone was on that long calling mine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Web Cam to Watch Test Takers Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:10:47 -0400 In article , duncan.b.smith@gmail.com says: >> The latest version also includes fingerprint authentication > [...] >> The camera points into a reflective ball, which allows it to capture >> a full 360-degree image. > [...] >> The device will cost Troy students $125. > Forget test-taking, this sounds like a fun device to play with! > Buying the parts individually at retail would cost more than that. > Duncan Smith --------\ http://students.washington.edu/f/ /--- > () ascii ribbon \--- Signed/encrypted mail preferred ---/ > /\ campaign [ against html mail ] [ support open formats ] > Yeah -- sort of like how cool it would be to get ones hands on an OLPC machine. It'll happen soon enough. Regards the camera, I can see some hacks for that one already. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:02:45 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Help Setting Up a VoIP Regulatory Framework At 19 Jun 2007 22:49:43 -0700 Raqueeb Hassan wrote: > Let's say country "A"s telecom regulatory board is trying to open-up > the VOIP (call termination) which was branded illegal since long > ago. The new regulatory commission wants to empower the people by > introducing a transparent VoIP regulatory framework with two goals: > a. Cheaper international call rate for the resident of "A". > b. Building nationwide IP infrastructure with local > entrepreneurs' e.g. cable operators, broadband companies. >... You made it pretty clear that you are referring to Bangladesh. Let's look at the status quo. Why do people want VoIP? Because the cost of ordinary telephone calls is too high. VoIP is cheaper. But why? It's not because of technology: TDM telephony can be even cheaper, in terms of bandwidth, than VoIP; it doesn't waste space on headers, and while the switches tend to be a bit more costly, that's in the noise, on a per-minute basis. No, it's because VoIP is not taxed the same way. It's a different business model. Regular phone calls are still governed by the principles of the 1850s International Telegraph Union, which worked pretty well into the 1980s. But now that fiber optic undersea cables are more common and their price has fallen, the fixed cost of terminating a phone call exceeds the international transit cost. And so any form of evasion becomes attractive. Compare Bangladesh with its neighbor India. There, the cost of landing a phone call is low. So wholesale rates from the US to India are well under US$0.10/minute. Bangladesh costs 2-4 times as much. Dhaka isn't all that far from Kolkata, so it's not really a distance issue. The Bangladeshi authorities are trying to milk too much from the cash cow. Look at what low cost calling has done for India. They've taken over the world's call center business. Sure, the telco gets less per minute, but they more than make it up in volume, and even if they don't, the country as a whole has benefitted. Does Bangladesh tax roads? After all, they're valuable, so if somebody brings his rice to market on a road, should the road operator extract a share of the cargo? Yet people still let "telecom" work that way. It should be seen as vital national infrastructure, a way to participate in the world economy, not a luxury to be taxed like Scotch Whisky or BMWs. > So, if you are asked to help on setting up framework of VoIP > regulation which might help earning revenue for this developing > country "A", what would you do? > If you ask me, here is my plan. Please correct me if I go wrong. > a. Setting up a EMUM server. > b. The ENUM server will resolve all the calls routed inbound for > Country "A". > c. The ENUM server will be connected to a "packet clearing house" > for necessary revenue collection. You're going way wrong here, because what you're doing is replicating a monopoly, so as to tax it. But if you tax VoIP (where "tax" may be a fee to the telephone company, not the general fund, but enforced by government power), then what's the point? Current VoIP is a tax evasion scheme, and a valuable one at that, because the tax is so harmful. So your scheme will result in avoidance too. The Internet is famous for routing around blockages, which sometimes are merely administrative schemes and fees, not real circuit failures. >... > h. Operator should not by-pass IP packet (VoIP/Internet) using any > other path (like VPN tunnels) other than they have registered. DPI > (Deep packet inspection) technology can be utilized should any DPI should be a crime everywhere; it's basically wiretapping. Of course the telcos like it, but it can only be used in a monopoly environment, since otherwise traffic will route around it. And if you're going to set up a monopoly -- or try to -- then why should VoIP be treated differently from TDM? That's picking favorites in the technology world. Do you have different import duties on Windows PCs vs. Macs or Linux systems? The proper price for terminating a call into a country should be the cost of carrying it from the point of termination to the destination, perhaps subject to the same percentage tax as all calls (i.e., not technologically discriminatory, and not high enough to encourage mass evasion -- think VAT, not luxury tax). Operators could then focus on minimizing costs and maximizing quality, not evading taxes or setting up costly toll booths. The Internet is NOT technology. It's a business model. The PSTN is a business model which is losing out to the Internet. The technology is a side show, and should be allowed to evolve, not be locked in by some master plan that forever locks in what was thought of as state of the art in 2000 or so. (I am the Telecom Policy columnist for TMCnet, so you can see some of my essays on related topics there.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:07:42 PDT From: Mr Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Metroliner "Cell" Service Lisa Hancock wrote: > The phones on the new Metroliner train (introduced 1969) were an > early type of cellular service (albeit huge cells), but the > principle of automatic handoff of call from one cell to the next was > proven with that. To the caller, the phone was a standard pay phone > with dial direct service. Somewhere online is a Bell Labs article > describing it. Neat little system. Here's an account: http://www.privateline.com/PCS/metroliner.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:25:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Mr Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Sprint Adds Some Flexibility to Service Contracts Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:19:21 -0500 Sinead Carew, Reuters wrote: > NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Sprint Nextel Corp. (S.N) said on Tuesday it > would let customers change rate plans over the first six months of a > contract without having to sign a new one, as the No. 3 > U.S. wireless service provider looks to attract new customers and > keep existing ones. And I say to that "Big deal!" T-Mobile has had for *years* that if you change to any non-promotional plan (e.g. a temporarily available plan like the present $39.99/month with 1,000 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends is considered promotional) they will expect you to go into a contract if you are in another plan. If you choose any other plan that is not promotional you are not required to either enter a new contract or extend your current contract. As for contracts I think they are a really bogus way of companies holding on to subscribers. You may notice that lengthier contracts came into being after wireless number portability came about. I believe it's no coincidence that this happened. Companies have no impetus to be excellent and provide good service if you are locked into their service with the penalty that if you wish to leave you must pay $175 - $200. There are very few other services provided where they bind you to an agreement even if the service is abysmal. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #175 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 21 16:40:48 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 0D6B4228A; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:40:47 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #176 Message-Id: <20070621204048.0D6B4228A@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:40:47 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:43:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 176 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ohio Governor Says Stolen Tape Had Taxpayer Info (Stephan Majors, AP) Web Spending Seen Rising by Double Digits to 2011 (Gina Keating, Reuters) Telecom Execs: Convergence, IPTV Will Drive Broadband (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: "Vibranxiety" Afflicts Many Cellphone Users (Rick Merrill) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (Sam Spade) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (L Hancock) Re: Metroliner "Cell" Service (Lisa Hancock) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems (Stewart) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems (Merrill) Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 (Paul) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:48:53 -0500 From: Stephan Majors, Associated Press Subject: Ohio Governor Says Stolen Tape Had Taxpayer Info By STEPHEN MAJORS, Associated Press Writer A missing computer backup tape containing personal information on state employees also holds the names and Social Security numbers of 225,000 taxpayers, Gov. Ted Strickland said. The tape, stolen last week from a state intern's car, was previously revealed to hold the names and Social Security numbers of all 64,000 state employees, as well as personal data for tens of thousands of others, including Ohio's 84,000 welfare recipients. The taxpayers' information was on the backup tape because they hadn't cashed state income tax refund checks. Strickland said Wednesday an expert's review could reveal the tape contained more sensitive data. The administration has maintained it does not believe the information has been accessed because it would require specific hardware, software and expertise. But data security experts said the unencrypted tape, described by police as roughly 4 inches square and an inch thick, could be breached by someone with computer expertise, time and money. Strickland said 20,000 state employees had signed up for identity-theft protection as of Tuesday night, and there had been no indications that someone had attempted to use their personal information. The state is paying more than $700,000 to provide all state employees with identity-theft protection services and to hire an independent computer expert to review what data the tape contained. Officials said they would extend identity-theft protection services to the people in the categories announced Wednesday. The tape was stolen June 10 out of the unlocked car of a 22-year-old intern who had been designated to take the backup device home as part of a standard security procedure. The governor has since issued an executive order ending the practice of employees taking backup devices home for safekeeping. He also mandated a review of how state data is handled. 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: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:45:38 -0500 From: Gina Keating, Reuters Subject: Web Spending Seen Rising by Double Digits to 2011 By Gina Keating Internet advertising and access spending by U.S. consumers will rise each year by double digits on average through 2011, fuelled by high-speed connections and social networking and entertainment sites, according to a forecast released on Thursday. PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook expects combined spending on Web advertising and fees paid by U.S. consumers to Internet providers to reach $78.4 billion by 2011, up from $47.2 billion in 2006, a 10.7 percent average annual growth rate. The United States has the world's largest online ad market, projected to grow to $35.4 billion by 2011. But China will overtake the United States to become the world's largest Internet territory in terms of users by 2009, the report said. "We expect that China will accelerate in use of the Internet from where they are today -- in sheer numbers (of users) they are incredible," said Joseph Rizzo, U.S. Advisory Technology Sector Leader for PwC. Consumer fees for access are expected to grow at a 7.1 percent annual rate on average to $43 billion by 2011. Rizzo said Internet advertising was being helped by a decline in television viewing by key audiences for whom "the Internet has become an integral hub of their daily experience." The report cited "triple-play packages" for combined Internet, telephone and television service as a driver for broadband growth in each global region, including the United States, over the next five years. Telephone company investments in infrastructure will also contribute to broadband growth, as consumers migrate from dial-up services, causing spending on dial-up access to drop by an average of 25.5 percent annually, the report said. Broadband access is expected to increase to $41.4 billion, an 11.9 percent compound annual advance. By 2011, the number of broadband subscribers will grow to 89 million, an average annual increase of 12.2 percent, the report showed. 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: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:39:09 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Telecom Execs: Convergence, IPTV Will Drive Broadband Demand USTelecom dailyLead June 21, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hlmkfDtusXuszwCibuddKEfy TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Telecom execs: Convergence, IPTV will drive broadband demand NXTCOMM 2007 NEWS * NexTone forges partnership with PortaOne * Verizon Wireless says services will compete with iPhone * First Communications Innovators Awards honor four BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Bell Canada in merger talks with Telus * Nokia announces restructuring, aims for convergence * Verizon's FiOS TV nears 500,000 subscriptions USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * NXTcomm wraps up today in Chicago TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Q-and-A: Nortel CTO John Roese * First Apple TV security patch released * Survey finds top four uses for WiMAX IP DOWNLOAD * "Everything over IP" strategies propel next-gen networks REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * N.J. voting to ban cell calls, texting while driving * Cities, groups ask court to block new FCC video-franchise rules Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hlmkfDtusXuszwCibuddKEfy ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:26:40 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: "Vibranxiety" Afflicts Many Cellphone Users John Mayson wrote: > http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/06/vibranxiety_aff.html > "Ever think your cell phone was vibrating and reach into your pocket > to answer it only to find it wasn't vibrating at all? You're not alone > according to a report in USA Today. The story examines the phenomenon > of phantom cell phone vibration and posits explanations ranging from > behavioral (your phone has trained you to be on alert for vibrations) > to neurological (your brain becomes wired to sensations you experience > regularly). Whatever the answer may be, it's better than "You're > nuts."" > [JCM - I used to work around high voltage. I had both hands inside a > high-power power-supply when my pager went off. It was set to > vibrate. I literally threw my tools across the lab thinking I had > been shocked. The rest of my days in that lab, I had my pager set to > audible.] > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA JCM, great story! thanks for sharing it. ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:25:54 -0700 Organization: Cox > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Not quite _that_ unlimited, said Miss Prissy, the service rep when she > caught us by trying to call him on his new unlimited unit phone line > one day. You cannot have two phones in the same house, one unlimited > calling and one with a tiny, 'regular' package of units, she warned. > Furthermore, she noted, the 'company' finds it very questionable when > you leave your umlimited metro line call forwarded 24/7 to a business > place in Chicago. No excuses were satisfactory. He told her that many > times when he was at home, friends of his in Zion would call him and > they were interested in what I had to say that day, so he would 'three > way call' so they both could listen to me at the same time. So what > was the problem when 'he went away to Chicago for the day to visit me' > if he simply left his phone on call forwarding 'while he was gone for > the day.' Miss Prissy said she didn't believe a word of it. Then she > called and gave me hell for it also, particularly after she checked > with her cohorts in downtown Chicago and learned about the extreme > volume of inbound calls I was receiving to my taped messages on > HARrison-7-1234 (six or eight _thousand_ calls arrived each day on > about a dozen heavy duty answering machines which were wired in > rotary hunt behind 427-1234, and there were a few times each day that > all the lines would still be busy. Miss Prissy was shocked when she > examined my call volume stats and made my friend disconnect his > 'unlimited metro line', since a couple hundred calls each day were > in fact coming via the Joliet line. In the 1970s and part of the 1980s both Pacific Bell and GTE offerred "ORTS" in the LA/Orange County areas. "Optional Residential Telephone Service," where you could select one, or more, exchanges within 40 miles for flat-rate calling at an additional monthly fee. A friend of mine and I live 60 miles apart so we had a "safe house" phone similar to your arrangement. We never heard from "Miss Prissy" but occasionally our CF would be mysteriously knocked down. ;-) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Chicago never had ORTS, but the suburbs had a similar thing called 'Pick a Point'. Under PaP, the suburban subscribers got to choose one or two telephone numbers which were otherwise 'coin rated points' _within the Chicago exchange_ and do unlimited calls to those two numbers for some extra fee per month. But it was more expensive than 'metro unlimited calling' for some reason which allowed residences including in Chicago to subscribe but then disregard unit measurement entirely. A 'coin rated' point which also applied to Chicago proper was any point greater than ten 'units' away. And anyway, my phones in downtown Chicago were all 'business' lines, and 'business' lines got no deals of any kind other than WATS for long distance calling or IN-WATS (Enterprise numbers in those days) on incoming long distance. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 08:13:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 19, 7:29 pm, Sam Spade wrote: > Yes, quite a few. The first #1 ESS deployment was, as I recall, in > 1967. It started off slow, but DC became the first place to experience > a major deployment, for obvious reasons. ;-) I believe the first "production" ESS was in Suscanna (sp?) N.J. in 1965. After that it was rolled out slowly. Each installation had to be monitored closely to ensure high reliability and to get technicians trained on debugging and servicing. Unlike electro-mechanical, one could not physically go look at a relay or contact point to see a defect or stick test meters against it. Hardware failures of the circuit cards -- still a problem back then--had to be detected in other ways. Bell made improvements after the experience of each installation. As time went on, experience and improved electronics allowed Bell to upgrade the original ESS package. Bell learned about what was necessary in terms of CPU capacity and speed, it learned what peripheral "add-ons" could safely be accomodated and when the CPU had to be faster. (The Bell Labs histories go into this in detail by logical component. It was sort of like adding a turbo charger to a car's engine and maybe better fuel injection vs. designing a whole new engine and transmission. We take a lot of this stuff for granted today.) Also, Bell developed secondary models to accomodate varying exchange sizes and capacity. Lastly, as others noted, software programming changes were necessary. ESS gradually was rolled out in cities across the country. In cities, often multiple exchanges were served out of one building. Often, but by no means always, the exchanges would be 221, 222, 223, etc. Often when a switch was upgraded, such as from panel to #5 crossbar or to ESS, only _one_ of the exchanges would be upgraded. So, if they chose to upgrade 222 and you were 223, you still were served by the old equipment. This was common in cities. If you wanted services offered by the new exchange, you had to change your telephone number (Bell would waive the service charge in this case). In the 1960s, some people wanted Touch Tone so badly they were willing to change their number to get it. In the 1970s likewise for new ESS features. As to Washington, it's understandable that Bell would want to show off it's latest stuff with features, but at the same time, Bell would want reliable equipment as well. I don't think Washington would be used as a test bed until ESS was truly thoroughly debugged. I suspect Washington got plenty of #5 crossbar to provide Centrex service and that Bell wouldn't be so quick to scrap them for ESS. Anyway, Bell might want to impress a _few_ Federal agencies, but for most mundane places (like Labor and Social Security), standard equipment sufficed. I don't know the exact total rollout rates over time. I do know that between roughly 1970 and 1975 relatively few ESS were installed, that is, a city's service would be mostly provided by pre-ESS machines. However, from roughly 1975 to 1980 ESS came on line quickly and by 1980 a city's service would be mostly ESS. It seemed the last ones to cutover would be the newest No. 5 crossbar exchanges. It wasn't too long that after 1980 that a Bell company could proclaim it was 100% ESS. (Obviously this all varied by area, some faster, some slower.) I believe when the digital ESS version replaced the analog version conversions went quicker. Also, I suspect the decline in the cost of electronics and continued minaturization made the boxes cheaper. I can't help but suspect the conversion from crossbar to ESS occured faster than they had expected, and some crossbar switches were retired with plenty of useful life left in them. (Some city panel machines probably should've been retired earlier). > Touchtone was available on No 5 XBAR in most of those areas in the the > late 1960s. I'm not sure if they ever developed converters for Touch Tone for panel, but they did for step-by-step. > I know, as I bought one then. ;-) The first Selectric came out in 1961. Wasn't a Correcting Selectric over $1,000 in 1973? That's an awful lot of money for back then, when a mid-level white collar salarly might be $10,000 a year. I believe I bought a good Smith-Corona portable electric back then and it was a few hundred bucks. >> For some reason I don't know, when Bell and Motorola applied to test >> new cell service, the FCC sat on it for two years. > I'd have to look through my old BSTJ's but I recall the AMPS tests > being conducted in New Jersey in the late 1970s. Chicago was the > first launch of AMPS in 1983. When I say "test", I meant to say public trial with paying customers. I think it had been tested internally and ready to go to public trial. I'm talking in the 1970s. I've read this in a number of places and I'm really curious why the FCC simply sat on their application for two years. I believe at that time Bell and Motorola had a joint venture in mobile service -- Bell offered the service and network tie-in while Motorola supplied the radio-telephone sets. This was still in the car-phone era. Let's remember that between the time some new technology is first announced to the public and when it becomes _widely_ available can be several years or longer. TELECOM Digest Editor Noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had a similar thing going on in > Chicago for all of three or four days, back in 1973, right after > Illinois Bell started 'Call Forwarding'. Calls within the city itself > were only one untimed unit. Calls to/from the suburbs were two or more > units on a timed basis. This sometimes led to the situation where > Chicago was on one side of the street and some suburb was across the > street i.e. Chicago and Evanston, so those calls cost more. That arrangement seems strange. In Philadelphia and New York City, if you lived in a city neighborhood at the border, a call to the adjacent suburb next door would still be only one unit (untimed). It was only if you were calling from the inner city or out to a distant suburb did the timing kick in. In other words, if you were calling across the street that happened to be city limits you paid nothing extra. My impression of Bell System charging policy was that a local calling area generally was not only your own exchange, but also exchanges directly adjacent to it. In many places, crossing state lines didn't matter. To this day crossing a state line LATA--which should a toll call carried by a long distance carrier, is still treated as a local call between two adjacent exchanges even though now we must dial 1+ac +7d. In any event, it was common for suburban Philadelphia businesses (and even affluent residences) to have two phone lines, one local, one a "FX" line from the city. They could use the FX line to make or receive city calls and no message units would be charged. I checked the yellow pages and this continues to this day, although message units have been reduced. > Not quite _that_ unlimited, said Miss Prissy, the service rep when she > caught us by trying to call him on his new unlimited unit phone line > one day. You cannot have two phones in the same house, one unlimited > calling and one with a tiny, 'regular' package of units, she warned. That seems strange as I have that very arrangement right now. I use one line for outgoing calls and the other line for incoming calls. Indeed, back in the 1960s when I visited suburban people with multiple phone lines I'd be directed to use the proper telephone to make a call for that very reason. > Furthermore, she noted, the 'company' finds it very questionable when > you leave your umlimited metro line call forwarded 24/7 to a business > place in Chicago. I suspect what they feared was you were using a residential line for business service. The phone company (and regulators) were very sensitive about that since business customers paid more to cross subsidize residential customers as well as cover their heavier use of equipment. That later became an issue in BBS's, where the phoneco claimed they were a "business" service. (Note that "business" is not whether it is non-profit or not, but rather an organization rather than a residence.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The reason it seemed strange -- and it was -- was that *everything* in the Chicago telephonic area was based around the center of everything there, State & Madison Streets in downtown Chicago. The first 'circle' took in all of Chicago ONLY which was Zone 1. Suburbs which touched Chicago were Zone 2. Suburbs which were a bit further out and did not touch Chicago were Zone 3. Still further out were Zone 4 and 5 suburbs. Some of the furthest away geographic neighborhoods in Chicago proper (such as Austin, Pullman, Rogers Park) were at one time independent villages on their own, such as Austin, Illinois; Pullman, Illinois; Rogers Park, Illinois. These independent towns or villages were eventually annexed into the City of Chicago itself, and they got the 'benefits' given to city dwellers including phone calls: call anywhere in the 'city' for one thin nickle. This was in the 1890-1910 era. By the way, each of those previously independent towns/villages (now Chicago neighborhoods) still have as their oldest and first phone exchanges name/numbers such as AUStin-7, PULlman-5, and ROGers Park-4, or 773-287, 773-785, and 773-764, dating back to when they were, well, independent villages. At one point, even ENGlewood-4 and HYDe Park-3 were the independent towns of Englewood and Hyde Park, Illinois. Anyway, just as the sun spins around the earth each day, everything revolved around downtown Chicago at the center of the city, State and Madison Streets. That is how the Zone system came to be. Chicago residents were able to call some *35 miles* (as an extreme) from one place in Chicago to another place in Chicago (7600 north by 4200 west to 13500 South by 2900 East in a few cases, and all for one thin nickle. Chicago-proper residents were given an allotment of 80 'message units' per month to use as they wished as part of their monthly bill. As long as your call started and terminated in Chicago itself, talk all day if you wanted for that one unit (nickle). Because all of Chicago was in Zone 1. But the suburbs were _different_. They got the same 80 units per month in their allotment, but their 'local calling area' was much smaller. Sure, the entire village was in 'the same zone' (be it Zone 2 or 3)and the same rules applied, but one side of your town was three or four blocks from the 'other side' of town. And since all but the most provincial of the suburban dwellers had some sort of business or social relationship with someone in Chicago, they had to pay dearly for phone service. Oh, the rates were the same, the unit allotment was the same, but the allotment just did not go that far. Illinois Bell once conducted a study of their subscriber's phone service needs, and where Chicagoans plodded along with 80 or 100 message units just fine, the suburbanites typically needed 400-500 units just to 'be' each month. And by the 1980's, more and more residents were living _and working_ in the suburbs. A Chicago city dweller usually considered 'unlimited call pack' (as phone service packs were known) as an extravaganza; quite expensive; suburbanites, especially those some distance away from the city itself, unlimited call pack was a necessary thing, since it was all based on downtown Chicago anyway. Then Ameritech took over. One of the first things they did was announce _no more call packs_, no more call for 'free' in the city where you lived only and similar. The new rule was you could call for 'free' unlimited in time, anywhere within an eight mile radius of where your phone was located. Anywhere within your own central office or the next contingent central office. Now, the suburbanites had an even shake with the city dwellers. More than eight miles (or your central office and the next C.O. away) you would pay about 5 cents per minute; and you could purchase various packages which reduced the rate to as low as 2.1 cents per minute. Bell's rationale for all this was "most subscribers' community of interest is not going to be twenty or thirty miles away; it is going to be around their immediate neighborhood, or certainly within 5-8 miles of their home." Now suburban dwellers could call maybe two communities away where a family member worked or lived for 'free' just like a city dweller. And, the city dwellers didn't really miss not being able to call all the way to 139th and Burnham Avenue for 'free' anyway except if they lived out there (within the city, recall) and in that case they got it as part of the eight mile radius like anyone else. Miss Prissy was furious about the new plan, of course, and businesses were never allowed (under the old unlimited call pack plan or the new 'eight miles radius for free' plan) to have any of those concessions anyway. _They_ always had to pay virtually everytime the phone went off hook for an outgoing call. But for most people, Chicago came to be considered as just one blob on a map of northern Illinois which wound up being divided into several 'eight mile radius' areas surrounded by a few hundred suburbs clustered together in 'eight mile radius' areas, a few suburbs here, a few there, etc. And of course, telephone prefixes and 'area codes' no longer mattered where the billing was concerned. When I had an office on Howard Street in Chicago years ago (old 312), to call across the street to Evanston to the McDonalds Restaurant (old 708) to get my lunch delivered it always cost me 2 units or about ten cents. When the rates were changed, the same call was within _my_ eight mile radius so it became a free call, but to call to downtown Chicago (present 312) at cost me 2 units or ten cents for the ten mile call. In essence, Ameritech said that "downtown Chicago is no longer the center of the universe" and for most of us it was a welcome decision. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Metroliner "Cell" Service Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:43:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 20, 8:07 pm, Mr Joseph Singer wrote: > Here's an account: > http://www.privateline.com/PCS/metroliner.htm Thanks for the reference, excellent account. I strongly recommend it. The Bell Labs article may be found at: http://long-lines.net/tech-equip/mobile/BLR0369/076-077.html (This is also an interesting telephone history website). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:23:58 -0700 From: Jim Stewart Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems On Jun 19, 3:55 pm, John Levine wrote: > The decreasing resiliency of the phone system to power failures is a > real problem that nobody seems to be addressing. > It used to be all basic telephones were powered by the central office > which had diesel generators to recharge the batteries in case of > commercial failure. While the likelihood of a power failure is fairly > low, nasty storms or power company failures do create local outages > that can last for 24-48 hours. During such an outage telephone > service is especially critical since roads may be blocked. PBXs had > batteries and hand generators for ringing. > It seems most people at home have cordless phones powered by house > current. How long, if at all, will such phones last in a power > failure? People are supposed to have a plain landline phone, but do > they? > But I wonder today how many business PBXs have any battery backup at > all for both talk and ringing, especially for an extended period of > time. A quick and cheap fix for a small to medium sized business is to run the first two CO pairs up to the receptionist's desk, connect them to modular jacks and leave a couple of POTS unplugged under the desk for emergencies. I've done this at a couple places where I worked and it was greatly appreciated. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Even in a residence with PBX-like service. I am no fool (although some people say I look and act like one), and in my computer room, where the phone lines come in from outside to the PBX box on the wall, I have a couple of terminal boxes there as well, tapping the outside line. We do not have that many power outages (I am three blocks down the street from our municipal electric grid), but I do get a few outages, i.e. phone service through the PBX goes off (as do the computers, etc). I take one spare phone and plug it into that box, and get reliable Sage Telecom service. (Sage replaced Prairie Stream several months ago.) I am reminded: if you are _anywhere_ in the old SBC Southwestern Bell operating territory you can get Sage Telecom for about half of what you paid to SBC with a lot less grief as well. Sage certainly does not lie as SBC used to do either. Check them out and let me know how it works for you. Sage is basically a UNI-type operation, just as Prairie Stream was before Ma Bell put them out of business, but Sage is much larger than Prairie Stream ever was, even being part of Terra World. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:28:49 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems T wrote: > In article , > rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com says: >> John Levine wrote: >>> Yeah. Verizon's FIOS in effect puts a SLC on your house, with a >>> battery that it's your job to replace every couple of years, and when >>> you forget and the power fails, you lose. The decreasing resiliency >>> of the phone system to power failures is a real problem that nobody >>> seems to be addressing. >> I think that cell phones are now so prevalent that because they have a >> battery and are locatable for 911 purposes that few are worried about >> reduced reliability of POTS during power failures. >>> Regards, >>> John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies >>> Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor >>> "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. > But the cell phone is useless when the local towers lose AC power. Put > it this way, I know that the NEXTEL box in back of our office has some > big honkin' A/C units but I don't see any power backup at all. Our local cell tower (looks like a 'pine tree'!) has it's own Big generator -- no idea how long their battery backup ridethrough is. ------------------------------ From: Paul Subject: Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:26:51 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Fortunately the company I worked for in the Chicago suburbs (708 area code) had one line with a 312 area code. I think the owner kept one line with a 312 number so that our downtown Chicago customers could call our suburban offices without paying a metered rate. That single 312 phone number was a lifesaver for the company during the outage. There was a special term for that line with the out-of-area code. Does anyone know? -- Paul "George S Thurman" wrote in message news:telecom26.170.10@telecom-digest.org... > Very interesting reading this. I was living in Chicago at the time, > so I remember it very well. One question is how long did it ACTUALLY > take to replace the switch and restore full service to the area. > George "Skip" Thurman > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Illinois Bell stated that the > restoration was about 90 percent finished within a month, in mid-June, > 1988. It was about 95 percent finished within a month or two after > that. A couple telco repair technicians in the area noted to me that > the restoration was never _totally_ i.e. 100 percent (as in things > operated _exactly_ as they had before the fire). It got to be 'the > equivilent of' 100 percent during August of that year, but trained and > experienced ears which listened _closely_ said the 'action' (if you want > to call it that) was never completely replicated. > I do not know if you recall this or not, Skip, but _you_ were the > person who tipped me off to the fire in progress that Sunday afternoon > in a phone call to my home. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #176 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 22 16:50:04 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1467A224B; Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:50:04 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #177 Message-Id: <20070622205004.1467A224B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:50:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:52:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 177 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson YouTube Live on Apple TV Today; Coming to iPhone on June 29 (Monty Solomon) Sprint Executive Calls For End to Device Subsidies (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (T) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (L Hancock) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (Sam Spade) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (Carl Moore) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (D Garland) Re: "Vibranxiety" Afflicts Many Cellphone Users (T) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems (T) Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems (J Levine) Re: We've Come So Far ... (John Mayson) Re: Power and Cable TV Outages (Neal McLain) Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 (T) Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 (Ron Kritzman) Re: Help Setting Up a VoIP Regulatory Framework (Raqueeb Hassan) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:23:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: YouTube Live on Apple TV Today; Coming to iPhone on June 29 Best YouTube Experience on a Mobile Device CUPERTINO, California -- Apple today announced that iPhone users will be able to enjoy YouTube's originally-created content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube's content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone's stunning 3.5 inch display. In addition, Apple announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV. Users can download the free software update using Apple TV's built-in software update feature, and then easily navigate through YouTube's familiar video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view and save their favorite videos. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/20youtube.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:06:12 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: June 22, 2007 - Sprint Executive Calls For End to Device Subsidies USTelecom dailyLead June 22, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hlAofDtusXuvtKCibuddINog TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Sprint executive calls for end to device subsidies NXTCOMM 2007 NEWS * Alcatel-Lucent talks convergence * Panelists discuss protection of customer data BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Verizon announces new business FMC services * Sprint snaps up some of Bell Industries' spectrum assets * Analysis: Will Vodafone sell its portion of Verizon Wireless? USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Mark Your Calendars for NXTcomm 2008! TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Report: VOD strongest area for TV growth * Column: Branding won't matter if product doesn't wow consumers * Newport claims advanced chip for mobile TV IP DOWNLOAD * Fring expands service to Windows Mobile users REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * EC greenlights NBCU-News Corp. Internet-TV venture Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hlAofDtusXuvtKCibuddINog ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:01:24 -0400 In article , sam@coldmail.com says: > Yes, I do, That was subsequently determined by WE Engineers to have > been an unintentional mistake. > Also, another undocumented feature on both the 1 and 1A ESS was that > call waiting would work during a three-way call. This was carried > over to the 5ESS, but later dropped. The DMS-10 and DMS-100 couldn't > hack that level of porting, so WE (Lucent) dropped the capability in > deference to the less robust DMS switches. I've been reading about the differences between WE and Nortel switching platforms, particularly in the digital age. WE went with centralized codecs, while Nortel used a codec per line. I too find the DMS to be an inferior switch. In article , nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net says: > In article , sam@coldmail.com > says: >> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >>> On Jun 19, 9:25 am, Sam Spade wrote: >>> Washington, DC had quite a few ESS offices when Watergate happened, >>> which is a different environment than "Wrong Number" or "Dial M for >>> Murder." ;-) >> "Quite a few"? In 1973-74 ESS was still relatively new as a >> production item. I dare say that within a city most would be served >> by panel or #1 XBAR, maybe a few exchanges with ESS. Anyway, in >> 1973-74 I think most subscribers still had plain vanilla dial >> telephone service. In affluent neighborhoods, many people might have >> Touch Tone. >> Yes, quite a few. The first #1 ESS deployment was, as I recall, in >> 1967. It started off slow, but DC became the first place to experience >> a major deployment, for obvious reasons. ;-) >> The public wouldn't have known about it because calling features weren't >> promoted much, and not at all in some areas, until 1975, or so. >> Touchtone was available on No 5 XBAR in most of those areas in the the >> late 1960s. >> The AT&T network policy makers deliberately held back on offering >> calling features in the POTS environment for a number of reasons. But, >> Centrex government customers in DC were offered the full array as soon >> as the cuts were complete. >>> My impressions of newspaper telephone service and hardware was based >>> on visits to a major city paper of that time. >>> But, typewriters had come a long way, with correcting Selectrics. ;-) >>> I'm not sure when correcting Selectrics came out, but I think it was >>> after '74. In any event, they were a premium expensive model, >>> probably more found with executive secretaries than with junior >>> reporters. In those years, the secretary to a manager had a nice >>> electric typewriter, but those using a typewriter for routine work (ie >>> bank clerk or librarian) had manuals. (Remington and Underwood both >>> made very nice manuals in that time frame.) By 1980 things would be >>> very different, but it was a slow transition. Typewriters were rather >>> expensive. >> Here is a ad featuring a Correcting Selectric II in 1973. >> http://www.etypewriters.com/history.htm >> I know, as I bought one then. ;-) The first Selectric came out in 1961. >> Reporters may not have had Correcting Selectrics in 1973 but all the >> bosses secretaries, including the White House I suspect, got them really >> quick. >>>> When Watergate happened, the only mobile phones were those giant >>>> bricks mounted in the car, and which transmitted and received in the >>>> open on VHF low, where every sharp kid with a scanner could hear the >>>> conversation with ease. ;-) >>> There were only a few frequencies available and a huge waiting list >>> for mobile service despite the high cost. But in those days, when >>> more people were in a city, payphones were everywhere. Lobbies of >>> office buildings had banks of them (nice ones with a tiny chair, >>> table, fan, light, and closed door). Often every floor of a >>> commercial building had one too, in addition to the lobby bank. >>> For some reason I don't know, when Bell and Motorola applied to test >>> new cell service, the FCC sat on it for two years. >> I'd have to look through my old BSTJ's but I recall the AMPS tests >> being conducted in New Jersey in the late 1970s. Chicago was the >> first launch of AMPS in 1983. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you recall one difference between >> the way 'call forwarding' was originally set up and later on? People >> could 'chain call-forward', that is, you forward yours to me; I then >> forwarded mine to some other party; they forwarded theirs onward, etc. >> Let's call them parties 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. People realized they >> could forward infinitly if they had enough co-conspirators to help >> them, and make a (considerable) long distance call for the price of >> a local call. The next generic of 'call forwarding' did not allow >> that. Yes, A could forward to B and B could forward to C, etc, but >> calls directed to A _stopped_ when they reached B. Calls directed to >> B _stopped_ when they reached C. Officially the theory was that >> persons calling A only wanted to talk to A. For A's convenience, his >> calls could be forwarded to B, but party A did not want to be >> forwarded onward to C or D. Or, so said telco. And originally, if A >> forwarded to B and contemporaneously B forwarded to A, it would start >> an endless loop until eventually all circuits in the CO were tied up. >> Telco quickly put a stop to that also. But that 'chain forwarding' was >> foolish anyway; people could rarely -- if ever -- make a series of >> short distance calls for less expense than a single long distance >> call. PAT] > I remember proving the ridiculousness of RI's toll boundaries by doing > just what you mention. > If you lived in an area served by the Pawtucket rate center, you could > only call as far as Providence to the south. > The thing was, one of RI's more popular BBS's was in East Greenwich. > So I setup a line in the house that had call forwarding to the EG > phone numbers. I got use of the phone line and it would just forward > calls like crazy. > I love thinking how much I had to have cost then NYNEX in toll > revenue. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had a similar thing going on in > Chicago for all of three or four days, back in 1973, right after > Illinois Bell started 'Call Forwarding'. Calls within the city itself > were only one untimed unit. Calls to/from the suburbs were two or more > units on a timed basis. This sometimes led to the situation where > Chicago was on one side of the street and some suburb was across the > street i.e. Chicago and Evanston, so those calls cost more. If you > lived 'all the way out' in Joliet (815 area) for example, typically > it cost 6 units for three minutes of talking if you wanted to call > Chicago. But, if we wished, we could purchase an 'unlimited metro > line' (much more money but no regard for the units used on the calls). > I had my recorded telephone news/advertising telephone lines operating > in Chicago. I had various users in the Joliet area calling me each day > on my Chicago number. Now, I had a couple of 'Enterprise' numbers for > my Indiana and Wisconsin callers, but I thought of a smart way to > handle the Chicago west/south suburban calls to cost them less money. > My friend who lived in Joliet offered to get a second phone line for > his home; it would be an 'umlimited metro area' line. He would leave > _that line_ on permanent call forwarding to my Chicago number and he > would make his outgoing calls on that line, while using his existing > phone (with a very tiny unit allotment) for all his incoming calls. > He disconnected the bell on the new line so he did not get disturbed > by the ringing. There were a couple times when there were _two_ calls > at one via his phone line in Joliet to my service in Chicago (at six > units minimum each had they not been on the unlimited metro line) all > the while he was on the phone with an outgoing call to Zion, Illinois > (as extremely far north as Joliet was south, also an eight unit call.) > That line was unlimited, right? > Not quite _that_ unlimited, said Miss Prissy, the service rep when she > caught us by trying to call him on his new unlimited unit phone line > one day. You cannot have two phones in the same house, one unlimited > calling and one with a tiny, 'regular' package of units, she warned. > Furthermore, she noted, the 'company' finds it very questionable when > you leave your umlimited metro line call forwarded 24/7 to a business > place in Chicago. No excuses were satisfactory. He told her that many > times when he was at home, friends of his in Zion would call him and > they were interested in what I had to say that day, so he would 'three > way call' so they both could listen to me at the same time. So what > was the problem when 'he went away to Chicago for the day to visit me' > if he simply left his phone on call forwarding 'while he was gone for > the day.' Miss Prissy said she didn't believe a word of it. Then she > called and gave me hell for it also, particularly after she checked > with her cohorts in downtown Chicago and learned about the extreme > volume of inbound calls I was receiving to my taped messages on > HARrison-7-1234 (six or eight _thousand_ calls arrived each day on > about a dozen heavy duty answering machines which were wired in > rotary hunt behind 427-1234, and there were a few times each day that > all the lines would still be busy. Miss Prissy was shocked when she > examined my call volume stats and made my friend disconnect his > 'unlimited metro line', since a couple hundred calls each day were > in fact coming via the Joliet line. > But it was Bell's own fault; had the geographic arrangement of 'units' > been more fairly allotted (as they were starting in the middle eighties) > it would not have been very cost-effective for my friend and I. PAT] That's the thing, NYNEX wasn't THAT dedicated to toll collection, particularly since this was post divestiture and Long Lines still provided the instate toll service. In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > TELECOM Digest Editor Noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had a similar thing going on in >> Chicago for all of three or four days, back in 1973, right after >> Illinois Bell started 'Call Forwarding'. Calls within the city itself >> were only one untimed unit. Calls to/from the suburbs were two or more >> units on a timed basis. This sometimes led to the situation where >> Chicago was on one side of the street and some suburb was across the >> street i.e. Chicago and Evanston, so those calls cost more. > That arrangement seems strange. Charging units seem strange to me too. Rhode Island has always had bizarre toll boundaries. For example, if you have a Providence rate center number you can call 85% of the available exchanges in the state. If you have a Pawtucket rate center number, it drops down to 65%. And heaven forbid you live in south county and end up with a North Kingstown number because Providence is toll from there. VoIP gives lie to those artificial toll rates. I can dial anywhere and not incur any additional charges. Kind of nice when your local calling area spans continents. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 08:22:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Then Ameritech took over. One of the first things they did was > announce _no more call packs_, ... Around the time of divesture it was said the telephone rates would be restructured to match cost against usage. Thus we saw new charges for 411, operator assistance, wire repair, etc. At that time they also predicted the end of flat rate service on the grounds that some people used it very extensively while others used it sparingly. In the 1980s the telephone was used more than ever, along with businesses operating from home and home computers. As you noted, some places did eliminate flat rate plans. As a big phone talker, I was concerned. But the explosion in technology -- cheaper switches and line terminal eqiupment, fibre optic lines -- made it possible to hold the line on some rates and eventually offer national unlimited. Admittedly, my national unlimited is only a few dollars more than metro unlimited. Undoubtedly the phone company was concerned with the use of computers on voice lines and the heavy usage of equipment. But many people with computers got second or third phone lines just for the computer, which offset the cost. Now of course people are shifting to dedicated lines like DSL. (What happened to ISDN?) Verizon is pushing FIOS like crazy even though they holding back installing it in apt complexes. In any event, in thinking about the movie, so much has changed in telecommunications. Think about how Woodward and Bernstein would've done things differently with cell phones, fax, and the internet, as well as Deep Throat and the efforts to identify Deep Throat. Indeed, just by 1980 (six years) things had changed a lot. From a _technological_ point of view, I never understood Watergate. (Let's leave politics and Nixon out of this). The Watergate scandal wasn't about the Watergate Apt breakin, it was about numerous other wiretaps that were "illegal" and then the effort to cover them up. But if Nixon's people wanted to wiretap, why didn't they just ask the friendly compliant phone company to do so under "national security"? AFAIK, the phoneco cooperated with such requests and didn't ask questions. Indeed at that very time the phoneco was working with the Justice Dept to help track down Blue Box users. Or, by that time, the technology existed to just add a recorder external to the drop line on the outside of a building and no one would know about it. ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:21:20 -0700 Organization: Cox I can only speak about Pacific Bell (Pacific Telephone) in the specifics of embedding newer equipment a given C.O. Pacific Telephone, unlike its eastern and midwestern cousins, had steppers en mass in urban C.Os. No. 5 XBARS were installed to serve one office code within those C.O.s as soon as the No. 5 XBAR became available. The 5 XBAR would serve only one office code (prefix) but it served as the toll machine for all the other "dumb" SxS machines. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:58:08 -0400 From: Carl Moore, Carl (Civ,ARL/SLAD) In the 21 June 2007 digest (V26 #176) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > I believe the first "production" ESS was in Suscanna (sp?) N.J. in > 1965. Would that be "Succasunna"? There is a phone exchange using that place name (formerly in 201, now in 973). ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 07:42:09 +0000 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >> Not quite _that_ unlimited, said Miss Prissy, the service rep when she >> caught us by trying to call him on his new unlimited unit phone line >> one day. You cannot have two phones in the same house, one unlimited >> calling and one with a tiny, 'regular' package of units, she warned. > That seems strange as I have that very arrangement right now. I use > one line for outgoing calls and the other line for incoming calls. I had the same arrangement when I had a BBS in the late '90s. At the time my phone was "measured [outgoing] service". Whoever the telco was at that time (NWBell? USWest? Qwest?) told me that I couldn't have one "unlimited" line and still keep measured service on the other. It didn't become an issue until I added another line for the BBS, and had "forward on busy" to a third BBS line. The first phone bill was a shocker, I was charged outgoing charges on line#2 (the BBS line) for every call that got forwarded to line#3 (the second BBS line). IIRC the solution (arrived at with a cooperative "home office" rep) was to go to unlimited service and drop the (extra cost) "forward on busy" option, replacing it with a (no-charge) "hunt group". I don't know what was technically different on their side, on my side it was exactly the same, except that calls from my home phone were no longer timed, and the base bill was a few bucks higher. Dave [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa Hancock is confused on this: She needs to remember this is 2007 'anything goes with any telco', _NOT_ 1974-75 'we run it all' Bell. The service reps in those days were very explicit: if two or more phones in the same residence, they all had to have the same type of service. Otherwise, for the subscriber, it would be 'too easy' to 'accidentally' use the phone line which was more generous. The same situation occurred for me in 1978: I worked for an apartment building; the building 'office' had a seldom-used phone which (to save expenses, etc) had an 'answer only' phone tied into the manager's apartment phone so he could answer the phone when he was down in the office (not often). Bell insisted it could not have a dial as an extension phone and still be on residential rates. It was to be for his convenience in _answering_ his own (residential rate) phone in his upstairs apartment only. We put in an 'Enterphone system' (Bell-supplied front door answering and opening system. It rang in the manager's upstairs apartment, but in the downstairs office it only rang; you could not manipulate the front door from there as a result of no-dial on the phone. I swapped out that (non-dial) phone for one with touch-tone. Miss Prissy just about soiled her panties when she heard what had been done; a touch-tone (gasp!) on a residential-based phone terminated in an office! Albiet seldom used office or extension phone. She demanded it be taken out and replaced with a non-dial extension. Telco repair man told her it was _also being used_ for door answering where phones were supplied _for free_ as needed in spaces which were not normally rented to tenants. Miss Prissy, after due consultation, decided that the 'Enterphone' tariff would prevail instead of the 'no dial on an extension located in a business on residential rates' tariff. This was 1978 after all, Lisa, not 2007. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: "Vibranxiety" Afflicts Many Cellphone Users Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:58:54 -0400 In article , john@mayson.us says: > http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/06/vibranxiety_aff.html > "Ever think your cell phone was vibrating and reach into your pocket > to answer it only to find it wasn't vibrating at all? You're not alone > according to a report in USA Today. The story examines the phenomenon > of phantom cell phone vibration and posits explanations ranging from > behavioral (your phone has trained you to be on alert for vibrations) > to neurological (your brain becomes wired to sensations you experience > regularly). Whatever the answer may be, it's better than "You're > nuts."" > [JCM - I used to work around high voltage. I had both hands inside a > high-power power-supply when my pager went off. It was set to > vibrate. I literally threw my tools across the lab thinking I had > been shocked. The rest of my days in that lab, I had my pager set to > audible.] > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA We IT folks are so used to that. First it started off with vibrating pagers which could lead to a condition we referred to as beepilepsy. I'll never forget the day that my boss and I were in a boring meeting regarding moving our office. Had nothing to do with IT, we'd already fulfilled our duties. Now it was just fluff talk about paint colors, furnishings, etc. Boring! About mid-way throught the meeting one of our servers decided to puke. We had SkyTel pagers so we both had ours go off at the same time. They say the looks on our faces were priceless. Woke us up out of a cold stupor and gave us an exceuse to leave the meeting. Turns out the software that did the checking decided to hiccup so there was really nothing wrong. After that we'd start telling other members of staff to page us during meetings. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And now, that is done automatically on purpose. Got a call you want to ditch? Use call-waiting. Got a date you want to skip out on? Have someone page you, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:25:51 -0400 In article , jstewart@jkmicro.com says: > On Jun 19, 3:55 pm, John Levine wrote: >> The decreasing resiliency of the phone system to power failures is a >> real problem that nobody seems to be addressing. >> It used to be all basic telephones were powered by the central office >> which had diesel generators to recharge the batteries in case of >> commercial failure. While the likelihood of a power failure is fairly >> low, nasty storms or power company failures do create local outages >> that can last for 24-48 hours. During such an outage telephone >> service is especially critical since roads may be blocked. PBXs had >> batteries and hand generators for ringing. >> It seems most people at home have cordless phones powered by house >> current. How long, if at all, will such phones last in a power >> failure? People are supposed to have a plain landline phone, but do >> they? >> But I wonder today how many business PBXs have any battery backup at >> all for both talk and ringing, especially for an extended period of >> time. > A quick and cheap fix for a small to medium sized business is to run > the first two CO pairs up to the receptionist's desk, connect them to > modular jacks and leave a couple of POTS unplugged under the desk for > emergencies. I've done this at a couple places where I worked and it > was greatly appreciated. In our situation the switch is in the computer room. The entire room is hooked into an APC Symmetra that provides about 45 minutes of power. That is backed up by a 125kW natural gas fired generator that spools up and comes online within 10 seconds. We did learn that while we tried to cover every contingency, we couldn't cover all of them. Like our DNS services -- they came from another agency and when a city wide power outage hit, we were up and running but couldn't communicate. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 2007 21:17:22 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Problems > A quick and cheap fix for a small to medium sized business is to run > the first two CO pairs up to the receptionist's desk, connect them to > modular jacks and leave a couple of POTS unplugged under the desk for > emergencies. I've done this at a couple places where I worked and it > was greatly appreciated. Since PBX trunks are usually ground start, do you have a favorite doozit for getting a dial tone? R's, John [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My favorite method for this is install a little push button on the phone tied into the tip side of the line and the other line goes to ground somewhere. To bring up dial tone in those situations, just press the button for a half second or so. I knew about that trick when I was 12 years old and my uncle had a Walgreens Agency Drug Store in Whiting, IN with a payphone in the front of the store. The older style payphones required ground to start dial tone, usually the ground was supplied when a coin tripped the finger in the coin collection chute but ground could be supplied anywhere along the line. At uncle's drugstore pay phone, I chose to trip the ground from a two-line push button phone at the pharmacy counter in the back of the store. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:42:51 -0500 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Jun 18, 6:24 pm, John Mayson wrote: >> I'm still in the 1981 archives. I cannot believe how pompous, >> protective, and bloated the phone company was then. Telling customers >> they couldn't have a business and a residential line in the same >> dwelling. Sarcastic operators and billing employees. Charging >> through the nose for a simple telephone. Calls to the next town over >> being a toll call. Metered local calling. Amazing. I really see why >> AT&T was broken up. > I do not agree with your description for the reasons that follow. I am going to trim the reply from hancock4 just to save a little space and not because I am ignoring his/her very valid points. I don't think Ma Bell was pure, undistilled evil. And quite frankly I was a little too young to have any first-hand knowledge. I know my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles all hated The Phone Company. That seemed to be a common topic when we'd get together, usually circulating around why they didn't call each other more often. I also have bad memories of my parents berating me over unintentional toll calls. I would call a friend across town and get an intercept message instructing me to dial "1" and then the number. I didn't understand at the time that was phone-speak for "This is going to be a toll call". I spent at least half of my childhood in GTE territory, so I technically wasn't subject of Ma Bell, at least at the local level. I do understand that AT&T took us from having effectively zero telephone infrastructure to having service in virtually every nook and cranny of our very large nation, and making it one of the most reliable systems of any kind anywhere in the world. > A common misunderstanding in discussing telephone history is a failure > to understand the state of technology in 1983. Very simply, think > about what a good PC cost to buy back then and how much horsepower > came with it. Now think about what the same money, adjusted for > inflation, will buy today. See the enormous difference? Yes, but what drove the PC industry to give us better computers at lower prices? Competition. If IBM had been granted a de facto monopoly over the computer industry where you could only lease IBM equipment, couldn't modify it, couldn't run non-IBM software, and have to rely on IBM for all repair service, do you think we'd be where we are today with computing? > Electronics used to be enormously expensive. The Bell System used > massive amounts of it to provide dial tone, switch local calls, and > terminate carrier equipment for long distance calls. Today, the > electronics are cheaper. Also carrier systems for long distance are > much cheaper today, making those calls cheap, too. Did telephone service become cheaper before or after 1/1/1984? It's a serious question, I don't know. I do know with the introduction of competitive cellular plans in the mid to late 90's and the further deregulation of the telephone industry dropped prices considerably. None of that would have been possible if we still had pre-1984 Ma Bell. > Public policy back then dictated that basic telephone service was to > be cheap to encourage wide use. It was and it worked. Premium > services were profitable, again, by public policy. When the company > was divested and prices allowed to be free market, obviously the > subsidized prices went up and the premium prices went down. In > essence, a judge dictated a new public policy, overriding the FCC and > Congress. So yes, you rented extensions (the main phone set was free, > included in the service charge). That rent was deemed a premium > service (of course, they provided all repair service for free). Was it cheap? When I read what phone service cost back then and translate into today's dollars, it was outrageously expensive. It's no wonder people relied on letters. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I seem to recall adding $40 to my parent's phone bill with just 5 or 6 calls to a friend from school who lived outside our local dialing area. I doubt I was on the phone for hours. > Per the above, the charge for a single plain telephone (telephone set > and all maintenance included) was dirt cheap, cheaper than today > adjusted for inflation. They did not "charge through the nose" for > simple service, and most people had only that. But did that meet people's needs? I can see maybe a poor pensioner who only made a couple of calls on Sunday. But even then a family of any size used the phone too often to make the dirt cheap plan worthwhile. > Many communities did not meter local calls; that was more of a city > function, and the calling area for cities was enormous, both in terms > of land area and population. One could pay extra and get unmetered > service, many did. But that counters what you said before. It sounds like the cheap service didn't meet people's needs. It seems analagous to offering a cable TV customer a cheap plan, but telling them they can watch only C-SPAN for an hour a day, otherwise they're going to be charge extra. That might work for a few people, but for most it's too restrictive. AFAIK, we didn't have metered calling in Tampa with GTE. I had an aunt in southern New Jersey who insisted we kept even local calls as short as possible because their calls were metered. She was in what was New Jersey Bell territory. > In my dealings with Bell staff, both at work and at home, I found them > to be almost always knowledgeable and helpful. Service qualtiy was > far superior to that of today. When you called repair service, > dialing only 611, you spoke to a real craftsmen at a test desk. The people I worked with at AT&T were sharp. They could rattle off the most arcane information about the various switches, etc. As a child I never dealt with anyone with the phone company, but it's my understanding they were rude and unresponsive. > Somehow I don't think "competition" was intended to work that way, I > thought the market place was supposed to be allowed to choose for > itself. If the old Bell System was as screwed up as critics claimed, > it would've been easy for Sprint and MCI to come in and take over. > But the truth was that by and large the old Bell System was good and > most customers were quite satisfied. And that may be. But I still hold to my belief that if we hand't broken up AT&T, we would be paying for it today. > Also, the Bell System provided many free consulting services to > businesses to help them plan their telecom needs and make good use of > their phones. This included training for employees, in not only how > to use the equipment (what buttons to push) but also how to best serve > customers and create goodwill. I'm sure there was more to it than just goodwill. Properly trained customers would not rely so much on customer support, or could at least maintain some semblance of in-house technical support. Also, what about companies that didn't additional support? Why should they pay for a service they do not need? > As to telecom administration, large companies had to go out and hire > their own administrators and technicians to do what used to be done > for free. Small companies had to hire consultants. So the so-called > savings were in reality a cost shifting. You may have paid less in > your phone bill, but had to pay more in salaries. > Lastly, I want to counter another myth and that is that divesture > forced rates down. The truth is that technology caused rates to drop. > The Bell System was reducing toll rates ever since the telephone was > invented. Well before divesture AT&T implemented deep discounts for > off peak calling and was expanding local calling areas. As technology > improved (see above), customers were given price breaks. Likewise > with technology, the Bell System's 1983 equipment offerings were > pretty good for its day. Again though, would equipment costs have dropped without competition? I don't think they would. It's not my intent to start a flame war. :-) From my vantage point, this is how I see it. I had no direct experience with the phone company until 1987. My family talked about Ma Bell the same way they talked about the IRS or the driver's license folks. And I had two family members who worked for Ma Bell (not my dad who was at GTE, others). It absolutely baffled me that four years after the break-up, my fellow AT&T employees were still in denial about what had happened. I was hired to write programs, namely dBase and a language called ESCORT, and then later Unix and C. I saw opportunities to computerize our group. They were doing a lot of tasks by hand. I thought it was crazy to have someone print out reams of circuit orders, highlight a certain code, then sort the hundreds of orders by hand and walk them to the appropriate supervisor who would then further breakdown the stack to his/her individual employees to process. I came up with the idea of pulling that information into our 3B2 and emailing it to the proper person, or even using ESCORT to process the orders. It was never even considered. Yes, the manual way kept an entire building's worth of people employed, but at what cost? What if a sheet of paper was dropped or the printer jammed? Was that order lost forever? My last job at AT&T was part of a project to reconcile circuit information versus billing records. It had been such a manual process we had customers out there who had been getting service for free while others, believe it or not, were being billed (and they were paying) for circuits that didn't exist. I was saddened to see AT&T slowly die over the 90's. But I think they were a victim of their own monopolistic history. I think we, the consumer, are better off today than we would have been had AT&T not been broken up. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had the same thing happen to me in about 1977 or so. I was living in a residential hotel on the near north of Chicago, which had switchboard service in each room. I chose to have a private phone put in my apartment plus the hotel switchboard phone. For one _year_ afterward, I did not get a bill for it. Someone in outside plant somehow lost the paperwork, and billing did not get it, so as they were concerned, the line was still not in use. Then one day after about a year, some @#$@@%$ phreak decided to charge a long distance call to my number. Charges went through the system but 'fell out' when the billing department tried to bill my number. The bogus charge went into the 'suspense' account where it sat for another month until a 'suspense analyst' got around to working on it. Telco tried their usual tricks (calling the distant end, claiming 'our operator made a mistake in copying down the number of the person who called you' etc ... asking that person to help identify the caller, but they decided the call _did_ 'belong' to my number. Suspense analysts' next trick was to try dialing my number to see if it was a working number, he found out it was. Next call was to plant asking them 'when did you turn on this line, and why don't we have the paper work?' When the first bill came to me in the mail, it was for service to the date of the bill (13 months) PLUS the usual service for one month in advance, AND (but of course!) the bogus long distance call. Several hundred dollars for the total bill! I called Miss Prissy and appealed to her: would she please write off the charges to that date and let me start fresh from there? Her response was "you knew good and well what was going on, you hoped we would not discover it!" The old Bell was pretty good about writing off almost anything at least once but she would not do it. "All I can do is give you a payment plan of three months to pay it, and I will write off the bogus long distance call. After all, you _knew_ what happened was wrong!" I could not legitimatly argue with that; it only took me a month or two after the bills did not show up each month to know something was wrong. I told her thanks, and agreed to her repayment plan. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 23:27:05 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Power and Cable TV Outages hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > I know the cable TV system in my area depends on commercial power > and stays out even after power is restored (I guess they have to > reset it). That scares me if I dependended on cable TV for telephone > service. They don't "reset" it. A cable TV network will continue to operate as long as it's physically intact and has operating power available. At any given customer location, it's entirely possible for the power to be off, but cable TV to be operating normally. Virtually all cable TV facilities are now protected by backup power: - Headends are protected by on-site standby generators. Some headends also have batteries to cover transitions between utility power and generator power. - Nodes are protected by batteries capable of maintaining service for several hours. They are equipped with power input connectors and transfer switches to accept power from vehicle-mounted generators (similar to telco DLC cabinets). - Pole-mounted power supplies are also protected by batteries. During extended outages, they can be connected to vehicle-mounted generators (standard off-the-Home-Depot-shelf generators work fine). A more likely reason for simultaneous power-and-cable TV outages is plant damage. If a poleline is damaged (falling tree, drunk driver, house fire) it's likely to affect everything on the on the line: power, cable TV, and landline telephone. In such situations, the power company always gets its repair work done first; cable and telco crews can't get near the line until power has finished its work and declares the area safe. All of which means that cable TV indeed "stays out" until after power is restored. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the same customers are affected. Depending on the topology of the cable network vis-a-vis the power network, it's possible for the cable signal and electric power to be running in opposite directions along the same poleline. In such situations, a damaged poleline would affect different sets of customers. A house fire at a critical intersection could knock out power on the north side of town, cable TV service on the west side, and landline telco service on the south side. Neal McLain ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:27:31 -0400 In article , paule@nospam- mindspring.com says: > Fortunately the company I worked for in the Chicago suburbs (708 area > code) had one line with a 312 area code. I think the owner kept one > line with a 312 number so that our downtown Chicago customers could > call our suburban offices without paying a metered rate. That single > 312 phone number was a lifesaver for the company during the outage. > There was a special term for that line with the out-of-area code. > Does anyone know? It's known as an FX line, or Foreign Exchange. I remember when I lived in North Providence and got stuck with a Pawtucket rate center. I was wracking up some serious toll charges to hit a BBS in East Greenwich, RI. So I finally broke down and got an FX for the other exchange in North Providence that was part of the Providence rate center. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:13:20 -0500 From: Ron Kritzman Subject: Re: Remembering the Great Telco Fire, May, 1988 Paul wrote: > There was a special term for that line with the out-of-area code. > Does anyone know? They called than an FX (foreign exchange) line. Ron ------------------------------ From: Raqueeb Hassan Subject: Re: Help Setting Up a VoIP Regulatory Framework Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:29:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > It's not because of technology: TDM telephony can be even cheaper, in > terms of bandwidth, than VoIP; it doesn't waste space on headers, and > while the switches tend to be a bit more costly, that's in the noise, > on a per-minute basis. No, it's because VoIP is not taxed the same > way. It's a different business model. Regular phone calls are still > governed by the principles of the 1850s International Telegraph Union, > which worked pretty well into the 1980s. But now that fiber optic > undersea cables are more common and their price has fallen, the fixed > cost of terminating a phone call exceeds the international transit > cost. And so any form of evasion becomes attractive. Thank you very much for the pointers. You are right. It's a different business model. What is it they say? "Let the market work". VoIP, being a newer technology was not taxed, and even FCC (in US) worked really hard to evade 50 state regulations to let VoIP grow to hold its promise. Now, when VoIP has already taken its flight, small surcharges like USF won't hurt. That's perfectly fine when calls mostly generate from USA. But, we can't compare Country "A" with USA. Being a poor country, "A" needs to earn some revenue what the service providers and illegal stake holders did so far. The model of revenue sharing might help this poor country to encash some of fortune for sometime. Though the (VoIP, especially call termination) was branded illegal, but most phone companies were doing it. We can't blame them, market needed it badly and flaws in regulatory policies provided these technologically superior foreign phone companies a huge advantage, which are not even listed in local stock exchange, let alone offering IPOs. One of their parent companies recently deenlisted themselves from NASDAQ. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against them, but the profits to be shared. When you enjoyed huge tax holidays and allocation of spectrum for almost free; you are entitled to contribute a little extra for the social development of that population. > You're going way wrong here, because what you're doing is replicating > a monopoly, so as to tax it. But if you tax VoIP (where "tax" may be > a fee to the telephone company, not the general fund, but enforced by > government power), then what's the point? Current VoIP is a tax > evasion scheme, and a valuable one at that, because the tax is so > harmful. So your scheme will result in avoidance too. The Internet > is famous for routing around blockages, which sometimes are merely > administrative schemes and fees, not real circuit failures. I agree to your point. So far it was illegal, now all of a sudden you can't expect things to be free and open, when the policy makers are really skeptical about it. The technology was abused so far, you have to give it a time. Now, you may not brand it as a monopoly, because the service providers will have the liberty to choose their wholesale VoIP carriers, ITSP, pricings i.e., only thing, they have to share 5% of their earning from call termination. DPI is not good, I hate that too; but how would you know about their earnings? Gentlemen agreement? > The proper price for terminating a call into a country should be the > cost of carrying it from the point of termination to the destination, > perhaps subject to the same percentage tax as all calls (i.e., not > technologically discriminatory, and not high enough to encourage mass > evasion -- think VAT, not luxury tax). Operators could then focus on > minimizing costs and maximizing quality, not evading taxes or setting > up costly toll booths. As you said, yes, I did also propose some percentage of tax on VoIP calls (i.e., 5-6%). Charging more will obviously end up users to pay more. That's should be avoided. On the other hand, when you don't have much technology to asses total call generation for VAT and QoS for the services they offer, you can't regulate them. Regulation needs more knowledge, and that costs money. I have seen plenty of documentations by ITU, World Bank, USAID on regulatory framework and case studies, how to tailor those down to country "A"s model? > The Internet is NOT technology. It's a business model. The PSTN is a > business model which is losing out to the Internet. The technology is > a side show, and should be allowed to evolve, not be locked in by some > master plan that forever locks in what was thought of as state of the > art in 2000 or so. > (I am the Telecom Policy columnist for TMCnet, so you can see some of > my essays on related topics there.) I agree. The technology should be allowed to evolve to gain its momentum. All I wanted a short term plan for this transitory period. Plans are subject to review every or every other year. The PSTNs are dying and KPN, BT, Deutsche Telecom are moving to VoIP enabled NGN solutions. VoIP won't be taxed forever! Country "A" may not be able to afford your telecom policy guidelines, but I assume you will be welcomed open arm to setup a regulatory framework for countries like "A". Ramifications of knowledge sharing are even greater for developing countries. And Newsweek once said, Nations that learn faster will prosper. But it will take something else -- wisdom -- to endure. Thanks once again. Raqueeb Hassan Bangladesh ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #177 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jun 23 15:56:39 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1FA932235; Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:56:39 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #178 Message-Id: <20070623195639.1FA932235@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:56:39 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:58:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 178 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Girds For iPhone Launch on June 29 (Monty Solomon) iPhone Mania Nears Fever Pitch (Monty Solomon) iPhone: A Guided Tour (Monty Solomon) iPhone Purchase Strategies (John Mayson) AT&T Hires 2,000 Extra Employees For iPhone Launch (John Mayson) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Mark Crispin) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Rick Merrill) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (S Lichter) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:57:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Girds For iPhone Launch on June 29 AT&T girds for iPhone launch on June 29 By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY For consumers eager to get their hands on an Apple iPhone, here's the good news: It will be available in all 1,800 AT&T phone stores at 6 p.m. sharp on June 29. The bad news? "We fully expect one or more of our stores to run out of stock on the first or second day -- my guess is the first day," says Larry Carter, senior vice president of sales for AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive U.S. distributor. To help accommodate as much foot traffic as possible, AT&T phone stores will stay open an extra hour -- until 10 p.m. -- on the first day. To get "iReady" for the big day, Carter says AT&T added 2,000 extra sales people to stores. Half will be there just to help handle the expected early crush of buyers. The other half, he says, will stay long-term to help with extra customers the iPhone is expected to draw to AT&T's stores. Crowd control on launch day is a concern. In some markets -- Carter declined to name them -- AT&T is working with local law enforcement on crowd-control plans. It also has alerted landlords at shopping malls and other phone store locations to make sure nobody is caught off guard. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2007-06-21-att-iphone-launch_N.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, this is the start of iPhone launch countdown week. I am sure the Digest will be bombarded all this next week with glorious messages from AT&T discussing this 'wonderful' new device. In fact, the first half-dozen or so messages in today's issue talk about the wonders of iPhone. But what _I_ suspect will occur, and this is just IMO, and what we will actually see, is the way John Mayson describes it in the last message in this series today. Maybe I should have moved it over to the final space as a 'Last Laugh!' message ... PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:00:40 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone Mania Nears Fever Pitch By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY June 20, 2007 LOS ANGELES - Christopher Parr won't go so far as to bring his sleeping bag to his local AT&T store to be first in line for Apple's coveted iPhone when it goes on sale next week. But he will be there opening night to plunk down $599 for the combination iPod, cellphone and wireless Internet device within hours of its debut. "Cellphones have under-delivered," says Parr, 40, of Madison, Wis. "This fills a real void. Most Internet over the phone is a terrible user experience. I love the idea of having the real Internet in my pocket." June 29 is the day many gear-heads have marked on their calendars as iDay, the release of what independent analyst Richard Doherty calls "the most eagerly awaited consumer technology device of the last 20 years." Since January, when it was first announced, the iPhone has captivated consumers, Wall Street investors and the media as the right product at the right time. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has positioned it as the most advanced meeting of the Internet and wireless technology, with an iPod thrown in for good measure. And it looks really cool, and unlike any phone before it. For Apple, the release of the iPhone promises to effectively double the company's revenue within just a few years, based on the worldwide thirst for cellphones. For consumers, the trick is going to be nabbing one of the early iPhones on opening day before stock sells out. The iPhone is being sold only at Apple's 200 retail stores, Apple's website and nearly 1,800 AT&T (formerly Cingular) stores beginning at 6 p.m. local time across the country. AT&T says it will close its stores at 4:30 p.m. and reopen at 6 p.m. Apple would not comment on its plans. No pre-orders are being accepted. Fans are expected to camp out in front of stores for days. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2007-06-19-iphone-mania_N.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, we will see ... we will see. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 21:59:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone: A Guided Tour http://www.apple.com/iphone/usingiphone/guidedtour.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:12:20 -0500 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: iPhone Purchase Strategies Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com http://www.tuaw.com/2007/06/21/iphone-purchase-strategies/ "The guy at my store said they expected a line that would go about 2 blocks in length." I'm a huge Apple fan. But I'm not sure I'd buy an iPhone much less stand in a line two blocks long to get one. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:11:40 -0500 From: John Mayson Reply-To: John Mayson Subject: AT&T Hires 2,000 Extra Employees For iPhone Launch Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com http://crunchgear.com/2007/06/21/att-hires-2000-extra-employees-for-iphone-launch/ "Im going to be laughing all the way home if Apple and AT&T do all this training and preparation, only to find three dudes with fat wallets sitting outside a store on June 29. Its almost here kids." John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And so will I, John. I think this is going to be one of the biggest busts in the history of AT&T, and maybe even Apple. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:18:13 -0700 Organization: University of Washington On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, John Mayson wrote: > Did telephone service become cheaper before or after 1/1/1984? It's a > serious question, I don't know. In general, long (both regional and national) distance and international calls become MUCH cheaper. Pre-1984, we used to worry about how much a call to a relative in another state would cost and we'd keep the call as short as possible. International calls would cost a goodly portion of the national debt. However, a POTS line for local (or incoming) calls only has become more expensive; it's now $20 or so instead of $6 (and that's assuming that you have long distance disabled or you have to pay an additional set of fees for the long distance privilege). Fortunately, the advent of DSL, cable modems, etc. have eliminated the need for modem lines. I once had four POTS lines (voice + three data); now I have just one. I understand why many of the kids choose not to have POTS service at all. The argument about POTS being more reliable than cellular/VOIP doesn't hold in my neighborhood; POTS *always* goes down during a power outage (an event that happens several times a year). -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:48:25 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... John Mayson wrote: > Yes, but what drove the PC industry to give us better computers at lower > prices? Competition. ... That analogy is just so untrue for the period of time from 1960 to 1980 when the technology accelerated so fast that companies competed with their own products and integrated circuit technology lowered costs exponentially. But maybe you're talking about 1990 to present ... ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 21:56:03 GMT hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: >> Then Ameritech took over. One of the first things they did was >> announce _no more call packs_, ... > Around the time of divesture it was said the telephone rates would be > restructured to match cost against usage. Thus we saw new charges for > 411, operator assistance, wire repair, etc. > At that time they also predicted the end of flat rate service on the > grounds that some people used it very extensively while others used it > sparingly. In the 1980s the telephone was used more than ever, along > with businesses operating from home and home computers. As you noted, > some places did eliminate flat rate plans. As a big phone talker, I > was concerned. > But the explosion in technology -- cheaper switches and line terminal > eqiupment, fibre optic lines -- made it possible to hold the line on > some rates and eventually offer national unlimited. Admittedly, my > national unlimited is only a few dollars more than metro unlimited. > Undoubtedly the phone company was concerned with the use of computers > on voice lines and the heavy usage of equipment. But many people with > computers got second or third phone lines just for the computer, which > offset the cost. Now of course people are shifting to dedicated lines > like DSL. (What happened to ISDN?) Verizon is pushing FIOS like > crazy even though they holding back installing it in apt complexes. > In any event, in thinking about the movie, so much has changed in > telecommunications. Think about how Woodward and Bernstein would've > done things differently with cell phones, fax, and the internet, as > well as Deep Throat and the efforts to identify Deep Throat. Indeed, > just by 1980 (six years) things had changed a lot. > From a _technological_ point of view, I never understood Watergate. > (Let's leave politics and Nixon out of this). The Watergate scandal > wasn't about the Watergate Apt breakin, it was about numerous other > wiretaps that were "illegal" and then the effort to cover them up. > But if Nixon's people wanted to wiretap, why didn't they just ask the > friendly compliant phone company to do so under "national security"? > AFAIK, the phoneco cooperated with such requests and didn't ask > questions. Indeed at that very time the phoneco was working with the > Justice Dept to help track down Blue Box users. > Or, by that time, the technology existed to just add a recorder > external to the drop line on the outside of a building and no one > would know about it. Years ago before the breakup I had PacBell make noise about my BBS running on a -- as they put it -- a voice line. There was nothing in the tariff they said you could or could not have it, and I pointed that out to them. I also pointed out that they made money on the LD and toll calls coming in to the BBS, they still said they would cut me off; they never did, maybe it was a copy of a letter I sent to the PUC or maybe they figured out I was not going to let it die, I also worked for GTE and had talked to the people in our Tariff Department, they got a good laugh on what I was told, but I also heard they did the same thing to people using computers on their lines. The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In 1974-75, when I had the hassle with Illinois Bell about the way *I* chose to route incoming calls to my telephone news line (Gay News and Events, 312-427-1234 and many other lines in rotary hunt) and pulling in the 815 Joliet number I suggested to Miss Prissy that given my druthers, _if_ there was a choice in the way incoming calls were terminated -- and there were no choices in 1974 -- I would yank the calls away from IBT in a heartbeat. Miss Prissy just laughed and laughed, and said such an idea was 'ridiculous'. Of course, within about two years or so, AT&T was moving fast on 900-style calls and exhibiting a perfect willingness to hijack all inbound traffic to a 'popular' number (mainly 900 was used for sex and horoscopes in those days), route the calls over a T-1 circuit and terminate the calls on their own switches AND share the profits with the proprietors of the audio services. My number were not 'popular' in the usual sense of the word, but mainly just gay news items and coming events. From the beginning of my service, in September, 1972, Illinois Bell had shown much curiosity about it. They said I was the first person to ever use a recorded message for anything other than 'Dial a Prayer' or a Weather Forecast message, and never that many machines, in that quantity. I used entirely IBT equipment to do it; a dozen or so of the old-style heavy duty (and the machines were _quite_ heavy) machines they mainly used for 'intercept' service, i.e. 'your call cannot be completed as dialed' messages. A master machine, with the rest being 'slaves', so that each morning when I was ready to record a new message for that day, I did not have to do it a dozen times, one for each line; I simply flipped a 'busy-out' switch they had installed for me; lines not in use at that moment went busy; I then waited a couple of minutes until those lines playing at that time of day had all finished their outplay and the callers disconnected then all the lines in use went busy. I had a bunch of six button, (five lines plus hold) phones without dials on them, and all of them incoming calls only) for use in recording the new messages. But I only had to use the one phone, the 'master' to record the new message, which populated itself to all the 'slaves' as it was being recorded. After all, I did this seven days per week, usually at 9:00 AM each day. After about ten minutes (recording lasted three minutes, plus maybe one or two re-records to get it sounding right and time spent clearing out the calls in progress) then I just flipped the 'busy out' switch back to the normal position and let telco take over again. There was also a bank of meters in a little box on the table, one for each line and another total cumulative meter and a final one for 'times all busy'. On that final meter, telco pulsed it once each time they otherwise gave a busy signal to callers. There were several bee-hive lamps on the wall, which would illuminate steadily when a given line was in use, and would flash briefly with a ringing line before lighting steadily once the recording machine had latched on to the call. A red-colored bee-hive lamp only lighted when all the lines were busy. Any vacant line turned it off. The recording machines were CPC-controlled, which Bell told me meant that the machine would disconnect and automatically recycle to the beginning if the caller hung up in the middle of a message. That's how I was able to get five or six thousand calls per day on 'only' a dozen lines; not everyone listened every time to the full three minute message, and when the caller terminated, often times the line was instantly seized again for another call. The recordings went onto mylar drums in each machine. A call arrived, there'd be a 'kurchunk' sound as the machine 'shifted its gears' and a 'finger' dropped onto the recording drum and slid across the mylar tape drum and start the message. At the end of the message which ran almost exactly two minutes and 55 seconds, something in the machine pushed the finger out of the way and disconnected the call, if the caller had not hung up on his/her own by that time. The machine was then instantly available for another call, either because CPC 'told' the machine no one was connected any longer or because the machine had played it out and hung up on its own. Often times there was another seizure almost instantly. Bell confidentially told me they had written up a special tariff for me and the machines (which were their property anyway; not my speech, just their machines and telephones); tariff was entitled 'special customer requirements not otherwise covered by existing tariff'. I got three or four calls from *executives* at IBT who were looking for an excuse to come look at the arrangement; always they claimed that some visiting bigwig from another telco was in town and they wanted to show it to them. In addition to the dozen incoming lines (all of them one-way incoming) based on 427-1234 and hunt lines, other special features I had on it were two Enterprise numbers (ENT for intrastate automatic collect and ENV for interstate, other telco automatic collect as they explained to me how to read the bill), and some of my regular advertisers ordered a special 'Gay News and Events Direct Line' which was a red, non-dial phone with an autodialer in a little box mounted on the wall in thier premises. If one of their patrons wanted to listen to my messages, all they had to do was lift the receiver of the red telephone which autodialed 427-1234 and began playing me. The auto-dialers were set as fast as they would go, so that often times the line was ringing me by the time the person got the phone to his ear. The 'phone room' was quite noisy, to say the least, with all the 'kerchunking' sounds randomly from the various 'slave machines' as they would pick up the lines, start talking, and disconnect. In the room next door (I had a two room suite in the Fisher Building, at 343 South Dearborn Street, downtown Chicago) was my office and my own private phone, WEbster-9-4600. Everyone ('private direct lines' and 'Enterprise numbers' and 'regular' callers) were directed to the 427-1234 number; they took their chances on which line they actually arrived on, of course. The owners of the red, non-dial autodialer phones paid the bill on those phones themselves; one such customer was 'Mans Country' and another one was called 'Gold Coast'. The red autodial phones also came from Illinois Bell. No wonder, I suppose, that executives from Bell were quite interested in seeing the whole thing in operation. Those 'answering machines' were real workhorses. Never once failed, and of course no messy tapes to replace or rewind, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #178 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 25 14:03:00 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id E511821AD; Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:02:59 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #179 Message-Id: <20070625180259.E511821AD@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:02:59 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:05:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 179 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability (Kristin Roberts) EBay to Resume Ads on Google, But Rely on Rivals (Eric Auchard, Reuters) U.N. Broadcasting Treaty Talks Suffer Setback (Reuters News Wire) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Steven Lichter) Re: We've Come So Far ... (T) Re: We've Come So Far ... (mc) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Lisa Hancock) Re: iPhone Mania Nears Fever Pitch (Tom Horsley) Re: iPhone Purchase Strategies (Steven Lichter) Re: YouTube Live on Apple TV Today; Coming to iPhone on June 29 (iphone) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (Hancock) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 14:03:26 -0500 From: Kristin Roberts, Reuters Subject: U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability By Kristin Roberts The head of U.S. Air Force intelligence and surveillance on Thursday said data available commercially through online mapping software such as Google Earth posed a danger to security but could not be rolled back. "To talk about danger is, if I may, really is irrelevant because it's there," said Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "No one's going to undo commercial satellite imagery," he told reporters in Washington. Deptula cited Google Inc.'s Google Earth, which gives Web users an astronaut's view of the earth and allows them to zoom down to street level. He said it had provided anyone with a credit card the ability to get a picture of any place on earth. "It is huge," he said. "It's something that was a closely guarded secret not that long ago and now everybody's got access to it." Asked if the U.S. military might try to implement restrictions or blackouts on imagery of some areas, Deptula said he was not aware of such an attempt. "I don't want to speak to specifics, but not that I'm aware of," he said. Instead, governments are trying to mitigate the effect through camouflage, concealment and deception, he said, providing no other details. 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: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 14:06:07 -0500 From: Eric Auchard, Reuters Subject: EBay to Resume Ads on Google, But Rely on Rivals By Eric Auchard EBay Inc. said on Friday the online auction leader plans to resume placing Web advertising through Google Inc., but that it would rely on alternative advertising services to a greater degree. EBay is one of the biggest buyers of keyword ads on Google's leading pay-per-click advertising system, AdWords, using them to promote its online auctions. It canceled all Google ads 10 days ago in protest over the Web search company's bid to woo eBay customers to a rival payment system. Hani Durzy, a spokesman for San Jose, California-based eBay, said his company later on Friday would begin advertising on Google, but at reduced levels than previously. EBay had been buying tens of millions of keyword ads on Google each year. "I will tell you it will be in a much more limited way than it was before," Durzy told Reuters. "What we found is that we were not as dependent on AdWords as some people thought." EBay owns PayPal, which, with 143 million accounts, is the world's most popular online payment service among merchants and consumers. Last year, Google introduced an alternative payment system called Google Checkout and has been seeking to woo eBay merchants to accept direct payments via the rival service. Now eBay plans to rely to a greater degree of competing advertising systems from Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, and IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com. Google generates virtually all its billions in revenue from AdWords, which shows related ads alongside Web search results tied to the words a user types into Google's search service. The growing rivalry between the two companies' payment services spilled over at eBay's annual conference for key merchants last week in Boston when eBay protested Google's plans to hold a competing party outside the conference hall. Google was seeking to put pressure on eBay to accept its system on eBay auction sites. In response, eBay moved to eliminate all U.S. advertising on Google-affiliated sites. Amid the controversy, Google aborted its own promotional event. Despite a broad sell-off in U.S. stocks -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 1.3 percent -- shares of both eBay and Google rose on Nasdaq. EBay was up 2.2 percent at $31.81 while Google added 1.5 percent to $521.77. Yahoo was down 0.8 percent at $27.45. 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/internet-news.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:20:03 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: U.N. Broadcasting Treaty Talks Suffer Setback Efforts to clinch a long-sought international broadcasting treaty have suffered a setback from lingering disagreements over signal piracy and the Internet, a top U.N. official said on Monday. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) had planned to wrap up decade-long negotiations over the pact at a diplomatic conference at the end of 2007. But divisions over signal piracy and the re-transmission of broadcasts over the Internet marred a preparatory session in Geneva last week, causing the U.N. agency to further extend the talks that started in some form in 1997. "It is going to be a while before we return to convene a diplomatic conference," WIPO Deputy Director-General Michael Keplinger told Reuters in a telephone interview. He said WIPO's general assembly would discuss a new schedule for the talks in September or October. The new treaty would give more copyright and intellectual property safeguards for broadcasters, adding to the rights in the 1961 Rome Convention on the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations, which predates much of modern television technology. In a statement, the United States delegation to the talks said negotiators remained "far apart" on fundamental issues related to the new treaty, including the nature and extent of protections needed. Parties to the negotiations have already agreed to exclude Webcasting from the intended pact. 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There seems to be some misunderstanding, IMO, over the meaning and nature of 'broadcasting'. Broadcasting, by its nature, is supposed to be for _everyone_ (who wishes to do so) to listen to. How can there be 'piracy' of a broadcasting signal? I guess I am just curious on this point. There are radio signals which no one, except for its sender and recipient are supposed to overhear or retransmit. 'Broadcasts' are not one of these classes. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:37:39 -0700 Mark Crispin wrote: > On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, John Mayson wrote: >> Did telephone service become cheaper before or after 1/1/1984? It's a >> serious question, I don't know. > In general, long (both regional and national) distance and > international calls become MUCH cheaper. Pre-1984, we used to worry > about how much a call to a relative in another state would cost and > we'd keep the call as short as possible. International calls would > cost a goodly portion of the national debt. > However, a POTS line for local (or incoming) calls only has become > more expensive; it's now $20 or so instead of $6 (and that's assuming > that you have long distance disabled or you have to pay an additional > set of fees for the long distance privilege). > Fortunately, the advent of DSL, cable modems, etc. have eliminated the > need for modem lines. I once had four POTS lines (voice + three > data); now I have just one. > I understand why many of the kids choose not to have POTS service at > all. The argument about POTS being more reliable than cellular/VOIP > doesn't hold in my neighborhood; POTS *always* goes down during a > power outage (an event that happens several times a year). > -- Mark -- > http://panda.com/mrc > Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch. > Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote. In the old days, I'm sure you know that LD rated kept local service cheaper. Looking at my bill and allowing for cost of living increases, phone service really is not that much cheaper and you have to go through a lot of hoops to get things done, like when I had a bad drop. I would rather go back, the old Step offices were much more fun to work in. The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:31:52 -0400 In article , mrc@cac.washington.edu says: > On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, John Mayson wrote: >> Did telephone service become cheaper before or after 1/1/1984? It's a >> serious question, I don't know. > In general, long (both regional and national) distance and > international calls become MUCH cheaper. Pre-1984, we used to worry > about how much a call to a relative in another state would cost and > we'd keep the call as short as possible. International calls would > cost a goodly portion of the national debt. > However, a POTS line for local (or incoming) calls only has become > more expensive; it's now $20 or so instead of $6 (and that's assuming > that you have long distance disabled or you have to pay an additional > set of fees for the long distance privilege). > Fortunately, the advent of DSL, cable modems, etc. have eliminated the > need for modem lines. I once had four POTS lines (voice + three > data); now I have just one. > I understand why many of the kids choose not to have POTS service at > all. The argument about POTS being more reliable than cellular/VOIP > doesn't hold in my neighborhood; POTS *always* goes down during a > power outage (an event that happens several times a year). Where the hell can you get basic unlimited service for only $20 a month? I'm sorry but I consider all the little 'fees' to be nothing but legal extortion. Here in RI a basic line will run you $45 a month. ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 18:11:33 -0400 Mark Crispin wrote in message news:telecom26.178.6@telecom-digest.org: > On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, John Mayson wrote: >> Did telephone service become cheaper before or after 1/1/1984? It's a >> serious question, I don't know. > In general, long (both regional and national) distance and > international calls become MUCH cheaper. Pre-1984, we used to worry > about how much a call to a relative in another state would cost and > we'd keep the call as short as possible. International calls would > cost a goodly portion of the national debt. Concrete examples: Typical long distance call in the evening, 15 to 25 cents per minute; typical overseas call, $1.50 to $3.00 per minute, in the early 1980s. Note that there's been some inflation; for today's equivalent you should at least double those prices. But there were no telemarketers calling us from India. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 08:41:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 21, 10:42 pm, John Mayson wrote: > I know my parents, grandparents, > aunts, and uncles all hated The Phone Company. I don't know where they lived, but big utlity companies had an image problem, many people distrusted them and felt their rates were too high. In the 1930s there was great distrust of the electric power industry. Utility rates _did_ run high in many places because the companies tended toward very heavy duty construction so as to provide reliable service and accomodate peak demand. Many people took that reliability for granted. Some utility buildings were examples of fine architecture which of course the customers paid for. In some towns, the utilities were locally or govt owned and service quality there wasn't as good. Some (not all) "independent" local telephone companies weren't very good; those people certainly appreciated Bell System service when they could get it. > I do understand that AT&T took us from having effectively zero telephone > infrastructure to having service in virtually every nook and cranny of our > very large nation, and making it one of the most reliable systems of any > kind anywhere in the world. In electro-mechanical days, that didn't come cheap. The engineering necessary to tie it all together was impressive. > Yes, but what drove the PC industry to give us better computers at lower > prices? Competition. If IBM had been granted a de facto monopoly over > the computer industry where you could only lease IBM equipment, couldn't > modify it, couldn't run non-IBM software, and have to rely on IBM for all > repair service, do you think we'd be where we are today with computing? While competition certainly helped lower component prices, it was also the _invention_ of super-micro electronics. For example, there was always brisk competition in TVs and stereos, but the same revolution in computers allowed home electronics to drop radically in price while at the same time grow enormously in capabiltiy. In other words, a TV set or radio didn't change much between 1970 and 1980 but was radically improved between 1980 and 1990. Likewise, the innards of the telephone company were quite different in 1980 than they were in 1970 due to technical improvements. Let's also remember the Bell System--while a monopoly--made advances in technology to reduce costs from day one. They didn't _have_ to make the huge investment in Bell Labs, but they did. They kept coming up with new inventions that reduced the cost of telephone service. As to IBM, let's remember that IBM _did_ have a de facto monopoly in punched-card tabulating equipment, but continued to make improvements to that line. In the 1960s, IBM had a very powerful market position in mainframe computers but continually invested in improvements. > Did telephone service become cheaper before or after 1/1/1984? Someone else answered that question well. Local service is much more expensive, long distance service is cheaper. > I do know with the introduction of > competitive cellular plans in the mid to late 90's and the further > deregulation of the telephone industry dropped prices considerably. None > of that would have been possible if we still had pre-1984 Ma Bell. Bell's ongoing history of improvements and price reductions would certainly have continued. Remember, nothing is frozen, and the Bell System would've changed some policies (such as extension rentals) to reflect changing economics. > Was it cheap? When I read what phone service cost back then and > translate into today's dollars, it was outrageously expensive. It's > no wonder people relied on letters. Local telephone service, even in today's dollars, was very cheap. Long distance was more expensive than today. But this is technology. What did a color television set with remote control cost back then in today's dollars? But remember that long distance rates were continually being reduced over time as new technology came on line. > But did that meet people's needs? I can see maybe a poor pensioner who > only made a couple of calls on Sunday. But even then a family of any size > used the phone too often to make the dirt cheap plan worthwhile. The overriding goal of the Bell System and the government was to see that that poor pensioner or poor folk (city or rural) would have an affordable telephone. So the very basic "entry fee" to get telephone service was very cheap. If you were a business a single line was pretty inexpensive too. As to "meeting people's needs", again this is an issue of technology availability of the era. Did a fuzzy B&W TV set with tubes that need regular servicing meet people needs? Did a slide rule meet people's calculating needs? Did a mainframe with 64K memory meet a large corporation's needs? When I was a kid my sister and I would fight over what to watch on TV. We had the three networks. Having only one TV set did not meet our family's "needs". But the technology was such at the time this is what we can afford. Later on sets came down in price enough they we got a second set. Now people have TVs in their car and on their wrist. It was the same with telephone service. If you needed more of it you did pay more. Telephone service used to cost more just as TV sets used to cost more. > Also, what about companies that didn't additional support? Why should > they pay for a service they do not need? That is true. I suspect the "bundled" offerings would've changed even without divesture. IBM once bundled its service but dropped it. > Again though, would equipment costs have dropped without competition? I > don't think they would. Given that equipment costs had dropped before, there's no reason to suggest they wouldn't have continued to drop. At any rate, independent of divesture was the fact that customers could own their own gear. That was in place and had nothing to do with the breakup. > It absolutely baffled me that four years after the break-up, my fellow > AT&T employees were still in denial about what had happened. The Bell System had its own culture. The unified service/supply business model was their way and had been quite successful, as you said, in providing telephone service to every nook and cranny when before there was none. The service quality was generally quite good. It used to be in the U.S. that a white collar person could work for a large corporation for life. You did your job and they took care of you. Many had multiple generations at work. A lot of the things offered are now taken for granted (or no longer offered). We don't have that esprit de corps in so many of our endeavors anymore. I think we lost something valuable in our society. Others, who may be making a ton of money from that social change, will see it differently. Given that culture, it is understandable how the employees felt. As mentioned, we were working with Bell to build a data network at the time of divesture. We saw changes at that time and they were _not_ for the better. We were very concerned about the future. The experiences we had were typical of business at that time. > I was hired to write programs ... They were doing a lot of tasks by hand. Well, they did hire you, didn't they? Obviously they were looking toward computerization. > My last job at AT&T was part of a project to reconcile circuit > information versus billing records. It had been such a manual > process we had customers out there who had been getting service for > free while others, believe it or not, were being billed (and they > were paying) for circuits that didn't exist. Let me point out that TODAY my cable TV carrier frequently fails to charge people for premium services or charges people for services they aren't getting. You're talking about a business practice 25 years ago as a citation of inefficiency, but here it is going on to this day. ------------------------------ From: Tom Horsley Subject: Re: iPhone Mania Nears Fever Pitch Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 01:24:14 GMT On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:00:40 -0400 Monty Solomon wrote: > LOS ANGELES - Christopher Parr won't go so far as to bring his > sleeping bag to his local AT&T store to be first in line for Apple's > coveted iPhone when it goes on sale next week. I don't know ... Should I seek mental help? I just can't see anything at all attractive about the iPhone (especially the price). There must be something wrong with me :-). ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. Subject: Re: iPhone Purchase Strategies Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:40:30 -0700 John Mayson wrote: > http://www.tuaw.com/2007/06/21/iphone-purchase-strategies/ > "The guy at my store said they expected a line that would go about 2 > blocks in length." > I'm a huge Apple fan. But I'm not sure I'd buy an iPhone much less > stand in a line two blocks long to get one. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA My understanding it will also be available from the Apple Store, maybe the online one also. I don't like AT&T Cellular and would not pay that much for a phone, though I have been using Apple computers since day 1. The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: iphone_freak Subject: Re: YouTube Live on Apple TV Today; Coming to iPhone on June 29 Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 06:09:44 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 21, 1:23 pm, Monty Solomon wrote: > Best YouTube Experience on a Mobile Device > CUPERTINO, California -- Apple today announced that iPhone users will > be able to enjoy YouTube's originally-created content on their iPhones > when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application > on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube's content to iPhone over > Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone's stunning 3.5 inch > display. > In addition, Apple announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV. > Users can download the free software update using Apple TV's built-in > software update feature, and then easily navigate through YouTube's > familiar video browsing categories or search for specific videos. > YouTube members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV > to view and save their favorite videos. > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/20youtube.html Heres a PIC that shows youtube on iphone: http://www.nachofoto.com/foto?i=4854bc46e422 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:21:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 22, 3:42 am, > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Lisa Hancock is confused on this: She needs to remember this is 2007 > 'anything goes with any telco', _NOT_ 1974-75 'we run it all' > Bell. The service reps in those days were very explicit: if two or > more phones in the same residence, they all had to have the same > type of service. Otherwise, for the subscriber, it would be 'too > easy' to 'accidentally' use the phone line which was more generous. Sorry to disagree but in 1975 our home had two different service lines, one was flat rate, the other (my phone) was message rate. Not a problem at all, indeed, it was common in households with multiple lines. As mentioned, when I visited people's homes that had multiple phone lines, I would be directed to reach line to use. The Bell System was not uniform. As we've seen, flat rate packages were called by different names in different places. It's entirely possible the tarrifs in your area would not allow different line types while in our area they did, so both our experiences were correct. I know that in the 1970s phone rates and packages varied significantly from place to place. For some reason, Bell of Pennsylvania's rates ran cheaper. I recall being quite surprised at finding out in other cities flat rate service was very expensive, indeed, everying else (extension rental, message units, etc) were more expensive too. However, I think Bell of Pa INTRA state tolls were higher than what other states charged, however, maybe that cross subsidized local service. In some places Bell wasn't making much money from local tarrifs because of inflation and local issues. While cities offered great economies of scale, they had problems too. In the 1960-70s urban problems -- vandalism, deadbeats, equipment theft, toll fraud, assaults, unqualfied labor pool, arson, crowded conduits -- became rather costly for the Bell System. Perhaps as a result in some cities they took a tougher line than others. One thing the Bell System --and regulators -- did not like was "bootleg" customer-owned extension telephones. These became very popular in those years. Either surplus 300 sets or AE/ITT sets were available for sale from electronics stores for about $10-15. At $1/ month extension rental, these phones would pay for themselves in about a year or so. A lot of people resented paying that rental for an extension phone. But as mentioned, the regulators wanted that profit to cross-subsidize the cost of basic service. If you wanted only one phone set and message rate service, it was pretty cheap (party line was even cheaper). Remember, they gave you one telephone set as part of the monthly fee, it was the _additional_ extensions that cost rent. Another legitimate reason Bell didn't like bootleg sets was interference with the network and repair costs _they_ got stuck with. Remember back then Bell was responsible for any and everything broken at _their_ cost. So, if someone messed up wiring a bootleg extension and shorted their line or created heavy static, then callers would be bothering the operator to verify the line and even a repair order might be generated. This happened a gerat deal; the phone company would trace out the trouble and order the offeder to remove the bootleg extension at once or their service would be cut off. This applied to business customers too as well as early computer users. If you wanted to use a wired non Bell modem, you better have the interface protection installed. As we know, at the time of divesture, Bell ceased to rent out extension phones and customers bought their own. This was going to happen regardless of Divesture because by that point Bell knew customers resented it and it was costing Bell more money to send out repairmen 24/7 than they were getting in rental revenue. The new Bell offered a repair contract -- at extra charge -- which was in essence what they were doing before as part of the montly service fee. There was an excellent book about divesture, unfortunately I no longer have it and can't recall the title. But it discussed it from the point of view of regulators and company officials concerned with service quality. It is clear they all had some very legitimate concerns about the future. Some didn't come to pass as a result of new and better technology and lower rates, but others did as they feared and we just accept those nuisances today. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, Lisa, perhaps _your_ Bell telco was loose about multiple phones and classes of service in the same residence, but _my_ Bell telco (Illinois Bell) was not. Quite a few Chicagoans could tell you horror stories about having ordered that sort of service, and occassionally 'getting away with it' only to get caught later on and punished (by back-dated charges, etc.) And regards illigitimate extension phones you bootlegged and installed on your own, Illinois Bell was not very happy about those either. We had people who would insist that 'Bell could not tell the difference' as long as you kept all the ringers disconnected except for the one (phone you were paying for) and you did not unneccessarily tamper with any of the phones and you disconnected and took away the bootlegged phone(s) whenever you had a reason to call repair service. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #179 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 25 20:41:33 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id AFE18226B; Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:41:32 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #180 Message-Id: <20070626004132.AFE18226B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:41:32 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:44:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 180 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 (Reuters News) Computers Read News, and Trade on it Quickly (Kevin Plumberg, Reuters) Strigl: Verizon is on the Right Track (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability (Jim Stewart) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (L Hancock) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Mark Crispin) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Josh) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:26:57 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 Web radio broadcasters across the United States were preparing for a 'Day of Silence' on June 26 to protest the U.S. government's plans to boost royalty payments to artists and record companies by more than 300 percent, when their music is played online. "These proposals will bankrupt the industry," Jake Ward, a spokesman for the lobbying group SaveNetRadio Coalition, said on Monday. "They're killing the Golden Goose." The 'Day of Silence' is being organized by SaveNetRadio Coalition, whose 14,000 members include: Yahoo Inc., Viacom Inc, and RealNetworks Inc. SaveNetRadio said the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board's March decision to boost royalty rates will kill the fledgling industry, if goes into effect on July 15. It is hoping the 'Day of Silence' will help raise public awareness of the issue. The organization said the proposal also requires additional administrative fees which the organization estimated could cost Webcasters around $1 billion. 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, 25 Jun 2007 17:39:11 -0500 From: Kevin Plumberg, Reuters Subject: Computers Read News, and Trade on it Quickly By Kevin Plumberg It takes a person about 10 minutes to read a 2,500-word, front-page feature story in the Wall Street Journal. Computer programs increasingly being used by investors to parse news stories can process one in about three one-hundredths of a second. Algorithms -- problem-solving programs based on mathematical formulas -- are making it easier for investors to filter the massive amount of text produced by news wires, newspapers, industry journals, clinical studies, and legal filings for kernels of information, and trade on them in the blink of an eye. Though the expanding array of news on nontraditional media like blogs and chat pages is a challenge for the robot readers, the speed and efficiency offered by news mining algorithms are helping hedge funds with just a handful of staff generate as many trades as a giant investment bank and becoming a potential boon to the media industry. "This is a new class of information technology," said John Partridge, vice president of industry solutions with StreamBase Systems, a technology provider that specializes in processing and analyzing real-time streaming data. High-frequency investors such as hedge funds are using news mining platforms like those offered by StreamBase to troll through thousands of electronic feeds of streaming text to identify key phrases on which to trade. Popular phrases include "lowers its outlook" or "raises guidance" or even buzzwords like "stellar performance" that could potentially push a stock lower or higher. Hedge funds, with their rapid-fire trading style, often allow the news mining platforms to make trades on their own, capitalizing on the technology's speed. However, longer-term investors are less interested in flooding the market with orders after a particular headline. They are using the platforms to keep track of developments that may affect companies in their portfolios or influence their strategies, technology developers said. VELOCITY, VARIETY, VOLUME News mining is not just for stock trading, either. For example, French investment bank BNP Paribas' "weakness indicator" counts the number of times the words weak, weakness or weakening are used in the Federal Reserve's Beige Book report on regional U.S. economies. More than 50 references in a report typically signals the economy is on the brink of a recession. Hedge fund investors familiar with news mining technology said an algorithm based on the "weakness indicator" could easily be created to sell dollars and U.S. stocks and buy bonds if more than 50 references were found. "What the machine is looking for is the same thing that the human is looking for. It can just find it more quickly," said Richard Brown, business manager of NewsScope, a company owned by Reuters Group Plc that produces machine-readable news. Rather than just highlight words or phrases, some of the most sophisticated news mining platforms can take multiple strands of news from wire agencies and Web sites and score the significance of various items. For example, headlines from a reputable news organization with the words "Middle East," "tension" and "hostility" would be given a higher score, especially if oil prices are rising, than an anonymous blog entry with the same key words. The same headlines would be given an even higher score if other reputable news agencies carried similar stories. "A lot of times, the content that's important is not in a single article or document," said David Leinweber, a financial technology consultant with Leinweber & Co. "The idea of considering individual news stories only as atomic events misses some things," he said. On his own blog "Nerds on Wall Street," Leinweber noted the example of Accentia, a pharmaceutical company whose share price shot up 70 percent one morning in October 2006 after the successful trial of a human cancer vaccine was announced in a press release. However, the press release was based on an article from a medical journal published a month earlier. Also, local press in St. Louis, where Accentia has a plant, reported on the testing a week before the press release, and a blog for patients discussed the drug days before the stock jump. An investor using news mining technology could have been buying into the company days, if not weeks, before the big share price rise. MISS STEAKS Computers, however, are not perfect when it comes to reading the various forms of language in both standard and nonstandard media. Consultant Leinweber added that machines often have difficulty with subtle double negatives and vague pronouns that human readers can understand easily with context. For example, machines could potentially stumble when it comes to a sentence such as: "The company's chief executive said he did not dislike the way that that product sold well there." A person could scan the sentence and understand it. The growing amount of text and information available on blogs, chat rooms and online forums also pose challenges to robot readers. "That's one of the limitations. When you look at chat room and blog content, it's the emoticons, it's the profanity, it's sarcasm or all caps," said NewsScope's Brown. Still there is growing interest in the investment community in being able harness the information available in so-called social media. Darren Kelly, senior vice president at Collective Intellect, a company that specializes in filtering and ranking media content, said blogs and online forums can provide a unique window on sentiment surrounding an issue or a stock. "The usual multiscreen setup that everyone has used in finance for the last 20 years no longer gives them all the information that's available," Kelly 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/internet-news.html http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:00:39 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Strigl: Verizon is on the Right Track USTelecom dailyLead June 25, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hmrYfDtusXuCfGCibuddrcGC TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Strigl: Verizon is on the right track BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Sources: Dobson Communications mulls sale * AT&T rolls U-verse into parts of northeast Ohio * Amp'd stays afloat * Goldman Sachs to sell its stake in S. Korean cable operator * Gephardt joining Embarq board USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Mark Your Calendars for NXTcomm 2008! HOT TOPICS * AT&T lets cell users share live video * Telecom execs: Convergence, IPTV will drive broadband demand * Sprint executive calls for end to device subsidies * NXTcomm showcases convergence * AT&T taps greenfield GPON deployment suppliers TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Boingo introduces worldwide Wi-Fi flat-rate plan * Mobio CEO predicts future of industry IP DOWNLOAD * Portugal Telecom launches "meo" service with Alcatel-Lucent REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * New EU roaming regulations take effect June 30 * French government to sell part of its stake in France Telecom Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hmrYfDtusXuCfGCibuddrcGC ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 12:05:07 -0700 From: Jim Stewart Subject: Re: U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability > From: Kristin Roberts, Reuters > Deptula cited Google Inc.'s Google Earth, which gives Web users an > astronaut's view of the earth and allows them to zoom down to street > level. He said it had provided anyone with a credit card the ability > to get a picture of any place on earth. > "It is huge," he said. "It's something that was a closely guarded > secret not that long ago and now everybody's got access to it." A bit disingenuous if you ask me. What was highly secret was the specifications and capabilities of our spy satellites, not so much the products they produce. Of course, the capabilities could be surmised from the products so they were classified as well. As to the offensive use of aerial photography, one can rent a light plane and pilot and go up with a digital camera and click away. Even most of our national labs permit overflights at relatively low altitudes providing aircraft do not "loiter" over the area. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:40:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Lisa Hancock's comments: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Well, Lisa, perhaps _your_ Bell telco > was loose about multiple phones and classes of service in the same > residence, but _my_ Bell telco (Illinois Bell) was not. As mentioned, telephone rate structures and marketing practices varied significantly from place to place. The Bell System took great pride in being "standardized", but that seems to be more technically than administratively. I suspect some practices were actually inherited from the very early days of service. > And regards illigitimate extension phones you bootlegged and installed > on your own, Illinois Bell was not very happy about those either. We > had people who would insist that 'Bell could not tell the difference' > as long as you kept all the ringers disconnected except for the one > (phone you were paying for) and you did not unneccessarily tamper with > any of the phones and you disconnected and took away the bootlegged > phone(s) whenever you had a reason to call repair service. PAT] That was basically correct, _IF_ you remembered to disconnect the bootleg phone _and_ hide all evidence of its wiring. Many people forgot. As to disconnecting the ringer ... Bell supposedly would test the resistance on your line and be able to tell if you had more than authorized sets on it from the ringers' load. Bell Labs Record journal announced an automated machine that would test all CO lines to search that out. How much they bothered to do that in practice I don't know. I know of people who got caught per above wiring mess-up, but not by extra ringers. The problem with such phones was that a lot of people had no idea what they were doing, even though phone wiring is pretty simple. Sometimes you needed to hook up the yellow (third) wire. Party lines could be tricky. Sometimes the bootleg phones were junk. While Bell hated the bootleg extensions, I don't know if they ever carried through with their threats to cut off service. Maybe if someone repeatedly refused to cooperate, as some people would purposely do, they'd cut off service. ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:57:11 -0700 Organization: University of Washington On Sat, 23 Jun 2007, T wrote: > Where the hell can you get basic unlimited service for only $20 a > month? I'm sorry but I consider all the little 'fees' to be nothing > but legal extortion. In the Seattle area, Qwest territory, the basic fee for flat-rate local calling POTS is $12.50/month. The "access fee" and taxes push it up to about $20/month. It's more if the line has long-distance access, but you can disable that and avoid those fees. Specifically, for local-only service: Residential line $12.50 Federal Access Charge $5.84 City Tax $.80 Local 911 $.50 State 911 $.20 Telephone Assistance Pgm $.14 TRS Excise Federal ADA $.09 ------ $20.07 There may also be a 3% federal excise tax; but I can't figure out which parts of my bill are subject to the tax and what isn't. Even if there is, the sum would still be less than $21. I won't comment about the fees being legal extortion. > Here in RI a basic line will run you $45 a month. All due sympathies. Now that Washington State has become a one-party state, I'm sure that our costs and taxes will rise to Northeast standards. -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote. ------------------------------ From: Josh Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Date: 25 Jun 2007 13:33:47 -0700 Organization: NewsGuy - Unlimited Usenet $19.95 In article , T says: > In article , mrc@cac.washington.edu > says: >> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, John Mayson wrote: >>> Did telephone service become cheaper before or after 1/1/1984? It's a >>> serious question, I don't know. >> In general, long (both regional and national) distance and >> international calls become MUCH cheaper. Pre-1984, we used to worry >> about how much a call to a relative in another state would cost and >> we'd keep the call as short as possible. International calls would >> cost a goodly portion of the national debt. >> However, a POTS line for local (or incoming) calls only has become >> more expensive; it's now $20 or so instead of $6 (and that's assuming >> that you have long distance disabled or you have to pay an additional >> set of fees for the long distance privilege). >> Fortunately, the advent of DSL, cable modems, etc. have eliminated the >> need for modem lines. I once had four POTS lines (voice + three >> data); now I have just one. >> I understand why many of the kids choose not to have POTS service at >> all. The argument about POTS being more reliable than cellular/VOIP >> doesn't hold in my neighborhood; POTS *always* goes down during a >> power outage (an event that happens several times a year). > Where the hell can you get basic unlimited service for only $20 a > month? I'm sorry but I consider all the little 'fees' to be nothing > but legal extortion. > Here in RI a basic line will run you $45 a month. My total bill here in Iowa through Qwest is $54, including taxes and fees. I get basic service, plus caller ID, call waiting, and unlimited long distance. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And here in Kansas, (or wherever people subscribe to Sage Telecom, (but these are Kansas rates), I pay $24.99 for 'Simply Savings Essentials', which includes my choice of two FREE 'optional' services, I chose 'Anonymous Call Rejection', and the 'Call Waiting ID Pack' as my two FREE features. 'Personalized Ring' (a separate, seven-digit number to dial for my fax 'ring-ring' line costs me an additional $2.75 per month. Then there are charges like Interstate Subscriber Line charge, $9.50, 'Public Switched Network Recovery Charge', $1.33, '911 Emergency Service Fee', 75 cents, 'Kansas Universal Service',$1.14, 'Federal Universal Service Reimbursement' also $1.14, 'ITSP Regulatory Fee Reimbursement', 3 cents, 'Federal Excise Tax' 36 cents, and 'State & Local Sales Tax', $2.03. On the 'Free and Optional Services' part of the bill (the total bill is 5 full size pages long) there is also a 'Kansas Universal Service', a 'Federal Excise Tax' and State & Local Sales Tax' which between them total 36 cents. But Sage does provide me with ten dollars per month of 'free long distance' (which does NOT include any calls to 555-1212 services) and they say I received 95 cents of free long distance service this month on my 'actual' calls; not the Directory Assistance calls which between them came to $7.47 which were labled by date as 'local D/A' and 'national D/A', in each case to the 'number' 316-411-0000. So that $24.99 turned out to be a total of $56.34 when the bank's computer (through it's relationship with Sage's computer) makes payment sometime Wednesday afternoon or evening. I suppose I cannot blame the calls to Directory Assistance in any kind of 'extortion' scam by telco, so that would leave $44.39 in actual practice based on an advertised price of $24.99. Sage did announce however, that as a 'preferred customer' I will recieve _free_ LD service all day on Wednesday, July 4. We will see how that actually works out also. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #180 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jun 26 18:17:23 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id CDF5C2295; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:17:22 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #181 Message-Id: <20070626221722.CDF5C2295@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:17:22 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:19:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 181 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Public Interest Groups Want Cable, Telcos Kept Out (Ted Hearn, Reed) Court Hears Vonage Appeal of Patent Infringement Case (Telecom NewsWire) Judge Poses Compromise Question in Verizon-Vonage (USTelecom dailyLead) I-Phone Will be Able to Play 10,000 You Tube Clips (iphone freak) Re: U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability (Barry Margolin) Re: U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability (Rick Merrill) Re: U.N. Broadcasting Treaty Talks Suffer Setback (panoptes@iquest.net) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Mr Joseph Singer) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:35:22 -0500 From: Ted Hearn Multichannel News Subject: Public Interest Groups Want Cable, Telecos Kept Out of Auction Public Interest Groups Want Cable, Telephone Companies Kept Out of Auction of High-Quality Wireless Spectrum By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News BEACHFRONT BONANZA NO HOLE POKING Washington -- If a handful of public-interest advocates had their way, the Federal Communications Commission would ban cable operators and phone companies from the upcoming 700-MHz spectrum auction that some consider the most important the agency will ever conduct. Consumers Union, Public Knowledge and the Media Access Project (MAP) are leading the assault, claiming a ban would spur competition in providing high-speed Internet access to consumers. Otherwise, big cable-system operators such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable and phone giants such as AT&T and Verizon Communications would keep out smaller rivals, dominating the business and stifling innovation. "We think it makes excellent sense just to keep the incumbents out of this auction," said MAP senior vice president Harold Feld. "If we really want a genuine third pipe -- that is to say, one that competes against telephone [digital subscriber line] and the cable broadband platform -- keep those guys out." While not unprecedented, sweeping auction restrictions on cable would be a setback as cable operators continue to search for ways to add a robust wireless component to their voice, video and data services. That 'triple play' has been such a huge success that it probably led Rupert Murdoch to give up News Corp.'s controlling stake in DirecTV, the leading satellite TV provider. BEACHFRONT BONANZA Last year, top cable companies participated in an auction of Advanced Wireless Services spectrum, through an alliance with Sprint called SpectrumCo. Cable-operator participants included Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Wireless, and Bright House Networks. The companies paid $2.4 billion for 137 licenses, all told. SpectrumCo hasn't moved rapidly to exploit its AWS holdings, causing MAP's Feld to assert that the cable-led group's plan is to hoard spectrum, blunting competition from possible rivals in providing Internet access. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has told the FCC that a warehousing strategy would be a waste of resources that cable's lenders and investors would condemn. This year's auction puts on the block a more highly valued prize. The 700-MHz band -- predominantly used today by UHF TV stations that must vacate the space in February 2009 as part of the digital-TV transition -- is considered beachfront property. Signals in the 700-MHz band can travel dozens of miles at low power, easily penetrating foliage and solid structures that wireless services operating at higher frequencies can only hope to match. The favorable propagation characteristics of 700-MHz signals have the potential of saving cable, telephone and other companies billions of dollars in construction and operational expenses, while reducing consumer annoyance with dropped calls at the same time. Some hope the broad geographic range of 700-MHz signals will mean that rural areas receive an affordable broadband alternative to satellite-delivered service. "It's really the best and it will be the only spectrum of this quality that will be available for a very long time," said Stanford Business School professor Robert Wilson, an auction design expert. In recognition that an outright cable-telco ban might be politically impossible, public-interest groups are backing various conditions proposed by a coalition that includes Google, DirecTV and EchoStar Communications. FCC adoption of some or all of these proposals could so tilt the game that cable operators could end up sitting out the pricey bidding war altogether. But the effective exclusion of cable and phone companies owing to biased rules would run the risk of undermining the effort to raise the $10 billion that Congress is counting on from the 700 MHz auction. Google's Washington telecom counsel, Rick Whitt, said his company wants the FCC to do whatever it can to promote new entrants in the wireless market. The FCC could do this, he said, by partitioning the spectrum into large 22-MHz blocks that cover multi-state regions. That would produce the necessary scale to vie with national wireless services offered by AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Direc TV and EchoStar have also endorsed auction rules that facilitate national licensing in the 700-MHz band. C and F Block Broadband PCS Ended: 1/26/2001 $16.8 billion (*) Advanced Wireless Services (AWS-1) Ended: 9/18/2006 $13.7 billion Broadband PCS C Block Ended: 5/6/1996 $10 billion (**) Broadband PCS A and B Block Ended: 3/13/1995 $7.0 billion Broadband PCS D, E, & F Block Ended: 1/14/1997 $2.5 billion Broadband PCS Ended: 2/15/2005 $2.0 billion (*) Very little actually collected due to bankruptcy of winning bidder Nextwave Sidebars: Frontline exposure for startup firm out $4 billion uncollected due to Nextwave bankruptcy SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission NO HOLE POKING Google and the two satellite-TV providers have endorsed combinatorial bidding, which allows a bidder to win a package of individual licenses without needing to place the highest bid on each one up for auction, according to game theory. Such a bidding system is intended to facilitate assembly of a national footprint made up of multiple licenses and to frustrate the ability of another bidder to poke holes in the package by acquiring licenses in just a few key markets. DirecTV and EchoStar favor national wireless coverage to complement the 50-state marketing of their video services. Google, along with MAP and allies, have endorsed anonymous bidding. They claim that keeping the identity of bidders a secret during the auction would prevent cable and phone incumbents from blocking new entrants or artificially driving up their license-acquisition costs. Google, the dominant Web-search engine, hasn't declared whether it will be a bidder. But it has taken an active interest in 700-MHz issues as part of an effort to ensure that broadband network owners don't shake down Web-based providers of content and services. "Universal accessibility is one thing that is out of our control. We rely completely on the underlying infrastructure on both the wireline and wireless sides to actually carry our applications to our end users," said Google's Whitt. In response, SpectrumCo filed comments with the FCC urging rejection of large spectrum blocks, saying the agency needed to vary the sizes to accommodate the needs of many different bidders. It also dismissed combinatorial bidding and anonymous bidding as untested concepts that would likely decrease the efficiency of the auction. "Rather than trying to 'pick winners,' and either implicitly or explicitly giving certain entities a boost through eligibility restrictions and peculiar service rules' the FCC should allow market forces to determine the winners of the 700-MHz auction," SpectrumCo attorney Michele Farquhar said in an FCC filing. It wasn't until 1993 that the FCC obtained the legal authority from Congress to license spectrum via auctions or, as it is known in the law, 'competitive bidding.' Awarding licenses to the highest bidder was a radical change. In the early 1980s, for example, the FCC created two cellphone licenses for every market in the country. But it gave one of them to each local phone company for free and assigned the others by lottery, a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to private interests worth billions of dollars. 1981: FCC created two cellular phone licenses in each market, giving away one of them to each local telephone incumbent. 1983: FCC distributed second cell license by lottery. 1993: Congress gave FCC authority to conduct spectrum auctions for first time. 1994: In first auction, the FCC raised $617 million for U.S. Treasury. 2006: Congress ordered FCC to auction in 2008 about 60 MHz of spectrum in 700 MHz band being vacated by local TV stations in February 2009. 2007: Total revenue after 68 FCC-conducted auctions over 13 years: $28 billion. SOURCE: Multichannel News research Except for the FCC's multibillion-dollar mishandling of two auctions related to the bankruptcy of startup entity Nextwave Personal Communications, spectrum auctions have been a success. Over the course of 63 auctions, the agency has collected about $28 billion for the U.S. Treasury. Auctions also ignited the mobile communications market. In 1993, 16 million Americans were wireless subscribers, using handsets that resembled bricks. Today, 230 million people in the U.S. subscribe to a wireless provider, porting around sleek handheld devices that make calls, send e-mail, snap photos, and play video clips. "The average bill, interestingly, in 1993 was $61.50. It's declined now to $50," said Entertainment Software Association president Michael Gallagher, who was Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information until early 2006. SpectrumCo's $2.4 billion investment in the AWS spectrum last year gave it coverage of about 90% of the U.S. population. Comcast owns 52% of SpectrumCo while Time Warner Cable has 29% and Sprint just 5%. Sitting on spectrum doesn't make economic sense, the industry maintains. 'The notion that cable operators would, in this already competitive environment, purchase spectrum in the 700-MHz auction for the purpose of 'warehousing' it in order to thwart additional competition in the provision of broadband services is absurd,' the NCTA told the FCC. 'Such warehousing would also not be welcome by the financial markets, which, of course, do not reward wasteful spending.' FCC officials haven't indicated whether they want to exclude cable and phone companies or whether 700 MHz license winners would need to divest a proportional amount of AWS spectrum. "The key issue for investors is whether there will be new wireless/broadband entrants or whether this will be another incumbent sweep," Stifel Nicolas wireless market analyst Rebecca Arbogast said in a recent client note, referring to the large number of AWS licenses captured by cable companies, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. Final FCC rules should emerge no later than early August, she said Last year, Congress passed a law ordering the FCC to auction 60 MHz in the 700-MHz band. The $10 billion expected from the auction -- which must begin not later than Jan. 28, 2008 -- is needed to underwrite a $1.5 billion consumer-coupon program for digital-to-analog TV converter boxes and $1 billion for public-safety communications equipment. Years ago, the FCC set aside 24 MHz in the 700-MHz band for use by the nation's 40,000 public safety groups, which will get their chance to use it when the TV stations clear out in about 20 months. About half the public safety spectrum is designated for broadband services. As FCC leaders deliberate, lobbying has been heavy on what regulations should apply to the mobile services offered by winning 700-MHz bidders. The public-interest groups, for example, have insisted that 700-MHz winners comply with network neutrality rules and lease 50% of their capacity to third parties on non-discriminatory terms and conditions. Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn said European countries have embraced the open-access model she wants imposed on 700-MHz winners. "That's why you see far greater speeds there, far better prices," she said. Frontline Exposure for Startup Firm Adding to the battle is a startup that is advocating combining public-safety and commercial spectrum in the 700-Mhz band, as an alternative to the purely commercial interests of cable and telephone companies. Leading its effort: two former Federal Communications Commission chairmen. The company, Frontline Wireless, has promised to build for free a broadband network that will serve every fee-paying public-safety organization in the country. Such a network -- which could cost $15 billion to build -- would be designed to achieve the long-sought goal of ensuring that first responders from multiple jurisdictions can routinely communicate while confronting the same crisis. Making the pitch: Reed Hundt, FCC chairman from 1993 to 1997, who is Frontline's vice chairman. Mark Fowler, FCC chairman under President Reagan, is a founding partner and investor in Frontline. "It would be a dream come true for public safety in America to have the private sector build them for free a national wireless broadband network," said Hundt, who as FCC chairman in 1994 crafted the first spectrum auction. Other Frontline promises include: leasing all of its spectrum on a wholesale basis, with 25% of capacity allocated through a real-time auction proposed by Google. Backed in part by Google directors John Doerr and Ram Shriram, Frontline has run into some resistance. Although Frontline intends to acquire 10 MHz of spectrum -- the so-called E Block -- in the auction, it wants the FCC to bless its use of 12 MHz of public safety spectrum to provide commercial service during normal times. This even though, in 1998, the FCC designated 24 Mhz of the 700-Mhz band for public-safety purposes. As a result, not all potential auction participants believe public safety organizations need any more spectrum in the 700-Mhz band. "Public-safety [organizations] have 24 Mhz of spectrum that they haven't been able to come together and agree on how to use," said Gil Perez, CEO of Arcadian Networks, a Valhalla, N.Y.-based startup with $90 million of backing, largely from Goldman Sachs. "Why do you need a new green patch? Why don't they mandate utilizing the existing patch?" Arcadian bought 2- and 4-MHz slices of the spectrum in April 2005, believing the frequencies were underutilized. The company bought its chunks on secondary markets, from the FCC; and now has spectrum worth an estimated $368 million, in 23 states. It is focusing on getting what it calls 'anchor' customers in its networks: energy and utility companies. Arcadian offers to upgrade their towers and existing networks; and, if successful, then will resell bandwidth to “tenants” such as manufacturers, mining companies and other companies with widely dispersed operations in rural parts of the country. This includes border patrol agencies and other public safety institutions. There is an ability to solve this problem, with market forces," says Perez. "There's no need to give billions of dollars to somebody. If you go with the Frontline proposal, you will reduce the value of the spectrum." SpectrumCo suggested that Frontline's rule-heavy plan appeared to be designed to ensure that only Frontline won the E Block auction, depressing revenue. New York City -- symbolically important because the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan -- stressed that because the FCC likely didn't have authority to allow commercial use of the public safety spectrum, the agency was inviting litigation. A court case could delay the start of the auction and postpone receipt of the $2.5 billion earmarked for first responder equipment and DTV converter boxes. by Ted Hearn and Tom Steinert-Threlkeld Copyright 2007, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:59:39 -0500 From: Telecom News Wire Subject: Court Hears Vonage Appeal of Patent Infringement Case Court Hears Vonage Appeal of Patent Infringement Case A federal court on Monday heard oral arguments in the Vonage Holdings-Verizon Communications Inc. patent dispute. Not much seemed to come of the hearing, except for Judge Timothy B. Dyk's suggestion that a compromise between the two companies would let Vonage keep signing new subscribers while finding a technology-workaround. Dyk was the only one of the three judges to ask questions. Telecom analysts for investment firm Stifel Nicolaus speculated that meant a slight edge for Verizon in the verdict being upheld. The judges are considering Vonage's appeal of the March jury verdict that found Vonage infringed on three of Verizon’s patents covering the construction of its Internet phone system. The jury awarded Verizon $58 million, plus future royalties for continued patent infringement. Verizon Communications Inc. www.verizon.com Vonage Holdings www.vonage.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 12:05:32 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Judge Poses Compromise Question in Verizon-Vonage Spat USTelecom dailyLead June 26, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hndwfDtusXuEAwCibuddBOPm TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Judge poses compromise question in Verizon-Vonage spat BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Telus executive calls for timely review of Bell Canada bid * AT&T sets prices for iPhone service plans * EarthLink hires Huff as president, CEO * Nokia Siemens announces new center in Lisbon * Report: Singapore Telecommunications may buy Warid stake TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Analysis: Wi-MAX will bolster Sprint's business model * Wi-Fi Alliance tests products for second draft of 802.11n * Infineon purchases DSL-chip business IP DOWNLOAD * Internet-TV network Revision3 secures funds REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * U.K. wireless firms lose tax case from spectrum licenses Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hndwfDtusXuEAwCibuddBOPm ------------------------------ From: iphone_freak Subject: iPhone Will be Able to Play 10,000 YouTube Clips Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:54:44 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com The eagerly awaited iPhone will be able to play YouTube videos when it ships next week, Apple Inc. announced Wednesday. PIC: http://www.nachofoto.com/foto?i=40c2abd1ed75 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is just one of the several iPhone promotional messages recieved thus far this week. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability Organization: Symantec Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 21:09:52 -0400 In article , Kristin Roberts, Reuters wrote: > "It is huge," he said. "It's something that was a closely guarded > secret not that long ago and now everybody's got access to it." There's a huge difference between what Google Earth can do and what spy satellites do. Spy satellites provide real-time views of the earth, allowing the military or NSA to do things like to track troop movements. Google Earth is not real-time. I'm not sure how often they update it; as recently as about 6 months ago, when I looked up my mother's address I saw the state of the new development from about 3 years ago (they've since brought it up to date and I can now see her house). -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group *** ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:57:04 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: U.S. Air Force Dislikes Google Earth Capability Jim Stewart wrote: >> From: Kristin Roberts, Reuters >> Deptula cited Google Inc.'s Google Earth, which gives Web users an >> astronaut's view of the earth and allows them to zoom down to street >> level. He said it had provided anyone with a credit card the ability >> to get a picture of any place on earth. >> "It is huge," he said. "It's something that was a closely guarded >> secret not that long ago and now everybody's got access to it." > A bit disingenuous if you ask me. > What was highly secret was the specifications and capabilities of our > spy satellites, not so much the products they produce. Of course, the > capabilities could be surmised from the products so they were > classified as well. > As to the offensive use of aerial photography, one can rent a light > plane and pilot and go up with a digital camera and click away. Even > most of our national labs permit overflights at relatively low > altitudes providing aircraft do not "loiter" over the area. Google earth has from 1 meter to 1 foot resolution (to mix my pmetrics) whereas the military satelites have a resolution of ... gack! ... ------------------------------ From: panoptes@iquest.net Subject: Re: U.N. Broadcasting Treaty Talks Suffer Setback Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:31:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There seems to be some misunderstanding, > IMO, over the meaning and nature of 'broadcasting'. Broadcasting, by > its nature, is supposed to be for _everyone_ (who wishes to do so) to > listen to. How can there be 'piracy' of a broadcasting signal? I > guess I am just curious on this point. There are radio signals which > no one, except for its sender and recipient are supposed to overhear > or retransmit. 'Broadcasts' are not one of these classes. PAT] The content itself could represent piracy. Are you familiar with the concept of pirate copies of recording media? Or their frequency and/or power might violate regulations. There is a Wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: but the 'frequency or power' would not be defined as 'piracy' would it, even if the frequency was improper or the power excessive? 'Broadcasting' means 'the radio signals I am producing under authorization are for _anyone_ to listen to or use to their advantage.' For example, a sale in a store, or a weather report or a news report. The 'broadcaster' definitly wants 'the public' to listen to him or do what he instructs them to do. Or was 'broadcasting' the incorrect term to be used? Many kinds of radio signals are not for the general public and not intended to be used to the advantage of any third party listeners, i.e. police transmisions. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:01:48 PDT From: Mr Joseph Singer Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Mark Crispin Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:57:11 -0700 wrote: > All due sympathies. Now that Washington State has become a one-party > state, I'm sure that our costs and taxes will rise to Northeast standards. Isn't this just typical of Crispin to politicize any comment he sends to the digest. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #181 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jun 27 01:52:22 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 8AF73226B; Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:52:22 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #182 Message-Id: <20070627055222.8AF73226B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:52:22 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:55:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 182 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US Web Radio Stations Silently Protest Royalty Hike (Michelle Nichols) Judge Defers to Feds on Google Complaint (Christopher Rugaber, AP) IPhone Monthly Plans to Start at $59.99 (May Wong, AP Tech Writer) Apple iPhone Hype Machine Running Full Blast (Jordan Robertson, AP) Shut Up About the iPhone Already! (John Dvorak, Ziff-Davis) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Mark Crispin) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:34:10 -0500 From: Michelle Nichols, Reuters Subject: US Web Radio Stations Silently Protest Royalty Hike By Michelle Nichols Thousands of U.S. Internet radio stations held a "Day of Silence" on Tuesday to protest an increase in performance royalties paid to musicians and record companies that they warn could kill the fledgling industry. Campaign organizer SaveNetRadio estimated about half of the 30,000 U.S. Webcasters were silent, partly silent or playing announcements urging an estimated 50 million U.S. listeners to act against the hike by calling lawmakers in Washington. Under a Copyright Royalty Board ruling in March, Webcasters will pay a performance royalty of $0.0008 for each listener of each song in 2006, rising to $0.0019 in 2010. The first payment, backdated to January 1, 2006, is due on July 15. The new ruling means the six biggest Internet radio stations -- Pandora, Yahoo, Live365, RealNetworks Inc, AOL and MTV Online -- will pay 47 percent of their anticipated 2006 combined revenue of $37.5 million in performance royalties, said SaveNetRadio. "The industry will be decimated by these new rates," said Jake Ward, spokesman for the Washington-based group that seeks lower royalty rates for Webcasters. "We're paying more than our fair share as is and they want to give us a rate hike." He said broadcast radio stations earn around $20 billion a year in revenue and do not pay any performance royalties. Broadcast stations pay royalties to composers and publishers but no performance royalties thanks to a federal exemption granted under the argument that the airplay helps to sell music. Ward said satellite radio stations earn about $2 billion in revenues annually and pay half of the performance royalty rate paid by Internet stations. SoundExchange -- a non-profit group representing more than 20,000 artists, 2,500 independent record labels and four major record companies -- collects the royalties from Internet and satellite radio, as well as digital cable. "They want the music but they don't want to pay for it," said Richard Ades, a spokesman for Washington-based SoundExchange, adding that about half of Internet stations were not complying with laws on reporting and paying royalties. He said SoundExchange had offered in May to extend discounted rates for Webcasters earning less than $1.25 million until 2010 whereby they would pay royalties of 10 percent of revenues up to $250,000 and 12 percent above that. The discounted rates were introduced in 2002 after a similar "Day of Silence" protest by SaveNetRadio. Ward said Tuesday's "Day of Silence" urges listeners to put pressure on Congress to pass legislation to cut the royalty rate to 7.5 percent of a company's annual revenue, bringing Internet radio in line with the rate paid by satellite radio. In a letter on http://www.pandora.com, the station's founder Tim Westergren described the Copyright Royalty Board ruling as a "disastrous turn of events that threatens the existence of Pandora and all of Internet radio." "Left unchanged by Congress, every day will be like today as Internet radio sites start shutting down and the music dies," he 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: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:36:33 -0500 From: Christopher Rugaber, AP Subject: Judge Defers to Feds on Google Complaint By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Business Writer The judge overseeing Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust settlement said Tuesday she would not immediately address complaints Google Inc. has made about Microsoft's Windows Vista software. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said she would decide later this year whether to consider Google's request to extend government oversight of Microsoft's compliance with its 2002 antitrust settlement. That oversight is scheduled to expire in November for most aspects of the agreement. Kollar-Kotelly emphasized that it is up to the state and federal agencies to decide whether to request additional enforcement action or oversight from the court. State and federal officials, meanwhile, said during a regularly scheduled hearing on Microsoft's antitrust compliance that they are satisfied with a compromise reached last week with Microsoft to address Google's concerns. The federal and state governments "stand in the shoes of the consumers," Kollar-Kotelly said, while Google, she added, is not a party to the case. Google complained to federal and state officials that Microsoft's desktop seach program, which helps Windows Vista users search their hard drives, slows down third-party desktop search programs and makes it hard for computer users to choose alternatives, such as Google's desktop search. In the compromise, detailed in a court filing last week, Microsoft agreed to allow Windows Vista users to set a non-Microsoft program as the default desktop search engine, and add a link to the alternate program in the Windows Start menu. But those changes didn't go far enough for Google, which complained they were only "vaguely described" in the court filing. The online search giant asked the court to extend the government's oversight to ensure that Microsoft followed through on its desktop search commitments. Under questioning from Kollar-Kotelly, Aaron Hoag, a Justice Department lawyer, said Google would receive more information about the compromise agreement than what was included in the court filing. Both sides said they were pleased with the outcome of the hearing. "As a result of our raising concerns about Vista desktop search, the Department of Justice and the states secured remedies from Microsoft that will provide consumers more choices than existed before," said Alan Davidson, Google's senior policy counsel. "The government represents the interests of consumers and Google clearly does not," Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said. Shares of Microsoft rose 3 cents to $29.52 Tuesday, while shares of Google added $2.84 to $530.26. 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, 26 Jun 2007 23:54:38 -0500 From: May Wong, AP Tech Writer Subject: IPhone Monthly Plans to Start at $59.99 By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer As the Friday launch of the Apple iPhone neared and anxious customers formed lines to grab one, AT&T Inc. announced Tuesday that service plans for the hotly anticipated smart phone will start at $59.99 per month. The two companies also said customers will be able to activate their wireless service, including transferring their existing cell numbers to the handset -- from home, using Apple Inc.'s iTunes software. That's a convenience no other cellular carrier offers and something UBS Securities analyst Benjamin Reitzes called a "game changer" for the industry. Making the purchase and activation easy will lower selling costs and potentially further lift sales, Reitzes said Tuesday. Three monthly plans with a minimum two-year service contract will be available: the $59.99 plan includes 450 minutes of voice time; a $79.99 plan includes 900 minutes; and a $99.99 plan includes 1,350 minutes. All three offer 200 text messages, unlimited data services, minutes that roll over month-to-month and mobile-to-mobile calls. There also is a $36 activation fee. Customers can pay extra for plans to get more talk time or text messages. Several family-style plans also are available, ranging from $80 a month for 700 shared minutes to $120 for 2,100 shared minutes. The monthly rates for the iPhone are roughly $10 less than comparable service plans for other smart phones offered through AT&T, AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said. The monthly fee will be on top of the iPhone's price -- $499 for a model with 4 gigabytes of storage and $599 for one with 8 gigabytes. The phone is slated to go on sale at 6 p.m. local time Friday at Apple and AT&T stores as well as Apple's Web site. Apple claims the iPhone -- which combines the functions of a cell phone, iPod media player and Web-surfing device -- will be easier to use than other smart phones because of its unique touch-screen display and intuitive software that allows for easy access to voice mail messages, the Internet, and video and music libraries. AT&T is the gadget's exclusive carrier. Anticipation for the handset has reached -- or arguably even surpassed -- levels usually reserved for new video game consoles. Five people were in line by Tuesday afternoon outside Apple's Fifth Avenue store in New York City, three of them having been in line since Monday. "Words can't express why I want an iPhone," said Jessica Rodriguez, 24, a college student. "The main reason is (Apple CEO) Steve Jobs is a genius. He's a great innovator. It's going to be the next big thing in cell phones." Sitting in a red folding chair she brought, Rodriguez said she was planning to get a $599 iPhone as a belated birthday gift for her sister. If the store will let her buy two, she said, she'll get one for herself. Apple isn't saying how many total iPhones it will have at launch and hasn't disclosed whether there will be any per-person purchase limits. Coe said purchases at AT&T stores will be limited to one per customer. Meanwhile, some people who are unable to queue up themselves have posted help-wanted pleas on community Web sites like Craigslist, offering to pay someone to stand in line for them. The iPhone's price -- which doesn't include any kind of carrier subsidy commonly offered for other cell phones -- lands on the high-end of the smart phone market, but analysts say the service plans are very competitive. Sprint Nextel Corp., for instance, also charges $59.99 a month for 450 minutes of talk time, $79.99 for 900 minutes and $99.99 for 1,350 minutes along with unlimited data service. Its plans allow, however, up to 300 text messages and starts its unlimited evening calls at 7 p.m. instead of AT&T's 9 p.m. start time. Verizon Wireless plans to launch new "premium" plans in July, starting at $79.99 for 450 minutes with unlimited calls on a Verizon network, unlimited nights and weekends, and unlimited messaging and data services, company spokeswoman Brenda Raney said. The most expensive plan will be $239.99 for 6,000 minutes of talk time, she said. Skeptics question whether the iPhone can live up to its lofty expectations. Scrutiny of the product is so great that any small disappointment could send Apple's stock plunging, analysts say. Apple shares dropped $2.69, or 2.2 percent, to $119.65 on Tuesday. Shares of AT&T fell 7 cents to close at $24.61. Andy Hargreaves, a Pacific Crest Securities analyst, said Apple shareholders have run the stock up in anticipation of the iPhone's release, and they don't feel it will go much higher after the product is available, he said. "I think expectations are very, very high and some people are taking some money off the table ahead of the launch," WR Hambrecht analyst Matthew Kather said. Associated Press staff writers Nick Jesdanun and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report. 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, 26 Jun 2007 23:57:25 -0500 From: Jordan Robertson, AP Tech Subject: Apple iPhone Hype Machine Running Full Blast Apple iPhone hype machine in overdrive By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Even for a company that's mastered the art of product-launch hoopla, Apple Inc. appears to have pulled out all the stops to propel iPhone hysteria into the stratosphere. Technology analysts say Apple started its publicity campaign for the iPhone uncharacteristically early, first showing off the device six months ago and shrewdly stoking the media feeding-frenzy since then with incremental announcements that have kept the sleek cell phone-multimedia player-Internet browser in the news. It goes on sale this Friday, and die-hard Apple fans are expected to line up overnight or longer outside retail stores to get their hands on an iPhone for either $500 or $600. But skeptics wonder whether even the most innovative product could live up to the iPhone's lofty expectations — and whether the pre-launch anticipation has spiraled too far out of control. Scrutiny of the product is so great that any small disappointment could send Apple's stock plunging, experts say. Technology analyst Mike McGuire said Apple fans have elevated the status of the iPhone to unprecedented proportions — "somewhere between electricity and sliced bread." "The blessing is you've created an amazing amount of demand. The curse is you have a very high level of expectations to meet," said McGuire, a research vice president with Gartner Inc. "If there's a misstep, there will be a lot of gloating people in the industry." Apple claims the iPhone will be easier to use than other smart phones because of its unique touch screen display and intuitive software that allows for such user-friendly features as scrolling visually through voice mail messages and easy access to the Internet and video and music libraries. The hype began when Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off the iPhone at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo in early January. The dramatic introduction -- accompanied by thunderous applause and a standing ovation from thousands of Apple aficionados at a San Francisco convention center -- was followed up by a public relations blitz and hundreds of articles in blogs, trade publications and the mainstream media. The iPhone stayed in the news for weeks after the launch, thanks in part to a trademark-infringement lawsuit by Cisco Systems Inc. over rights to the name. Cisco said Apple's use of the iPhone name constituted a "willful and malicious" violation of a trademark that Cisco has owned since 2000. In late February, San Jose-based Cisco -- which sells a line of Linksys iPhones that make free long-distance calls over the Internet -- and Cupertino-based Apple agreed to share the name. Apple's iPhone returned to the forefront of newspapers and Web sites in May, as the company stock reached record heights and many Wall Street financial analysts said the sleek iPhone could be a profit-generating machine, similar to Apple's iconic iPod. The iPhone has already generated a thriving cottage industry online, with more than 1,100 peripheral iPhone items currently for sale on eBay, including colorful holsters, touch-screen protectors and car adapters. But the hype has also hurt Apple. The launch is being so closely watched that Apple's share price plunged more than 4 percent in a matter of minutes last month after a rumor about a delay was reported on Engadget.com, an electronics Web site. The rumor was quickly corrected by Apple, and the stock largely recovered by the end of the day. "That just shows how powerful this has become," said Chris Hazelton, analyst with market researcher IDC, who said the amount of hype is "almost dangerous to the success of the device." "God knows what's going to happen when the reviews come out," he said. Die-hard fans are expected to camp out in front of Apple and AT&T stores to get a shot at snagging one of the iPhones, which are being sold on a first-come, first-serve basis starting Friday evening. Apple has been famously tightfisted in limiting the number of review units before a launch, and the iPhone is an extreme example of the lengths the company will go to keep its prized gadget under wraps until the last minute. So far only a handful of reviewers are believed to have gotten units. Dan Frakes, senior editor at Macworld magazine, said he will be one of a half-dozen writers and editors from his magazine queuing up early Friday. He hopes to buy an iPhone so he can write a product review. But like many people debating whether to buy the iPhone, he still has questions about whether the device can live up to the heightened expectations. "If it works really well and does all these things well, I'd have no problem buying one on my own," he said. "That's the question out there right now -- no one knows." 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/internet-news.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:38:50 -0500 From: John Dvorak, PC Magazine Subject: Shut Up About the iPhone Already! By John Dvorak - PC Magazine This is the last week of Apple iPhone hype, hyperbole, and hand-wringing. Oh wait, I mean the last week of pre-iPhone hype, hyperbole, and hand-wringing -- we have a few more post-iPhone months left on the calendar. I am sick of it. It's all anyone talks about. It dominates the news. It dominates the podcasts and videocasts and magazines. Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland. Exactly what new meditation sequence Steve Jobs learned recently that could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me. He should become a guru and teach it to the likes of Chrysler Corp. executives. Seriously, this whole thing is creepy in some mystical way. I know at least two guys who are big fans of this unseen phone. It is all they talk about no matter what the topic of conversation. Both have glassy eyes and stare straight ahead. You talk football and the conversation switches to the iPhone. You talk baseball and the conversation switches to the iPhone. TV, movies, stock market, community theater -- it all switches to the iPhone. "Yes, what about them Raiders? Many players will buy the iPhone, I bet. Yes. I think so. They will. They will have to, I think." I swear (though I have unsuccessfully tried taking pictures to prove it), when you look at these people closely, there is a spinning disk in each pupil that you can barely make out. It's like a spiral that turns and turns toward infinity. And, I can assure you, a hard slap won't help. These pod people are everywhere, and I'm beginning to think some sort of infection may be involved. Mass hysteria may also be a factor. What's especially amusing is the pod peoples' cavalier attitude toward the price of this phone. Yeah, I can't think of anything I'd rather do than buy a $600 pocket phone to show off. I'm guessing that kind of idiotic thinking will wear off after they've broken the screen more than once. Next: "It" Device" The International Herald Tribune had a huge story this week about the iPhone possibly becoming some sort of iconic "it" device. The author goes on and on about how Braun became an "it" factor company with its sleek designs, as I'm reading and thinking to myself, "What is this guy talking about? Braun? Cripes." I can assure you he has the little spinning disks in his pupils. The Globe and Mail out of Toronto ran the screwy Associated Press story titled, iPhone Buzz Building into a Frenzy. In that article you'll find these screwball, spinning-disk paragraphs: "Remember the television ads for the Motorola RAZR? "The commercials showed off the sexy, thin profile of the clamshell handset and seduced more than 50 million people from 2004 to 2006 to buy it, making it the most popular cell phone ever sold. "But people want more now. There are plenty of slim, ultrathin options out there, but not many make finding photos, saving phone contacts, picking up voice mail, and selecting ringtones insanely easy." Is this an op-ed? What reporter describes the function of anything as "insanely easy"? What does that even mean? "Holy crap! This is so easy that I'm going insane!" In a hotel room there is a button you push on the phone and you get your voice mail. Is that insanely easy, too? Or not? Can something be easier? Maybe the iPhone injects the voice mail into your brain from a distance without you doing anything. And "finding photos" is now insanely easy? I have close to 50,000 photos. I guess I can find them, but will the phone somehow help me find the one photo I am looking for? With magic, maybe? To be honest, unless I presort the pics, there will be nothing insanely easy about any of it, ever. Besides, the phone won't hold all the photos, and I doubt it will display any RAW pics, either. And anyway, is this a phone or a photo frame? And what's this about ringtones? I usually want to set one and be done with it. I will admit that most phones make it an ordeal to find and change ringtones, so maybe making it insanely easy would be useful. I hope the phone switches to vibrate in some insanely easy way, since that function tends to be painful on too many phones. Anyway, I digress from my point, which is that this week is going to be pathetic. Articles like the "insanely easy" analysis or the "it factor" piece are going to be coming out daily. Wake me when it's over. I've even told all my writers on the Dvorak blog that this topic is dead and verboten until the friggin' phone actually comes out! Sheesh. Copyright 2007 Ziff Davis 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: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:17:34 -0700 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing On Mon, 25 Jun 2007, Mr Joseph Singer wrote: > Mark Crispin Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:57:11 -0700 > wrote: >> All due sympathies. Now that Washington State has become a one-party >> state, I'm sure that our costs and taxes will rise to Northeast standards. > Isn't this just typical of Crispin to politicize any comment he sends > to the digest. Pat, if you are going to approve messages that contain nothing but personal attacks, you should post this response. Singer sent me a private email in which he made a bigoted remark about Utah and the Mormon church. Sadly, such behavior is typical of young liberals. [Why he thinks that I have anything in common with Mormons escapes me, other than perhaps a general category of "people that Joseph Singer does not like."] Washington State effectively has a one-party government. Not only does one party have majority control of the governor's mansion and both houses of the legislature, they have a supermajority. In a few short months, substantial new taxes (and spending) were passed, and voter initiatives to limit taxes and union power (such as being able to spend non-members' representation fees for political causes) were overturned. More is coming. Although Washington State does not have a personal income tax (yet), its other levies add up. Washington is the 8th highest taxing state in the union (after CT, NY, NJ, VT, RI, NV, and CA; rounding up the top 10 are MA and MN). The liberals have a point in that most of Washington's taxes are highly regressive (the sales tax is one of the heftiest in the nation); but there's also a stiff business income tax that also hits the self-employed. It is surprising that it is still possible to get a non-frills local-only POTS line here for so much cheaper than other states, but that cost differential isn't likely to last. Between Republican filibusters and voter initiatives, state spending was severely limited for many years (but not so much that Seattle couldn't build two new sports stadia). This led to a pent-up demand that our current legislature seeks to satisfy now that it is filibuster-proof. The point of all this is to pre-emptively debunk the myth of Washington being a land of cheap telecom and low taxes. That may have been once been the case, but not any longer. Another point is the one-party governments are not a good thing no matter which party you support. A viable opposition keeps you honest; more importantly, it saves you from yourself when you go too far off the deep end. Ultimately, the pendulum swings the other way, and the more corrupt and extreme it had been on one side, the more corrupt and extreme it will go on the other side. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll leave these two gentlemen -- Mark Crispin and Joseph Singer -- to continue their discussions in email with my thanks to both of them for participating and sharing with the rest of us here. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #182 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 28 13:39:00 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id D15D52274; Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:38:59 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #183 Message-Id: <20070628173859.D15D52274@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:38:59 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:40:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 183 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Product Review: Should You Buy an iPhone? (Peter Svensson, AP Tech) Accessory Makers Ready for iPhone Launch (Rachel Konrad, AP Tech) Telus Pulls Out of Bell Canada Bidding (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 (L Hancock) Last Laugh! Re: Shut Up About the iPhone Already! (Tom Horsley) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:58:58 -0500 From: Peter Svensson, AP Tech Subject: Product Review: Should You Buy an iPhone? By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer The most eagerly awaited cell phone ever is upon us Friday. Should you resist the iPhone's breathless hype, or take the plunge? Unless you're already standing in line outside an Apple or AT&T store, or are prepared to mug one of the first customers to come out after the 6 p.m. launch, the answer, at least for now, will have to be "let me think about it for a week or two." The level of hype and demand for Apple Inc.'s phone is reminiscent of the debut of the PlayStation 3 game console in November, when minor riots broke out at some electronics stores. However, eBay prices for resold PS3s quickly fell, and two months later the console was in ample supply. Apparently, much of the initial demand came from people who weren't really interested in getting them for themselves, but counted on being able to sell them to people who were. It's quite possible that the iPhone will be subject to the same demand bubble. Check with the stores a month from now: If they have iPhones in stock, the bloom may be off the rose. Hype aside, the iPhone is a radical design, a sliver of a device with a 3.5-inch glass screen and very few buttons. The iPhone differs by being designed to be touched with the fingertips rather than a stylus, making it a greater departure from the PC experience. (There have been several expensive phones with large touch screens before, generally using Windows Mobile software.) The iPhone does e-mail, Web browsing, music and videos. It comes in two models -- $499 for a 4-gigabyte version and $599 for 8 gigabytes of memory -- and requires a two-year contract with AT&T Inc. That's the basics. Here's a breakdown of who might want to consider an iPhone and who shouldn't: -- The music listener -- Possibly. The big screen will make it easy to navigate a large music collection. A feature called Cover Flow shows your album covers like they're pages of an open book. However, the storage capacity is smaller than today's full-size iPods. The 4-gigabyte version fits about 800 songs, the 8-gigabyte version 1,800. The memory is not upgradable or expandable with external cards, so the 8-gig version is probably the one to get. Apple puts the battery life at 24 hours of audio playback, which is good. -- The video watcher -- Sure, get one. The screen is twice as large as that of the video iPod, and the resolution, at 320 pixels by 480 pixels, is twice as high. The smaller memory capacity is going to mean frequent syncing with a computer, but the bigger screen will make it worth it. Definitely get the 8-gigabyte version, which will fit about 9 hours of video if that's all you keep on the gadget. The iPhone also can access some YouTube videos, but since it relies on a relatively slow data network, access could be spotty, unless you're using its other built-in wireless technology: Wi-Fi. Other Web video will mostly be inaccessible, since the browser doesn't play Flash content, but that may change. -- The phone chatter -- Maybe, but using it mainly as a phone seems like a waste. You can't type in names to quickly bring up someone from the contact list. Voicemail is listed with the caller's name or number, sort of like e-mail. In another neat feature, a sensor turns off the screen when you bring the phone to your face. The cheapest service plan costs $60 a month for 450 daytime minutes -- relatively expensive, since you're paying for unlimited data use. Getting 1,350 minutes costs $100 a month. -- The gamer -- No. The iPhone does everything except games. A pity, with that nice big screen. Third-party developers might put something clever together that works in the iPhone's browser, but it's going to be limited. You probably have a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS already, and the PSP, in particular, already has the big screen and some of the iPhone's multimedia functions, so you can complement it with a cheaper phone. -- The corporate road warrior -- No. For professional use, you're probably stuck with what the company supports, and for now, that's going to be BlackBerries and Windows Mobile devices like the Samsung BlackJack. Corporate Microsoft Exchange e-mail servers can be configured to send e-mail to the iPhone, but many companies will not take this step. Other features of Exchange, like contact and calendar syncing, are not available. One possible solution is to forward corporate e-mail to free Web-based e-mail accounts that the iPhone can access, but that raises security issues. If you're looking for some entertainment from your work phone, Windows Mobile phones like the T-Mobile Wing are already quite capable. A recently released BlackBerry, the Curve, plays music through a standard stereo headphone jack and has a built-in camera. -- The frugal buyer -- No, the first-generation iPhone is likely to be followed by something substantially better, like one that uses a faster cellular broadband network and has more memory. It's unlikely that the first iPhone will be upgradable, and in any case, it would require a trip back to Apple. -- The photo buff -- Not likely. The iPhone has a 2-megapixel camera, which is decent, and the large screen should make the results easy to appreciate. But phones dedicated to camera buffs also record video and have higher resolutions. The new Nokia N95 has a 5-megapixel sensor and a lens from Germany's famous Carl Zeiss. Unfortunately, it sells for $750, since it isn't subsidized by any U.S. carrier. -- The world traveler -- Possibly, but it's not ideal. The iPhone will work overseas, but only at AT&T's roaming rates. Better to have a world phone that has been "unlocked" by the carrier, so you have the option to use a local number and pay local rates. -- The fashionista -- Sure. The iPhone is one of the best-looking phones ever. The screen is glass, not plastic, and should be fairly resistant to long fingernails. Goodbye, pink RAZR. On the Net: http://www.apple.com/iphone 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: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:02:01 -0500 From: Rachel Konrad, AP Tech Writer Subject: Accessory Makers Ready for iPhone Launch By RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Apple Inc.'s iPhone won't hit stores until Friday, but the heavily hyped gadget already has unleashed a cottage industry of touch-screen protectors, leather hip carriers and car adapters. Even the most enthusiastic manufacturers said creating formfitting iPhone accessories was an enormous challenge. A notoriously tightlipped Apple kept many partners in the dark on precise specifications, and some of the company's most trusted accessory manufacturers still have not touched a genuine iPhone. To compensate, many cribbed size and weight specifications from Apple's Web site, then created models out of wood, cardboard or plastic. They shipped models to Apple for advice on whether headset and other outlets were placed correctly. They adjusted and resent revised versions to Apple. Many made educated guesses about curved moldings or the location of the proximity sensor, which turns off the touch screen when near the user's face. A one-millimeter error could result in headsets that come unplugged or an uncomfortably hot screen. "The engineering aspects were a huge challenge," said Marware Inc. sales manager Sean Savitt. Hollywood, Fla.-based Marware, which sells iPod accessories in Apple stores and on Apple.com, assigned an industrial engineer to build a molded-plastic custom prototype that weighed precisely as much as a real iPhone. Marware sent the model to Apple for comments — but it's unclear how many of the roughly 300 Apple accessory makers had similar access. "There are a lot of manufacturers' cases that are going to have some fundamental mistakes that will only be revealed after launch," Savitt said. "There was a great deal of information to process and a great deal of guesswork." Cupertino-based Apple did not respond to requests for comment. The company recently sent some partners a memo urging them not to talk to journalists or rivals about marketing strategies -- including whether their accessories would be on sale alongside iPhones. Partners are not supposed to issue news releases or advertisements until after the launch. Digital Lifestyle Outfitters Inc. will have two cases available in AT&T Inc. stores starting Friday. The phones are slated to go on sale at 6 p.m. local time Friday at Apple and AT&T stores, and on Apple's Web site. Immediately after Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in early January, DLO developed rough models in balsa wood based on the general specifications he gave out. Engineers then built plastic replicas with glass touch screens. Even the slick photographs of the iPhone HipCase and Jam Jacket on DLO's Web site use model iPhones, said Andrew Green, vice president of marketing at Charleston, S.C.-based DLO. "We didn't have a lot of special details initially. Apple shared stuff with us, but not exclusively," Green said. After the January unveiling, several partners said, Apple cut off access to its designers Web site. Apple may have been making last-minute tweaks -- a common practice in the electronics industry, where products have short life cycles. "At one point they weren't going to make the specs available to any vendor until the launch. We all just gasped," said Carrie Scharbo, co-founder and vice president of Cumming, Ga.-based Case-Mate Inc. Case-Mate, which began manufacturing cases at its factory in China after receiving final specs from AT&T May 22, plans to sell a patent-pending, impact-resistant iPhone shell with an injection-molded inner sheath. "To build a sleek and slim design without all the specs is challenging, but that's our schtick," Scharbo said. "The nerve-wracking thing about this one was that everything was so hush-hush. We felt fortunate that we could partner with AT&T." EBay Inc. listed roughly 1,700 iPhone accessories Wednesday, from belt clips to whimsical T-shirts proclaiming "I (heart) my (picture of iPhone)," many of them from obscure makers. The San Jose-based auction company is anticipating numerous auctions of iPhones themselves. Instead of signing up for cellular service at the time of purchase, iPhone buyers sign up through Apple's iTunes online store, making the phones easier to give as gifts or resell. About 2,000 eBay security representatives are scheduled to be on the lookout this weekend for iPhone scams. But Cat Schwartz, the eBay executive in charge of electronic gadgets, acknowledged that she can't do much about ill-fitting accessories. "It's premature for people to be putting out accessories," Schwartz said. "Until the unit comes out, I wouldn't advise people to buy a bunch of accessories." 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/technews.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:09:43 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Telus Pulls Out of Bell Canada Bidding USTelecom dailyLead June 27, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hnuMfDtusXuIwLCibuddespB TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Telus pulls out of Bell Canada bidding BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * "Sprint Ahead" ad campaign erases Nextel name * AT&T's Jeff Weber fields brand questions * T-Mobile USA launches HotSpot @Home today * Vodafone, Groove to test SMS-triggered music downloads * Saudi Telecom expands into Southeast Asia TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * TI to develop ultra-low-power Bluetooth chipset * WSJ's Mossberg calls iPhone a "breakthrough" * HDTV penetrates 30% of U.S. households IP DOWNLOAD * Intelliverse adds VoIP-monitoring services * Wayport to launch "Entertainment on Demand" for hotels REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Ohio joins ranks of statewide franchises Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hnuMfDtusXuIwLCibuddespB ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:53:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jun 25, 6:26 pm, Reuters News Wire wrote: > Web radio broadcasters across the United States were preparing for a > 'Day of Silence' on June 26 to protest the U.S. government's plans to > boost royalty payments to artists and record companies by more than > 300 percent, when their music is played online. I read this and the other related post but I do not understand the situation. I presume the determination of royalties is a private issue set by contract between artist and user. I would be very surprised if the copyright law or some US Government agency determines the amount of the royalty. Is that a US Government agency? Sounds more like a private sector cooperative arrangement. I must admit I am suspicious of webcasters and other new technology advocates. IMHO they seek benefits and protections of govt regulation but none of the obligations. In this particular instance, it seems they want the freedom to broadcast but are they willing to accept the restrictions that more traditional broadcasters are required to comply with? The copyright issues of performance were extensively discussed on the rec.arts.tv newsgroup. I was sorry to see many posters claimed as a Constitutional Right to freely download works without charge; they saw works as all being in the public domain that they were entitled to have access to. In fact, the US Constitution explicitly provides for copyright and patent protection. One might debate the terms, but the protection clearly exists. Some posters were angry at large corporations that own many works. I have no love for big corporations, but that is irrelevent, they have their rights to their ownership just as you and I do. Some posters were angry at retracted works, such as old movies or music that is no longer sold. They felt strongly that had a right to such items. I strong disagree. If I produce a work but later on decide to withdraw it from sale or distribution, that is my sole right to do so. (You can resell your own copy, but not duplicate it for sale). If I am missing any arguments in this issue, could someone explain them in layman's terms? Thanks. [public replies, please] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I understand it, the 'new' rates being requested of webcasters is not, in itself substantially out of line; a bit higher than the rates charged many other groups, but sort of reasonable. Where the problem arises is the group which represents the musicians/artists is asking for this payment to be retroactive to January 1, _2006_, or 18 months ago. Instead of demanding that the royalty payments begin _immediatly_, which is part of the problem, they are asking for arrears to be paid as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Horsley Subject: Last Laugh! Re: Shut Up About the iPhone Already! Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:11:20 -0500 On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:38:50 -0500, John Dvorak, PC Magazine wrote: > These pod people are everywhere, and I'm beginning to think some sort of > infection may be involved. Mass hysteria may also be a factor. Hmmm ... iPod people? Has anyone ever examined the audio generated by an iPod to see if it contains subliminal messages to make iPod listeners into Steve Jobs personal slaves? :-). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And if by chance you were thinking -- hoping, praying -- that this hype would end sometime in the next day or two, after reporters finished with a bang! telling how hordes of buyers got their i-Phone things and the to be expected stories of how some users 'got cheated' in the process and all that, me thinks you have another thought coming: Once the initial rush is over with in at least a week or two, then we will start a period of 'reviews', both be the professional reviewers and the ad-lib blogger community. It is going to go on and on and on, and eventually everyone with a modicum of sense in their head will join John Dvorak (PC Magazine) in demanding "SHUT UP ABOUT THE DAMN THINGS!" PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #183 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 29 17:17:05 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 0504B22DA; Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:17:04 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #184 Message-Id: <20070629211705.0504B22DA@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:17:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:20:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 184 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? (C. Benz) PBX For Home (alextingle@gmail.com) Cheap VOIP, No Standards (cerberus.perillo@gmail.com) FTC Head Cautions Against Net Regulation (USTelecom dailyLead) iPhone Makes its U.S. Debut (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Telephone Multiplexer Failures, Power, Firewall Risks (C.Perillo) Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 (Burstein) Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 (Den Hout) Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest (Neal McLain) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: C. Benz Subject: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:32:16 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com Telcom industry writer, Drew Clark http://www.telmetech.com, and Microsoft Exchange expert, Jim McBee, are both blogging on an article on the controversy regarding AT&T's required two-year contract for the unsubsidized iPhone. From Jim McBee's Mostly Exchange Web Log ... http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com "[iCarrot] http://techswot.com makes a very good point about the hype surrounding the iPhone and the "deal" that you have to sign up for from AT&T. That this may be the end of the subsidized celluar phone, but certainly not (for) the restrictive and costly contract." From "iPhone or iCarrot? "... Since the early days of the cellular industry, the justification for multi-year contracts has been handset subsidies. Since the cellular carriers subsidize the cost of the handsets, the argument goes, they need lock-in contracts to guarantee sufficient time to recover the up-front equipment costs. Holes in that story now appear with the iPhone. ... What AT&T may be trying to do is to redefine the business model for the entire American cellular industry. They may want to set a precedent for getting rid of handset subsidies altogether. And the reason for the two-year contract with the unsubsidized iPhone is to establish that lock-in contracts remain a part of the deal. ... That doesn't have to happen. If consumers say "no" to this Friday's launch of the unsubsidized, two-year-contract- required iPhone, then AT&T will realize that its new business model will not succeed in the American marketplace. They will have to modify the terms of the iPhone plan. If consumers instead say "yes" and buy the iPhone with the two-year contract, then it will only be a matter of time before all handset subsidies disappear and all cell phone users have to pay both the full cost of their handsets and still be locked into multiple-year contacts. Those who purchase iPhones under the current arrangement may very well be sealing that fate for all cell phone users. Read more ... http://www.telmetech.com/2007/06/iphone-or-icarrot.html ------------------------------ From: alextingle@gmail.com Subject: PBX For Home Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:44:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, thanks for answering my question: I want to install a PBX system (landline) in my home. I've heard, from sellers/installers, that you must have an individual wire from each jack going to where the phone line comes in (i.e. a different wire from each jack to one central location -- where the PBX would plug in). Before I order a system, I want to make sure that I have the proper wiring. I do not want to re-wire my home. 1) How do I check if I have this wiring in my home? 2) Most sellers say that if I do have this wiring, the Merlin Legend or Magix system is the only way to go. Are there any other Avaya/ Lucent/even Nortel systems that would work? 3) Is the Merlin Legend/Magix the best bet for a home PBX? Thank you for your time, I look forward to your response! Alex [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My opinion is just that: IMO. I have a small PBX here in my home and I had to do this: The phone box was mounted on the outside, on a wall. The former arrangement was at that outside box I had ONE incoming phone _pair_ and THREE _pairs_ going out to around my house. The PBX could not be mounted outside of course; I wound up putting it inside on a wall in my computer room area. I had to bring ONE _pair_ of wires in for the phone line inbound, and THREE pairs had to run back outside to go from the PBX to the various stations known as 103, 104, and 105. (had to install those three pairs). On this six extension PBX, three of the extensions (100, 101, and 102) did not have to run back outside to get to their destinations. So, I had to in total have four _pairs_ of wires running to the phone demark box (and the pole) from the PBX. These went through a newly made hole in my wall, then tacked along the outside wall to the phone box (or demark) where one of the pairs connected to the (old) incoming pair; the other three pairs were hooked to the (old) three extensions around the house, via their original wiring). For the second incoming line which had previously been by the computer only (a VOIP line), I used a 25-foot phone cord to run from the back of my router/ATA box on the computer over to the closet where the PBX unit is now mounted. Incoming calls (either the landline or the VOIP) default to station 100 which is aliased to also ring on '0'. I can answer or transfer any incoming call (either Vonage VOIP or landline) to any station desired by dialing *7 plus 100 or 0 to answer the call, press the flash key to get new dial tone then dial the three digit station number desired, or 0 if I wish to transfer to the 'operator'. So I wound up using 4 new _pairs_ (out of a new six _pair_ cable) to get myself in and out of the outside demark to/from the PBX, and 3 existing _pairs_ to get to my bedroom, dining area and living room. Then I used three additional _pairs_ to get three extensions in the computer room area (which were already around) plus another _pair_ for the VOIP line. Regards which PBX system works best, my situation may be unique, but I am using something called 'TotalCom', from Mike Sandman http://sandman.com . Other than the six pair wire which I needed, I am able to use any mix of 'regular' telephones I desire. It is entirely modular plug ins and takes very little work to install. It took about three hours to get it all installed here. It looks a bit ugly hanging on the wall in the computer room area, but who cares? Mike will tell you he does "not recommend it being used as 'home PBX' since its main, original use is as a 'line sharing' device for computers, fax machines, etc" but it works perfectly well in my little application, with all the features I would ever need: six extensions, two outside lines (dial 9 for regular line; dial 8 for Vonage), allows answering (or calling out) from any extension; and other features such as *6 for call waiting, 'call parking' with 108 or 109 (which is to say park a call, retrieve it from another extension) and many other features I do not use (or even know about in most cases). Although it does _NOT_ come with caller ID which I make up for by having a caller-ID box tapped into the outside line, and it does not work in the event of a power outage, for which I compensate by plugging a phone directly into the outside line when needed. To get more details on this device, either call Mike Sandman at 630-980-7710 or through email at http://sandman.com where you can also review his entire catalog online. Other readers probably have other suggestions as well, some of which may be fancier or larger, with specially required phones, etc. But I think you said you did not want to have to rewire your home. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cerberus.perillo@gmail.com Subject: Cheap VOIP, No Standards Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:08:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am glad and thankful that Pat has kept this group going when so many Usenet lists/discussions have disappeared. These Telecommunications Risk's/Problem's questions arose out of an Washington, DC and George Washington University (GWU) sponsored ACM meeting on Computer Security with former AT&T/Bell Labs Steve Bellovin, that became heated Telecommunications arguments at a local bar. It turns out that Steve was one of the original developers and advocates of Usenet. This long-line repairman, and a pretty girl from the Commerce Department, mentioned that you can get very cheap VOIP service from Latin American and Caribbean countries, such as Venezuela?, because their Internet Voice, Voice over IP (VOIP) implementations are not setup for, and bypasses the various Tariffs, Taxes, and Fee's associated with the normal PTT Telephone service? I am sure that this has been brought up before on this group? And this is one of the reasons that European PTT's have insisted on keeping their X.25 Networks as front ends into the conventional Internet. X.25 has various fields for carrier usage charging of Tariffs, Taxes, and Fee's. (VOIP is difficult to understand, maintain, and troubleshoot because telephony technology and terminology is morphed into a the arcane TCP/ IP, i.e. the telephone number becomes a series of IP addresses.) Robert J. Perillo Principal Telecommunications Engineer dockmaster_perillo@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:27:28 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: June 28, 2007 - FTC head cautions against net regulation USTelecom dailyLead June 28, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hoiAfDtusXuOeZCibuddBPiW TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * FTC head cautions against net regulation BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Group urges user-friendly processes for broadband providers * Verizon Wireless, NBC hook up on streaming video from Wimbledon * CommScope buys Andrew Corp. for $2.6 billion * New Siemens CEO says turnaround will take time * How will the iPhone affect wireless? TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Vodafone helps GPS find its place in the U.K. * Mobile video opens door to new ad revenue IP DOWNLOAD * Industry group publishes VoIP recommendations * Vancouver Airport to enhance terminals with IPTV REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Qwest asks FCC for $500 million for rural Internet projects * EU takes legal action against Germany over telecom rules Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hoiAfDtusXuOeZCibuddBPiW ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:29:05 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: June 29, 2007 - iPhone makes its U.S. debut USTelecom dailyLead June 29, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/howQfDtusXuRiFCibuddXggQ TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * iPhone makes its U.S. debut BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Analyst: Marketing essential for telecoms * Motorola Razr2 premieres in South Korea * SingTel to acquire 30% of Pakistan's Warid Telecom * Greece selling stake in Hellenic Telecommunications TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Study: Europe will reach 5 million PCs connected to HSPA * Cisco's shares up on view of set-top-box inventory IP DOWNLOAD * Clearwire debuts VoIP service in Lone Star state * Survey: Dutch VoIP users top 2 million REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * EU's telecom chief supports DVB-H mobile-TV standard * Two sides tussle over 700 MHz Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/howQfDtusXuRiFCibuddXggQ ------------------------------ From: cerberus.perillo@gmail.com Subject: Re: Telephone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, Firewall Risks Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:34:02 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com The Residential SLiC's that I was talking about are powered off of Central Office (CO) 48V "Battery", and probably do not have batteries in them? Therefore their high failure rates are not explained by "battery problems". I do not consider putting some generators at some cell towers the solution, obviously this did not work in the Blackout of August 2003 when Senator Hillary Clinton had to discard all her cell phones, and personal communications devices, because they stopped working immediately, and queue up in line to use the Pay Phones. As far as I know the Cell Switches have no generators, and what about turning the generators on, and keeping them supplied with fuel? To solve this problem, Cell Providers should come up with an alternate/separate power generation system similar to CO 48V "Battery" used by the old Ma Bell, the land-line carriers. Obviously they are refusing to do this. The Long-line repairman who changed our discussion from computer security to these issues also questioned my technical knowledge, but I think it comes from different perspective of Telecommunications? As some of this group knows I started building PBX's as a pre-teenager with used steppers, LineFinders, Selectors, and Connectors obtained from Canal Street, and also built Multi-Frequency Trunk-Tandem Operator tone sets. Taught Telephony and Data Systems Technician courses at Great Lakes. And was involved in the development of the STU-III, Advanced Narowband Digital Voice Terminal (ANDVT), Unit Level Circuit Switch (ULCS), and Unit Level Message Switch (ULMS). Robert J. Perillo Principal Telecommunications Engineer dockmaster_perillo@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:37:20 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes: > I presume the determination of royalties is a private issue set by > contract between artist and user. I would be very surprised if the > copyright law or some US Government agency determines the amount of > the royalty. > Is that a US Government agency? Sounds more like a private sector > cooperative arrangement. Given that the name of the group setting the fees is the "Library of Congress", is primarily funded by the US Taxpayer (with various usage fees added to the mix), is located in US government buildings, and has a *.gov internet address, I'd suggest we have what's called a Clue. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Koos van den Hout Subject: Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest June 26 Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 19:00:20 UTC Organization: http://idefix.net/~koos/ hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote in : > I presume the determination of royalties is a private issue set by > contract between artist and user. I would be very surprised if the > copyright law or some US Government agency determines the amount of > the royalty. The landscape on how much a 'broadcaster' has to pay to play a song is a lot more complicated than that. Law, contracts, rulings all come in to play. > Is that a US Government agency? Sounds more like a private sector > cooperative arrangement. It is an agency with a government mandate run by the major record label that gets to do 'government' work in winning royalties: sound exchange. > but none of the obligations. In this particular instance, it seems > they want the freedom to broadcast but are they willing to accept > the restrictions that more traditional broadcasters are required to > comply with? http://www.savenetradio.org/about/index.html has a lot more explanation than I can give. And http://www.savenetradio.org/about/myths_and_facts.html will explain how the medium any song is played is one of the major keys in determining the fees. Traditional broadcast radio pays nothing. Large Internet radio stations would have to pay nearly half their revenue in fees. Koos van den Hout Homepage: http://idefix.net/~koos/ Fax: +31-30-2817051 PGP keyid DSS/1024 0xF0D7C263 or RSA/1024 0xCA845CB5 Webprojects: Camp Wireless http://www.camp-wireless.org/ The Virtual Bookcase http://www.virtualbookcase.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:04:25 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Jun 25, 6:26 pm, Reuters News Wire > wrote: >> Web radio broadcasters across the United States were preparing >> for a 'Day of Silence' on June 26 to protest the U.S. government's >> plans to boost royalty payments to artists and record companies >> by more than 300 percent, when their music is played online. > I read this and the other related post but I do not understand the > situation. > I presume the determination of royalties is a private issue > set by contract between artist and user. I would be very surprised > if the copyright law or some US Government agency determines the > amount of the royalty. > Is that a US Government agency? Sounds more like a private sector > cooperative arrangement. It's administered by the United States Copyright Office, a branch of the Library of Congress. The procedure is defined by statute, and the fees are not subject to free-market negotiation. The copyright office also administers several other copyright arrangements, including jukeboxes, cable TV (broadcast station retransmission), and satellite TV (broadcast station retransmission). Ever since the Copyright Act of 1976 was enacted (or possibly even before that), the procedure has worked like this: - The Copyright Office collects copyright royalties, and disburses them to "claimants" -- musicians, authors, PBS, composers, producers, program suppliers, sports interests, and others who claim a piece of the pie. - Some ostensibly independent agency determines the dollar amounts to be collected, and the dollar amounts to be dispersed. In 1976, it was an agency called the "Copyright Royalty Tribunal"; the Clinton Administration replaced it with ad-hoc tribunals called "Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panels"; the latest iteration is called the "Copyright Royalty Board." http://www.loc.gov/crb/ For more info about the CRT and CARPs, see my post "Cable TV Copyright" at http://tinyurl.com/ohfly . > I must admit I am suspicious of webcasters and other new technology > advocates. IMHO they seek benefits and protections of govt regulation > but none of the obligations. In this particular instance, it seems > they want the freedom to broadcast but are they willing to accept the > restrictions that more traditional broadcasters are required to > comply with? Traditional broadcasters' over-the-air signals are indeed subject to lots of regulations, but a government-defined copyright royalty payment scheme is not among them. Broadcasters (or their networks) license programming on the open market, and copyright royalties are covered in these agreements. Music-licensing outfits like ASCAP and BMI may administer blanket agreements, but such agreements are still subject to free-market negotiation. By contrast, webcasters' royalty fees are determined by the Copyright Royalty Board. These fees apply even to simulcast webcasts provided by broadcast stations. This, of course, was the underlying reason for last year's flap over WFMT's webcasts: because of a previous round of fee increases, WMFT had found it impossible to continue webcasting its signal at no charge. After the new fees went into effect, WFMT dropped its webcast altogether, then reinstated it with a $60/year charge to cover copyright. http://tinyurl.com/yu2u83 So I think your question "are they [webcasters] willing to accept the restrictions that more traditional broadcasters are required to comply with?" misses the point. Traditional-broadcaster-restrictions simply don't apply to internet streams. Webcasters are subject to government-imposed royalties that affect *all* webcasters, including webcasts by traditional broadcasters. The rates in effect before the recent round of increases were fairly straightforward: - Non-broadcast webcasters: $0.0007 per "performance" per listener. That may not sound like much, but it adds up over the course of a year. A hypothetical example: a listener listens to a webcast for four hours per day for a year, during which the webcaster plays ten songs per hour. This yields a royalty fee of $0.0007 * 4 * 10* 365 = $10.22 per year. Add to that the cost of internet access and the cost of keeping track, on a minute-by-minute basis, of how many listeners were connected, and how many songs each listener listened to, and the cost to the webcaster can easily reach $30 to $40/listener/year. - Commercial broadcast stations (webcasts by broadcast stations holding commercial broadcast licenses) incur the same fees as non-broadcast webcasters. WFMT falls into this category: it holds a commercial broadcast license even though it's owned by a non-profit corporation. WNIB would also fall into this category if it still existed. - Non-commercial broadcast stations (webcasts by broadcast stations holding non-commercial educational broadcast licenses) incur a flat annual fee substantially lower than the commercial rates listed above. WCPE and KOSU/KOSN fall into this category. The rates contemplated by the pending rate increase are far more complicated, so I won't try to explain them here. KCBX-FM, San Luis Obispo, has a good explanation on its website: http://kcbx.org/main/Copyright.html Neal McLain [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One thing I have heard stressed over and over has been that the people who issue the licenses want the webcasters to pay _back-dated_ to January 1, 2006 (all the fees you discuss.) And many of the webcasters are saying that either they will not pay at all, OR they will greatly fudge on their record keeping (and frankly, I suspect many of them do not have nearly the volume of listeners they claim to have when 'other listeners' are the reason for their speech); and some have claimed they would relocate themselves (or at least their internet signals) outside of USA jurisdiction. How true any of that is, I do not know, but I strongly suspect by later this summer, we will have a lot more 'pirate' webcasters than we have now. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #184 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jun 30 17:44:55 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 36501219F; Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:44:54 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #185 Message-Id: <20070630214455.36501219F@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:44:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:47:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 185 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ohio's Laptops Often Stolen or Missing (Andrew Welsh-Huggins, AP) Lunch With Warren Buffet Sells for Record $650 Thousand Dollars (J Stempel) AT&T Claims Almost Sold out of Apple iPhones on Friday Night (Reuters) Re: Early iPhone Buyers Trying to Sell Them OnLine at Big Markup (Lichter) Not So Fast, was Re: Sunday Begins New Era For Cable Subscribers (Burstein) Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? (Sam Spade) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:02:04 -0500 From: Andrew Welsh-Huggins, AP Subject: Ohio's Laptops Often Stolen or Missing By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer In Dayton, a state employee returns to work to find a $2,000 computer stolen. In Cleveland, someone walks into an unlocked office and takes a $2,200 laptop belonging to the state auditor's office. In Ohio, these scenarios not unusual, with state-issued computers frequently stolen or missing, according to a recent review of reports of stolen equipment by The Associated Press. "State-owned and issued equipment is being misplaced or lost and stolen, and fundamentally that's not good," said Keith Dailey, a spokesman for Gov. Ted Strickland. Strickland has ordered the State Highway Patrol to review reports of stolen computer equipment following the theft of a computer backup tape earlier this month. The tape contained personal information on state employees and the names and Social Security numbers of 225,000 taxpayers. The patrol is investigating 11 reports of missing or stolen equipment this year, 26 last year and 32 in 2005, said Lt. Tony Bradshaw, an Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesman. In Columbus, for example, someone stole 12 laptops from the state highway department in a theft discovered in April, including a $4,500 computer used to record pavement conditions taken from a locked office, records show. There have been frequent reports of employees taking laptops home and having them stolen from their cars. On Sept. 18, 2006, a human services employee who lives in Westerville in suburban Columbus reported a $2,087 state-issued laptop was stolen from his car parked at his home. Two months later, on Nov. 16, a Health Department employee in Columbus reported that a state-issued laptop was in her car in downtown Columbus when the $3,500 Dell computer went missing. Twice in 2006, Ohio Turnpike Commission employees reported laptops stolen from their cars after stopping at different turnpike service plazas, patrol records show. "If there's a lesson here, it's, 'Don't leave these types of equipment in your car,' said Jay Carey, a Health Department spokesman. "If they're not going to be in the office, have them locked up." The department's laptops did not contain sensitive data, he said. State agencies are not the only ones suffering thefts. In April, the Ohio House of Representatives reported three laptops stolen from House chambers. Each was valued at $1,100. The laptops contain no sensitive information and are used by lawmakers to look up bill information during legislative sessions, said House GOP spokeswoman Karen Tabor. On July 25, 2006, the state's Court of Claims reported a $1,723 laptop stolen from a court office. The laptop was discovered missing during an annual inventory and Miles Durfey, the court's clerk, said court employees do not know when it was taken. The biggest mass theft of computers involved the 12 that were taken from a Department of Transportation office near the agency's state headquarters on the west side of Columbus. One of the computers was a $4,500 Panasonic laptop designed to be mounted in a car and built to withstand bouncing or bumping in a moving vehicle. A security camera observed the theft and helped the state patrol determine a suspect, said Lindsay Komlanc, a highway department spokeswoman. Agency laptops are typically used to record data about road conditions and do not contain sensitive data, she said. In the Department of Job and Family Services, 12 laptops went missing over three years, including five stolen from employees' homes or cars. The agency has about 1,500 laptops, said agency spokesman Dennis Evans. The computer backup tape was stolen from an intern's car. Two weeks before that, a laptop holding injured workers' personal information was stolen from a state employee. Strickland's order ended the practice of employees taking backup devices home for safekeeping. It and mandated a review of how state data is handled, including establishing a protocol for data encryption, a process by which electronic information is scrambled into an unrecognizable form. "You can't prevent theft 100 percent obviously, and you probably can't even prevent the loss or misplacement of some equipment," Dailey said. "But you can significantly reduce the possibility of data theft by encrypting information in all of these laptops and data devices." On the Net: State Highway Patrol: http://www.statepatrol.ohio.gov/ 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: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:04:29 -0500 From: Jonathan Stempel, Reuters Subject: Lunch With Warren Buffet Sells for Record $650 Thousand Dollars By Jonathan Stempel A bidder agreed to pay $650,100 to have lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett, surpassing last year's record for the annual charity auction. Mohnish Pabrai, an Irvine, California-based investor who models his investment style on Buffett's, won the right to dine with the 76-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The five-day online auction concluded on Friday night on eBay Inc.'s Web site. It was Pabrai's fifth year of bidding but the first time he won. The top bid surged nearly $250,000 in the final hour. "He has had a major influence on the way I've invested, and also on the way I give back," Pabrai, 43, said in an interview. "To the extent societal rules or the wiring of your brains make it easy to acquire a lot of assets, then to the extent you can, you should try to improve the world." A year ago, Buffett pledged most of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities. Forbes magazine in March estimated his net worth at $52 billion. Pabrai invests more than $600 million at Pabrai Investment Funds, including $50 million in Berkshire stock. He said Guy Spier, a friend who runs the Aquamarine LLC hedge fund, funded about one-third of his winning bid. The lunch for up to seven people will be held at a Manhattan steakhouse run by Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group Inc. Pabrai plans to take his wife and two children, and Spier and his wife. Auction proceeds will benefit the Glide Foundation, a non-profit group in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that helps serve poor and homeless people. Buffett began donating the lunches in 2000, after his wife Susan introduced him to Glide, its affiliated church, and the Rev. Cecil Williams, who runs both. The auctions were conducted live for three years, and have raised some $2.07 million for Glide since moving to the Web in 2003. Glide's annual budget is about $12 million. Last year's winner, Yongping Duan, a Palo Alto, California investor, bid $620,100 to dine with Buffett. Buffett has since 1965 transformed Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire from a failing textile maker into a conglomerate with more than 70 businesses ranging from insurance to ice cream to underwear, and a market value exceeding $168 billion. 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, 30 Jun 2007 14:46:01 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: AT&T Claims Almost Sold out of Apple iPhones on Friday Night AT&T Inc. sold almost all its initial stock of Apple Inc.'s iPhone within hours of the device going on sale, an AT&T spokesman said on Saturday. An Apple spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the number of iPhones sold at its 162 U.S. outlets. The combination cell phone, media player and Web browser went on sale at AT&T and Apple stores on Friday at 6 p.m. in each U.S. time zone in the most anticipated gadget launch of the year. "Virtually all of our stores sold out of the iPhone last night," AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said, declining to specify how many units had been sold. AT&T, which runs about 1,800 stores in the United States, was still taking orders for iPhones and giving customers the option of picking the handset up in a store later or having it shipped to them directly, Siegel said. Asked about problems that some iPhone buyers were having with activating their phones, Siegel said the "vast majority" of customers were able to begin using their phones within minutes. "There are some whose activation process is being delayed and that's something that can happen in a launch like this and we're resolving those on a case-by-case basis," Siegel 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 ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. Subject: Re: Early iPhone Buyers Trying to Sell Them OnLine at Big Markup Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:48:21 GMT Reuters News Wire wrote: > Many people who lined up to be the first buyers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone > made good on promises to try to flip the gadgets online at inflated > prices, but a quick buck appeared out of reach for many. > Auction Web site eBay had more than 400 listings for iPhones just two > hours after the combination mobile phone, Web browser and music and > video player went on sale on the U.S. East Coast. > But the vast majority of offers failed to attract even a single bid, > and many of those that had were not yet above the list prices. > A handful of offers did draw enthusiastic bidding. One eBay auction > had attracted 35 bids and a leading offer of $1,520. Another was up to > $960 with 25 bids. > The iPhone is available at Apple and AT&T stores in two models costing > $500 and $600 depending on whether it has 4 or 8 gigabytes of > memory. It requires a service contract from AT&T Inc. that runs at > least $1,400 over two years. > Online classifieds site Craigslist had 404 iPhone listings for New > York City, with most seeking about $1,000 and one optimist wanting > $10,000 from "collectors only." > 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/internet-news.html (or) > http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra.technews.html I talked to a tech friend of mine that works for Apple and he said that his store in Calif. has plenty of them. When the store finally closed the had sold over 300 of them and had plenty more in stock and more on the way by today. People out there trying to sell them must have thought that it was going to be another Game Boy thing. Steve Jobs said he was going to give each full and part time employee a free one next week, and they have a lot of employees, so there much be plenty of them. I have no interest in one, first it is GSM second the AT&T network here has holes in it. I have been using Apple computers since they came out and will continue to do so, but not the iPhone. The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Not so Fast, was Re: Sunday Begins New Era For Cable Subscribers Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 06:58:58 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Monty Solomon writes: > A Federal Communications Commission order taking effect on Sunday > requires all major cable operators to give up the conventional cable > boxes they so profitably lease to subscribers. These proprietary boxes > contain technology for functions such as video-on-demand and perhaps a > digital video recorder -- and also house the operator's decoder that > unscrambles digital, premium and HDTV channels. A hefty number of the cable companies convinced the FCC that it would cost them (the companies) too much money to comply by 01-Jul-2007, so they've been given extensions. (In the interests of keeping this polite I'll refrain from making any editorial comments ...) I can't find the FCC dockets right now, but here's a typical story: " In response to a new Federal Communications Commission rule designed to allow consumers to use set-top boxes not owned by the cable companies, those companies now employ CableCARDs. Those are cards consumers can insert into set-top boxes or TVs to decrypt programming they subscribe to. " Consumers can continue to rent the boxes from the cable companies or they can go out and buy their own box. " But on [the NYC suburb of] Long island, local cable providers, including Cablevision and Verizon, have sought waivers from the rules, and Cablevision already has been granted a temporary one." rest: http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzbox295273144jun29,0,3251341.story?coll=ny-business-print _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 06:24:04 -0700 Organization: Cox > If consumers instead say "yes" and buy the iPhone with the two-year > contract, then it will only be a matter of time before all handset > subsidies disappear and all cell phone users have to pay both the > full cost of their handsets and still be locked into multiple-year > contacts. Those who purchase iPhones under the current arrangement > may very well be sealing that fate for all cell phone users. > Read more ... http://www.telmetech.com/2007/06/iphone-or-icarrot.html Somehow, I don't think that will work. If future cellular units are sold at full price, there will be all kinds of retailers jumping in to cut the price. The word will get around to tell the greedy wireless companies, "Sign me up month to month and sell me the Motorola Jacko 899 for $249.99 or I will take my business elsewhere." Paying market price for the unit will also cause consumers to hold onto them longer, thus upsetting the entire manufacturer/wireless enterprise sweetheart deal. Also, those whose contracts have already expired (I am one of those) are in a much, much stronger position to never sign a contract again if the units are sold at market price. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #185 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 2 01:29:19 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id A348F2252; Mon, 2 Jul 2007 01:29:19 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #186 Message-Id: <20070702052919.A348F2252@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 01:29:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 2 Jul 2007 00:30:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 186 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Remembering The Chicago Aurora & Elgin Railway: July 3, 1957 (Dan Burstein) iPhone. I Really Want to Like it And Get it, But (pattyjamas@hotmail.com) Current VoIP Rates Update - July 2007 (CALLGATE Updates) Re: We've Come So Far ... (Duncan Smith) Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? (Steven Lichter) Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest (RJ) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:19:15 EDT From: Danny Burstein Subject: Remembering The Chicago Aurora & Elgin Railway: July 3, 1957 ( courtesy of a posting in alt.obituaries ) Remembering The CA&E Railway Bob Roberts Reporting http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/632853.php?contentType=3D4&contentId=3D652534 Imagine the chaos that would result if a commuter rail line took thousands of Chicagoans to work -- and no one home. Imagine the chaos that would occur if it happened the afternoon before a major holiday. It happened July 3, 1957, a day that was unique in Chicago history. It was the day the Chicago Aurora & Elgin Ry. (CA&E), a line that had served Chicago's western suburbs, DuPage and eastern Kane Counties since 1902, quit operating in the middle of the day. The railroad essentially took more than 6,000 people to work that day and no one home, an unprecedented act that was front-age news and created such chaos in the western suburbs that both of the Chicago area's major rail museums will commemorate the event with 're-enactments' this weekend. "It was pure, unadulterated hell that day," said Ed Allen, now 73 years old and in retirement following an electric railway career that took him after the CA&E to Iowa and then Cleveland. "But it's a soul experience I will never, ever forget." In 1957, Allen lived near the railroad's nerve center, its Wheaton shops. Three days a week he was an electrical inspector in the shops. Two days a week, he was an inspector/switchman at the Forest Park terminal, making up or uncoupling trains, performing electrical repair work and loading newspapers aboard trains. That put him in the eye of the storm the day the railroad quit. There was no warning that trouble was at hand when the eastbound express from Forest Park pulled in at 11:52 a.m. Then Allen saw the railroad's trainmaster, M.O. Caliahan, step from the train onto the platform. "He went into the phone booth while the motorman and conductor were looking at me," Allen recalls. "I was looking at them and thinking, Why aren't they bringing it down for loading? There are a lot of people down here." It was at that moment that officials in Wheaton pulled the plug. "(He) walked back into the train, they closed the doors, they put white flags on the front, which meant it was an extra train with nobody on it, and they went tearing through the station and on their way back out to Wheaton. So I called the Wheaton dispatcher's tower and told them, 'The 12:25 train just went through here with the crew and trainmaster. What's going on? I've got a lot of people here waiting to get on.'" Allen says the response was a shock -- and not just to him. "I haven't gotten around to calling you yet", the dispatcher told Allen. "We're temporarily suspended.'" Everything else continued to run like clockwork at the Forest Park terminal. Only there were no CA&E trains. "Another (CTA) train pulled through there, and more people got off the elevated line and were on our platform, and before you knew it, the whole platform was loaded with people from one end to another and here the ticket agent was still announcing trains, and we had no more trains," Allen said. Allen pushed his way through the crowd to tell ticket agent Malcolm Lyons what was up. The reaction as riders overheard them and the word spread through the crowd was unlike anything you've ever seen in a 1950s-era Saturday Evening Post Norman Rockwell painting. To put it politely, Allen said, it was a mini-riot. "We had benches on the platform, and they pulled the benches off and threw them down on the track," Allen said. "They were hoping to short out the third rail against the running rail with those metal benches. Then they came down and got the lanterns we used to carry on the back end of the train and the headlights, because we had portable headlights, and they threw them off against the third rail." Soon, everything that could be thrown had been. The roiling mob still hadn't shorted out the third rail, and Allen was becoming anxious. It was at about this time that a newspaper photographer arrived and snapped a photo of Allen with one phone up to his right ear, and another in his left hand. To call the look on Allen's face perturbed is an understatement. It was time to plot an escape route, and the CA&E provided him one. "The Wheaton tower called ... and said to get the train out that's stored down there for evening service," Allen said. Ever the good employee, he had a dilemma. "I said, 'Where will I take it?' because I was not allowed to run on the main line," Allen said. "I was told there were no more trains so what's the difference where I'm running." The dispatcher told him to take the train to a spot opposite the Public Service Co. material yard, east of 1st Avenue in Maywood, where a crew would be driven in from Wheaton to pick up the train. Allen said the dispatcher told him to stop short of the trip for the crossing protection, so the gates wouldn't stay down. "I went running out of the place," Allen said. So did Lyons. The angriest in the crowd were right behind. "People were trying to follow me down there to get on that train, because they thought it would be a way to get out," said Allen, who endured a two-hour wait. "Then, here comes a car with a driver, a motorman and a conductor. We brought the last train out of Forest Park." There was warning. In fact, the CA&E had threatened to suspend service several times and had informed the public that after June 30, 1957, service was day-to-day. Cook County Superior Court Judge Donald S. McKinlay presided over a highly-publicized hearing the morning of July 3, at which railroad officials stated that the CA&E had lost $3 million since 1953, when service had been cut back from downtown Chicago to Forest Park to facilitate the construction of what would become the Eisenhower Expressway. The era of public subsidies had not yet arrived, and the CA&E made the case that it cold no longer stand on its own financially as a passenger carrier. Contemporary newspaper accounts state that Aurora Mayor Paul Egan offered to put up his home, valued at $14,000, to keep the railroad in business through the holiday weekend, but Judge McKinlay said it would be "embarrassing" to take away the mayor's home. Still, former CTA Executive Director George Krambles said in a 1997 interview, it was difficult for the public to believe the railroad would shut down so suddenly. "There was a feeling of, 'You've cried wolf so many times. Are you really going to do it?' The public was a little incredulous that it was actually happening." Krambles said the CTA found out about the suspension in service about the same time Allen did. They had to race into action. "CA&E riders all went to work without the slightest idea that anything was wrong," he said. "The CTA got caught in the mess a little bit because we had also carried all those people to work. We could carry them back to Desplaines Avenue, but then what? How do we get the word to them?" At that time, Krambles notes, television was not a source for breaking news. Chicago had no all-news radio station, and the afternoon newspapers were not yet on the streets. Krambles' title at that time was operations planning engineer. He was one of the CTA people who planned operations mighty fast that afternoon. "All of us, including myself, were out on elevated platforms where people were boarding to go home and we were warning them that there wouldn't be any Aurora & Elgin trains out there," Krambles said. It was a job made more difficult in an era before widespread loudspeakers on 'L' platforms. Only a fraction of the CTA's rapid transit fleet even had on-board speakers. The West Towns Bus Co. provided service from the Desplaines Avenue terminal to the Harlem Avenue terminal of the Lake Street "L" line. From there, the Leyden Motor Coach Co. rushed buses into service to take riders as far west as Wheaton. The paralleling Chicago & North Western Ry. (today's Metra Union Pacific West Line) soon modified service and quickly became a major commuter carrier in the western suburbs, a status it could never achieve until the CA&E's end was in sight. The CA&E couldn't bid its employees goodbye so quickly. "That happened so fast that the employees never got a notice through the union. They had to keep us employed two weeks further, even though no service was running," said Allen, who recalls that during those two weeks he reported to Wheaton Shops and essentially did "nothing." The CA&E's death throes would be protracted. "I personally prepared plans for how the CTA might handle that property if we had a way to finance it," Krambles said. "There was no way at that time." The plan would have utilized some of the streamlined streetcars being retired from Chicago's streets at that time, running as far west as Wheaton. Contemporary accounts quote Kenneth A. Van Sickle, CA&E board chairman, as saying, "We hope that the service may be restored promptly." Allen remembers the tax referendum that was narrowly defeated as the CA&E's freight service staggered on, but he believes the railroad's owners hoped for defeat. "Nobody (in management) really wanted that railroad to run again," Allen said. "The Aurora Corporation had bought all the stock of the railroad. The Aurora & Elgin was worth more to the Aurora Corporation out of business than it was in business." Amazingly, though, the railroad was not allowed to go to seed as it awaited the scrapper's torch. "We were called back to work," Allen said. "We started to rebuild cars, some of the better cars. We put new roofs on cars, new floors, aluminum window frames, windows, reupholstered seats and painted a lot of cars. In fact, they painted everything on the Aurora & Elgin ... red and gray. Even the phone booths, the fences, the stations. Everything had a fresh coat of paint on it." The CTA even built its new "L" line down the Congress (now Eisenhower) Expressway with the CA&E in mind, leaving room for a third express track in many places, including concrete portals where the "L" line passes underneath the expressway from the south near Cicero Avenue and at Halsted Street, where it heads into the Dearborn subway. In addition, CA&E trackage was relocated west of the Forest Park terminal and the Des Plaines River bridge was moved, to a location just north of the expressway. Nonetheless, it was "a ruse," Allen said, charging that the railroad that proclaimed "courtesy always" on its employee timetables had done what it could before cessation of service to undermine its chances for survival. "They systematically dynamited the railroad out from under itself," Allen said. "They made schedules on timetables purposely so they would not meet a CTA train (at Forest Park). A CTA train would pull out and then we would pull in. Now all the people had to stand on the platform in the rain or the cold or everything else at Forest Park and wait for the next train." The CA&E lasted as a freight carrier until the spring of 1959. Formal abandonment was granted in 1961. Allen stayed with the moribund railroad until 1962, becoming its last employee. He still mourns what happened that hot, July day. "The western suburbs all the way to the Fox River lost something worthwhile," Allen said. "You know, in 1957, that was a lot of cornfields west of Wheaton and now it's all built up ... Think of what it would have been like to have a suburban commuter service running through there." Krambles took a slightly different view in his 1997 interview, but agreed. "The commuters in this area are very lucky that the North Western Railway was here to pick up some of that load for the commuters," he said. "The property values of the area no doubt suffered from the removal of that service. So there is a cash justification for people supporting public transportation." Today, where CA&E trains once streaked along the rails at 70 miles an hour, the Illinois Prairie Path has taken its place. CA&E interurban cars can be seen in two Chicago-area museums, the Fox River Trolley Museum, in South Elgin, and the Illinois Railway Museum, in Union. The Fox River collection includes CA&E 20, the last surviving car from the railroad's first day of operation in August 1902, which will be featured (weather permitting) at the museum's CA&E Days celebration this weekend, including a re-enactment both days at noon of the sudden cessation of service. The Illinois Railway Museum has a similar re-enactment scheduled at noon Sunday. ------------------------------ From: pattyjamas@hotmail.com Subject: iPhone. I Really Want to Like it and Get it But ... Quick Analysis Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2007 14:24:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am sure everyone knows the below. Like to see if others feel the same way or perhaps correct some issues or errors in my comments on iPhone -Hard to type without hitting wrong keys. Will take practice. I doubt you could be a fast typer. -Must press hard on screen at times. -No multitasking in apps that I saw. You use one at a time. I do not think you could download a YouTube video (dumb example) while browsing the Internet or using the calculator. But then again I had limited time to play with the phone. However of course if a call comes in, then you can answer the call. -Internet Web browser via Edge network very very slow which would turn me off immediately. Perhaps next version will use HSPDA network like Cingular 8525 at 1/2 the price. -Data Plan is $20 on top of voice plan regardless of what the ads say. More than $20 if you are a big text message person (more than 200/month) -No dialing by voice but perhaps it might work if you have Bluetooth set. You can get voice dialing if you use their network to store your phone numbers and then pay and extra $5 a month. Comments??? -As you all know, you cannot get insurance on the phone from ATT. Still pretty cool. Sincerely Patty ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 22:15:00 +0300 From: CALLGATE Updates Subject: Current VoIP Rates Update - July 2007 Dear Colleagues, We are glad to announce our updated lower VoIP rates, valid from July 2007. Protocols: IAX2, H.323, SIP Codecs: G.729, G.723.1, GSM, iLBC, G.711u, G.711a ASR: >65% ACD: >110 sec. Billing: 1/1 Rates in EUR No monthly minimums No contracts No minimum prepayment required Online payments accepted through PayPal and MoneyBookers Other payment methods: Bank wire transfer, Western Union, MoneyGram Download A-Z rates sheet at: http://callgate.info/promo.html * Other cutting edge service by us: OPENROAMING - Free International Roaming Prepaid GSM SIM Card Receive calls in 65+ countries for FREE! Low outgoing calls rates. For information, please visit http://www.openroaming.com * Best price VoIP equipment: Linksys PAP2: We have limited quantity of Linksys PAP2 - Two Port SIP VoIP Adapters - at very attractive price of 29 EUR each. For more information or general inquiries please contact us: july@teleopen.net ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 21:32:44 -0700 From: Duncan Smith Subject: Re: We've Come So Far ... T wrote: > Where the hell can you get basic unlimited service for only $20 a > month? I'm sorry but I consider all the little 'fees' to be nothing > but legal extortion. > Here in RI a basic line will run you $45 a month. I don't know about the fees, but the price that Qwest charges for basic unlimited local service here (Washington state) is $12 per month. Duncan Smith --------\ http://students.washington.edu/f/ /--- () ascii ribbon \--- Signed/encrypted mail preferred ---/ /\ campaign [ against html mail ] [ support open formats ] ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. Subject: Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:17:06 -0700 Sam Spade wrote: >> If consumers instead say "yes" and buy the iPhone with the two-year >> contract, then it will only be a matter of time before all handset >> subsidies disappear and all cell phone users have to pay both the >> full cost of their handsets and still be locked into multiple-year >> contacts. Those who purchase iPhones under the current arrangement >> may very well be sealing that fate for all cell phone users. >> Read more ... http://www.telmetech.com/2007/06/iphone-or-icarrot.html > Somehow, I don't think that will work. If future cellular units are > sold at full price, there will be all kinds of retailers jumping in to > cut the price. The word will get around to tell the greedy wireless > companies, "Sign me up month to month and sell me the Motorola Jacko > 899 for $249.99 or I will take my business elsewhere." > Paying market price for the unit will also cause consumers to hold > onto them longer, thus upsetting the entire manufacturer/wireless > enterprise sweetheart deal. > Also, those whose contracts have already expired (I am one of those) > are in a much, much stronger position to never sign a contract again > if the units are sold at market price. Not having a contract could also backfire, I have Sprint and have had them for some years; no problems at all. I bought a handset on eBay for a lot less then even the price with a 2 year contract, and turned it up no problem; my contract expired and I just continued as I had been with the price and services I had, then I was notified that unless I went back to a contract I could wind up paying more for service, less minutes and having to pay full price data. I looked around, and went back to the contact with them, at less then I was paying and for the same features, since I was happy I had no problem, also I was able to get a rebate on the phone I had bought on eBay that amounted to twice what I had paid. The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Web Radio Stations Set for "Day of Silence" Protest From: rj_nospam@hotmail.com (RJ) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:50:49 -0400 Neal McLain wrote: > Sound exchange is an organization that represents artists and record > labels. It does not determine royalty fees; the CRB determines them. > Sound exchange is simply a voice (a loud one, to be sure) among the sea > of voices clamoring for favorable decisions by the CRB. It would be more impressive if Sound Exchange proposed rules that would work in the real world. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #186 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 2 15:27:33 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 6214E21C7; Mon, 2 Jul 2007 15:27:33 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #187 Message-Id: <20070702192733.6214E21C7@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 15:27:33 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 2 Jul 2007 15:29:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 187 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (Jeremy Morton) iPhone Comics (Monty Solomon) Often-Asked iPhone Questions (Monty Solomon) iPhone Disassembly (Monty Solomon) AT&T/Cingular iPhone FAQ (Monty Solomon) Macintouch iPhone FAQ (Monty Solomon) iPhone: The Missing Manual (Monty Solomon) iPhone Reviews (Monty Solomon) The iPhone is a Breakthrough Handheld Computer (Monty Solomon) iPhone Ads (Monty Solomon) AT&T and Apple Announce Simple, Affordable Service Plans (Monty Solomon) Apple and AT&T Announce iTunes Activation and Sync for iPhone (M Solomon) The iPhone User Experience: A First Touch (Monty Solomon) Not Only Cool, But Very Likely Groundbreaking (Monty Solomon) Check iPhone availability at Apple Store (Monty Solomon) AT&T Pays $2.8 Billion For Dobson Communications (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? (Sam Spade) Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? (Rick Merrill) Rain, and More Rain Here in Southeast Kansas (Patrick Townson) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeremy Morton Subject: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:16:22 GMT Organization: Virgin Net Usenet Service I'm in the UK. We have a master phone socket downstairs, and an upstairs extension that taps into the main socket by the use of a splitter plugged into the main socket. The extension plug is an RJ14, but the splitter's socket is an RJ11 (2 pins instead of 4). On the downstairs socket, we can use a phone, yet on the upstairs one, we can't -- we just get no dialtone. But here's the weird thing -- the ADSL connection works fine when the modem's plugged into the upstairs socket. Any ideas why that might be? I thought the extra two pins on the RJ14 were superfluous when you only have one phone line. Best regards, Jeremy Morton (Jez) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The two extra pins are superflous when you have only one phone line; but the catch is _which_ two pins are missing. I can only speak about USA-style phones here, but normally, the first and fourth pins are used for line 2, while pins two and three are used for line 1 on USA installations. The easiest solution might be to get a second RJ14 for the splitter's socket, and make it identical to the downstairs arrangement. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone comics http://www.salon.com/comics/opus/2007/07/01/opus/ http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/976.html http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/977.html http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/978.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Often-Asked iPhone Questions State of the Art Often-Asked iPhone Questions By DAVID POGUE The New York Times June 28, 2007 With its new iPhone, Apple pulled off two masterful feats: creating the machine and creating the buzz around it. That machine, and that buzz, have inspired a lot of questions. Just how much of a phone, an iPod and an Internet machine is this thing Here are the answers to the most frequently asked iPhone questions. Consider them a companion to my review yesterday, which covered the big points like the touch-screen keyboard (adequate with practice), the AT&T Internet network (painfully slow) and the iPhone's overall character (fun, powerful, amazing). http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/technology/circuits/28pogue.html?ex=1340683200&en=6db6ecaa7a2c97d0&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone Disassembly http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone/ http://stream.ifixit.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T/Cingular iPhone FAQ iPhone Frequently Asked Questions http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/iphone-faqs.jsp ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Macintouch iPhone FAQ http://www.macintouch.com/iphone/faq.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone: The Missing Manual iPhone: The Missing Manual http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596513740 By David Pogue First Edition: August 2007 ISBN: 0-596-51374-7 Pages: 304 Bundle offer: Print Book + PDF Price: $24.99 USD ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone reviews http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/technology/circuits/27pogue.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2007-06-26-iphone-review_N.htm http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19444948/site/newsweek/page/0/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The iPhone is a Breakthrough Handheld Computer We Spend Two Weeks Using Apple's Much-Anticipated Device To See if It Lives Up to the Hype; In Search of the Comma Key June 26, 2007 by Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret The Wall Street Journal One of the most important trends in personal technology over the past few years has been the evolution of the humble cellphone into a true handheld computer, a device able to replicate many of the key functions of a laptop. But most of these "smart phones" have had lousy software, confusing user interfaces and clumsy music, video and photo playback. And their designers have struggled to balance screen size, keyboard usability and battery life. Now, Apple Inc., whose digital products are hailed for their design and innovation, is jumping into this smart-phone market with the iPhone, which goes on sale in a few days after months of the most frenzied hype and speculation we have ever seen for a single technology product. Even though the phone's minimum price is a hefty $499, people are already lining up outside Apple stores to be among the first to snag one when they go on sale Friday evening. We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions. http://solution.allthingsd.com/20070626/the-iphone-is-breakthrough-handheld-computer/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iPhone Ads http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T and Apple Announce Simple, Affordable Service Plans for iPhone All Plans Include Unlimited Data & Visual Voicemail ATLANTA and CUPERTINO, California-June 26, 2007-AT&T Inc. and Apple today announced three simple, affordable service plans for iPhone which start at just $59.99 per month. All three plans include unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll-over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. With everything else already included, iPhone customers can easily choose the plan that's right for them based on the amount of voice minutes they plan to use each month. In addition, iPhone customers can choose from any of AT&T's standard service plans. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/26plans.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:08:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Apple and AT&T Announce iTunes Activation and Sync for iPhone Apple and AT&T Announce iTunes Activation and Sync for iPhone Already Familiar to Tens of Millions of iPod Users CUPERTINO, California and ATLANTA-June 26, 2007-Apple and AT&T Inc. today announced that iPhone users will be able to activate their new iPhones using Apple's popular iTunes software running on a PC or Mac computer in the comfort and privacy of their own home or office, without having to wait in a store while their phone is activated. Activating iPhone takes only minutes as iTunes guides the user through simple steps to choose their service plan, authorize their credit and activate their iPhone. Once iPhone is activated, users can then easily sync all of their phone numbers and other contact information, calendars, email accounts, web browser bookmarks, music, photos, podcasts, TV shows and movies just like they do when they sync their iPods with iTunes. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/26activate.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:10:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The iPhone User Experience: A First Touch Bruce Tognazzini AskTog, July 2007 On June 29, 2007, the long-awaited iphone was released. Was it worth the wait? Is it all it's cracked up to be? Yes. There is no mistaking that this is a first-release phone, both in the hardware and software. However, it is an Apple first release, equivalent in many respects to the fifth or sixth release quality we have come to expect from other major computer technology players. The "fit and finish" of the device are extraordinary, both in terms of industrial design and human-computer interaction. The Hardware The press has made much of the slow networking of this initial iPhone, something that will undoubtably be corrected in upcoming versions. The initial iPhone makes use of the old AT&T 2G (Edge) network, rather than the new 3G network. That reduces the web browsing user-experience to something more akin to a dial-up modem, rather than the DSL-like experience of the 3G network. The rest of the hardware seems solid, though the touch system could be improved with a couple of small additions. More on that later. The Software The fundamentals of the system have been well thought-out and deftly implemented. User-operations are smooth and pleasant, reflecting Apple's traditional attention to detail, again something unusual in the computer industry. http://www.asktog.com/columns/072iPhoneFirstTouch.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:20:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Not Only Cool, But Very Likely Groundbreaking By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | June 30, 2007 After the relentless buildup of the past six months, the temptation to trash Apple Inc.'s new iPhone is pretty much irresistible. If only I could. It wouldn't be fair; Apple and partner AT&T Inc. handed me a demo unit one hour before the iPhone went on sale. That's not nearly enough for a proper review, but plenty of time to deliver a jolt of wonder and delight. No doubt this is what the marketing masters at Apple had in mind, and, it has worked. The iPhone is exactly as cool as you've heard, and then some. For it's not just cool; this phone is important, in the same way that Apple's first Macintosh computer was important. The Mac showed us a better way to interact with computers, and forced the entire industry to follow its lead. Here we go again. The thing has just three buttons. One puts it to sleep; one controls the volume of its better-than-you'd-expect speakers. The third ignites the iPhone's main menu, an array of elegantly self-explanatory buttons that glow against a deep black backdrop. From here on out, you control everything by touching those buttons, or the other buttons and windows that leap onto the screen. Everybody knows about the touch screen. But you don't know how well it works. There's no tactile feedback, no click of a button hitting bottom. You hardly care, so cleverly has Apple dreamed up smart visual substitutes. Consider the QWERTY keyboard that appears when you need to type an e-mail address. Press a key, and a large tab appears over your finger, displaying the letter you're about to press. At a glance you see whether you're about to make an error. http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2007/06/30/not_only_cool_but_very_likely_groundbreaking/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:39:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Check iPhone availability at Apple Store http://www.apple.com/retail/iphone/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 12:20:32 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: AT&T Pays $2.8 Billion For Dobson Communications USTelecom dailyLead July 2, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hplAfDtusXuVfRCibuddVbkp TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * AT&T pays $2.8 billion for Dobson Communications BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Bell Canada agrees to $48.5 billion takeover * Consumers flock to iPhone * Helio gets extra support from parent companies * New Siemens CEO takes the helm * Report: Carlyle Group may bid for Virgin Media HOT TOPICS * IPhone makes its U.S. debut * Strigl: Verizon is on the right track * Jobs, Stephenson say iPhone will provide mobile wake-up call: * AT&T sets prices for iPhone service plans * Judge poses compromise question in Verizon-Vonage spat TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Verizon brings Rev. A to full CDMA network * Customization could be the key to survival for smaller telecom vendors * Macquarie buys Global Tower Partners for $1.4 billion * The politics of text messaging IP DOWNLOAD * Deal between Vyke, The Cloud boosts mobile VoIP REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC grants set-top waivers to digital providers Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hplAfDtusXuVfRCibuddVbkp ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:50:38 -0700 Organization: Cox Steven Lichter wrote: > Not having a contract could also backfire, I have Sprint and have had > them for some years; no problems at all. I bought a handset on eBay > for a lot less then even the price with a 2 year contract, and turned > it up no problem; my contract expired and I just continued as I had > been with the price and services I had, then I was notified that > unless I went back to a contract I could wind up paying more for > service, less minutes and having to pay full price data. I looked > around, and went back to the contact with them, at less then I was > paying and for the same features, since I was happy I had no problem, > also I was able to get a rebate on the phone I had bought on eBay that > amounted to twice what I had paid. They would all have to really stick together to pull that one off en masse. I never had the old Pacific Bell, Verizon, or Cingular try pull that when my 2 years were up. It just became month to month. That would make a great class action suit. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:17:13 -0400 From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? Steven Lichter wrote: > .... I was able to get a rebate on the phone I had bought on eBay that > amounted to twice what I had paid. You doubled your money? Now How did that work? ------------------------------ Subject: Rain, Rain Everywhere Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 14:51:06 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) A couple weeks ago, I mentioned 'when it rains, it pours' in discussing my personal financial crises, but this time around, it has more to do with the actual _weather_ in our town. Last week we had several days of hard, heavy rain. Over this past weekend we did not need _more rain_ but we got it anyway. Some of you probably have read in your newspapers (or heard on television or whatever) about the very heavy rains throughout the south and southern midwest. The weather service began warning us on Friday to expect a lot more rain before it was all over, and indeed we got (are still getting) it. Because our town is mostly in a valley (although large parts of it are on a hill within that valley) we are pretty safe from tornados, but not all that safe from high water and floods. Our neighbors to the south, Coffeyville, KS got flooded worse than we did here, so far, that is, with about half their town under deep water and the rest of it under an inch or so. About 3000 of the residents of Coffeyville had to be evacuated as a result. Here in Independence, we have not as of yet been that 'fortunate'. Some] of our streets, in lower-laying areas of town have been closed, for blocks or so at a time; the most notable examples being Second Street from Locust Street north to the Water Works, although the houses along there seem to be doing okay; Park Blvd (Third Street) closed from Locust north to Ash Street (a distance of several blocks past the baseball diamond; Penn Street where the viaduct goes under the railroad tracks north side of town, 10th Street from City Limits south to near Dearing, Kansas, most of 19th Street with its railroad tracks in that low-lying area. The town of Neodesha, KS got clobbered pretty badly from the rain also. One oddity, IMO is that the water works in Coffeyville and Neodesha are still operating; our water supply here in Independence is off for the 'duration'; they just now said on television it is back on, but undrinkable without boiling first. When I just now tested it, it is on, but just a trickle; I'll give it a coulpe more hours to build up the pressure. Well, that's life in our town for this week! PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #187 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 3 14:39:24 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id DA2692235; Tue, 3 Jul 2007 14:39:23 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #188 Message-Id: <20070703183923.DA2692235@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 14:39:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 3 Jul 2007 14:35:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 188 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Says iPhone Activation Problems "Mostly Solved" (Reuters News Wire) Curious Gadget Fans Smash, Dissect iPhones (Scott Hillis, Reuters) Telus Hasn't Ruled Out Another Bid For Bell Canada (USTelecom dailyLead) VOIP Question (burris) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (Adam Sampson) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (mc) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (David Quinton) Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? (Lisa Hancock) Re: iPhone. I Really Want to Like it and Get it But .. (pattyjamas@hotmail) Re: Product Review: Should You Buy an iPhone? (BikingBill) Re: Rain, Rain Everywhere (T) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:22:46 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: AT&T Says iPhone Activation Problems "Mostly Solved" AT&T Inc said on Monday delays in activating service for customers of Apple Inc iPhone had been mostly resolved after the wireless company worked out the problems on a case-by-case basis. About 2 percent of those who bought iPhones since they went on sale Friday faced delays in activation with AT&T, the exclusive U.S. service provider for the widely anticipated cell phone, according to a source familiar with the matter. By Monday, those issues were mostly resolved, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said. "We have resolved nearly all of the issues and we feel confident this is behind us now," Siegel said. "One by one, we worked to resolve (the problems) and now nearly all of them have been resolved." Activation delays stemmed from large customer volumes and problems with customers trying to transfer corporate cell phone accounts to personal iPhone service accounts, AT&T said on Sunday. AT&T said that iPhone sales for the weekend were the strongest of any device in the company's history. "We've sold more iPhones in the first weekend than we've sold in the first month of any other wireless device in AT&T's history," Siegel said. Bill Shope, who covers Apple for JP Morgan, estimated in a research note that 312,000 iPhones were purchased on Friday and Saturday. Other strong selling phones at AT&T have included the Razr phone from Motorola Inc, which helped boost sales at both companies for years. AT&T was the first provider to sell Razr when it went on the market in late 2004. AT&T shares closed up 35 cents, or less than 1 percent, at $41.85 in afternoon trade on New York Stock Exchange. Apple's stock was down 90 cents, or less than 1 percent, at $121.14 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: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:25:51 -0500 From: Scott Hillis, Reuters Subject: Curious Gadget Fans Smash, Dissect iPhones It took Apple Inc. more than six months to build the iPhone but curious gadget fanatics needed only minutes to tear one apart. Within hours of the first iPhones going on sale on Friday, enthusiasts scrambled to be the first to discover what makes the devices tick, posting photos and videos of disassembled phones on the Internet. The information is more than just academic. Apple keeps a tight grip on information about parts suppliers so "tear downs" of its products are closely watched by investors keen to figure out how to place their bets. In the past, word that a particular part was being used in Apple's popular iPod music players has sent that company's shares higher. "With every new release of an Apple product, the hype and interest ratchets up a notch," said Andrew Rassweiler, an analyst with market research firm iSuppli. Rassweiler and his team at iSuppli were working through the weekend to catalog the phone's guts for a report estimating the cost of every component, crucial for figuring how much it cost Apple to make each iPhone. "We have had more people thrown at it this week than any other previous product," Rassweiler said. Apple is offering the phone in two versions costing $500 and $600 depending on memory capacity, but the high price and limited availability wasn't enough to stop some people from giving into curiosity. Some dissected the phones with the clinical skill of a surgeon while others resorted to brute force, enraging those swept up in the hype and winning praise from those gleefully resisting it. By Sunday afternoon, a video on YouTube showing two guys banging away at an iPhone with a hammer and nail had garnered 56,000 views and was the 13th most-watched clip on the site, prompting some extremely angry comments. Watching the clip, it is difficult to see what was learned from the destruction. The creator, whose user page identified him only as Rob in Miami, Florida, posted a second clip defending his unorthodox methods. "We didn't smash it just to smash it. We smashed it to see what was inside. We were under a time limit," Rob said. "We resorted to extreme measures." http://Ifixit.com an Apple parts and repair guide site, conducted one of the most sophisticated dismantlings, posting dozens of high-quality photos alongside technical commentary. "They've done some things that are above and beyond. They did some very innovative things," site cofounder Kyle Wiens said of the iPhone's manufacture. Their efforts yielded a few nuggets of information. The iPhone boasts a main processor and memory chips from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., an audio-processing chip from Britain's Wolfson Microelectronics Plc and a Wi-fi wireless chip from Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Opening the iPhone was the easy part. For many, the real prize is hacking the phone to get it to do things Apple never intended, such as run on networks other than that of AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. service provider. Some programmers also want to find a way to run their own programs directly on the phone's operating system rather than being limited to programs run through the Web browser. 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/internet-news.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra.technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 12:15:17 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Telus Hasn't Ruled Out Another Bid For Bell Canada USTelecom dailyLead July 3, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hpzEfDtusXvahOCibuddhxts TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Telus hasn't ruled out another bid for Bell Canada BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * AT&T-Dobson deal sends rural-wireless shares up * Verizon Wireless revamps pricing * Nokia Siemens wins $900 million contract * NTT looks outside communication industry for growth * MobilePro sells CLEC business for $30 million * SK Telecom cancels plan to buy stake in Advanced Digital TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * AT&T serves up free Wi-Fi to subscribers * Sprint lands $49 million government contract * Nortel bets big on mobile WiMAX * Dissecting Apple's iPhone reveals secret components IP DOWNLOAD * Google acquires single-number service * Mitel sues ShoreTel over VoIP patents REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Report: Telefonica faces possible EU fine EDITOR'S NOTE * The dailyLead will not be published Wednesday Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hpzEfDtusXvahOCibuddhxts ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:00:46 -0400 From: burris Subject: VOIP Question What happens to the telephone numbers that were ported if a VOIP provider goes out of business? Do they have to notify customers and allow them to switch carriers? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well I can tell you AT&T would be very derelict if they failed to hustle these new (and probably old, very long time ago) customers. I do know that in the case of Prairie Stream Telecom, when that company went out of business, Southwestern Bell (or by that point in time, AT&T) sent lots -- and I mean a lot -- of junk mail out inviting all of us to rejoin the fold once again, and telling us they would be 'so pleased' to welcome us back. So pleased, in fact, that they would give us each fifty dollar VISA gift cards to show their pleasure. Prairie Stream recommended Sage as their replacement so I took them instead of going back to the 'new' AT&T. I am sure the VOIP provider has to tell other carriers so the other carriers can try and pitch to the left over customers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:00:22 +0100 Organization: Things I did not know at first I learned by doing twice. Jeremy Morton writes: > I'm in the UK. [...] The extension plug is an RJ14, but the > splitter's socket is an RJ11 (2 pins instead of 4). [...] But > here's the weird thing -- the ADSL connection works fine when the > modem's plugged into the upstairs socket. Are you sure that's actually a splitter, not a microfilter? It sounds from your description like the upstairs socket was installed for ADSL use with a microfilter on the master socket -- an arrangement that was pretty common in the early days of BT ADSL. Some models of microfilter do look very similar to regular splitters, except that they have an RJ11 for the ADSL modem rather than a normal BS6312 phone socket. Adam Sampson ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 21:19:23 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The two extra pins are superflous when > you have only one phone line; but the catch is _which_ two pins are > missing. I can only speak about USA-style phones here, but normally, > the first and fourth pins are used for line 2, while pins two and > three are used for line 1 on USA installations. The easiest solution > might be to get a second RJ14 for the splitter's socket, and make it > identical to the downstairs arrangement. PAT] Picking up on Pat's suggestion: Suppose the wrong pair is connected. ADSL signals are radio-frequency and will couple capacitively from one wire to the next, without a direct electrical connection. That's why, if you have a 2-pair cable, you can probably get away with connecting ADSL to one pair and the telephone line to the other. I haven't tried it, but in theory, it should work. ------------------------------ From: David Quinton Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 08:12:47 +0100 On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:16:22 GMT, Jeremy Morton wrote: > I'm in the UK. We have a master phone socket downstairs, and an > upstairs extension that taps into the main socket by the use of a > splitter plugged into the main socket. The extension plug is an RJ14, > but the splitter's socket is an RJ11 (2 pins instead of 4). > On the downstairs socket, we can use a phone, yet on the upstairs one, > we can't -- we just get no dialtone. But here's the weird thing -- > the ADSL connection works fine when the modem's plugged into the > upstairs socket. Any ideas why that might be? I thought the extra > two pins on the RJ14 were superfluous when you only have one phone > line. Sounds to me like it's not a normal splitter, but it's your ADSL filter. Use filter on your main socket and ensure that any telephone extensions come out of the Phone part of the splitter. Locate your Mobile phone: Great gifts: ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:47:11 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com How much do people pay for their wireless handsets? Why? I got mine (original and replacement) for free. They weren't the newest or fanciest models, but they certainly served their purposes. My new one does a lot more than I expected it to. At retail, including carrier-owned stores and kiosks, most handsets seem to be for sale, not for free with plenty of buyers. At Verizon stores, all were for sale, though on the Internet they had free promotions. At Cingular, they had some for free as part of a promotion. Some of the handsets weren't cheap, like around $50. I think the new iphone has some neat features, though I'm not sure if its tiny screen will have much utility in reading stuff without either strong eyeglasses or extensively scrolling. However, I can't imagine it offers that much utilty so that people will pay hundreds of dollars for the phone plus a great deal more every month for the various services to make use of it. [But what do I know? The mayor of Philadelphia was in line at 3 a.m. to get his unit. He says it helps his productivity and will be better than his Blackberry. He got criticized for wasting time in line, but said he was still productive.] ------------------------------ From: pattyjamas@hotmail.com Subject: Re: iPhone. I Really Want to Like it and Get it But ... Quick Analysis Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:28:26 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jul 1, 5:24 pm, pattyja...@hotmail.com wrote: > I am sure everyone knows the below. Like to see if others feel the > same way or perhaps correct some issues or errors in my comments on > iPhone > -Hard to type without hitting wrong keys. Will take > practice. I doubt you could be a fast typer. > -Must press hard on screen at times. > -No multitasking in apps that I saw. You use one at a time. I do not > think you could download a YouTube video (dumb example) while browsing > the Internet or using the calculator. But then again I had limited > time to play with the phone. However of course if a call comes in, > then you can answer the call. > -Internet Web browser via Edge network very very slow which would turn > me off immediately. Perhaps next version will use HSPDA network like > Cingular 8525 at 1/2 the price. > -Data Plan is $20 on top of voice plan regardless of what the ads > say. More than $20 if you are a big text message person (more than > 200/month) > -No dialing by voice but perhaps it might work if you have Bluetooth > set. You can get voice dialing if you use their network to store your > phone numbers and then pay and extra $5 a month. Comments??? > -As you all know, you cannot get insurance on the phone from ATT. > Still pretty cool. > Sincerely > Patty This has the best source of raw info. Did not check accuracy. http://www.gearlog.com/2007/06/handson_with_the_iphone_raw_te.php Patty ------------------------------ From: BikingBill Subject: Re: Product Review: Should You Buy an iPhone? Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 05:39:28 -0000 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hey, here's a great iPhone game called iWhack where you get to "hammer home" the success of iPhone by whacking Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO and iPhone critic) every time he pops up on the screen. http://fun4iPhone.com More fun to come! Bill ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Rain, Rain Everywhere Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 15:53:43 -0400 In article , ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu says: > A couple weeks ago, I mentioned 'when it rains, it pours' in discussing > my personal financial crises, but this time around, it has more to do > with the actual _weather_ in our town. > Last week we had several days of hard, heavy rain. Over this past > weekend we did not need _more rain_ but we got it anyway. Some of > you probably have read in your newspapers (or heard on television or > whatever) about the very heavy rains throughout the south and > southern midwest. The weather service began warning us on Friday to > expect a lot more rain before it was all over, and indeed we got > (are still getting) it. Because our town is mostly in a valley > (although large parts of it are on a hill within that valley) we are > pretty safe from tornados, but not all that safe from high water and > floods. Our neighbors to the south, Coffeyville, KS got flooded > worse than we did here, so far, that is, with about half their town > under deep water and the rest of it under an inch or so. About 3000 > of the residents of Coffeyville had to be evacuated as a result. > Here in Independence, we have not as of yet been that > 'fortunate'. Some of our streets, in lower-laying areas of town > have been closed, for blocks or so at a time; the most notable > examples being Second Street from Locust Street north to the Water > Works, although the houses along there seem to be doing okay; Park > Blvd (Third Street) closed from Locust north to Ash Street (a > distance of several blocks past the baseball diamond; Penn Street > where the viaduct goes under the railroad tracks north side of town, > 10th Street from City Limits south to near Dearing, Kansas, most of > 19th Street with its railroad tracks in that low-lying area. The > town of Neodesha, KS got clobbered pretty badly from the rain also. > One oddity, IMO is that the water works in Coffeyville and Neodesha > are still operating; our water supply here in Independence is off > for the 'duration'; they just now said on television it is back on, > but undrinkable without boiling first. When I just now tested it, it > is on, but just a trickle; I'll give it a coulpe more hours to build > up the pressure. Well, that's life in our town for this week! PAT Last summer we got quite a bit of rain here in the northeast. Now we're not getting enough. But do recall seeing the Woonasquatucket river overflowing it's banks last year. Now there's barely six inches of water. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that is a bummer. Ditto here; a small creek or tributary of the Vergidris River last summer was mostly all dried up. That same creek this year has overflowed and completely flooded South Tenth Street from the south city limits (where it normally flows docially under a bridge crossing the creek at that point) to a mile south of that point. Since South Tenth Street at that point is also Highway 75, police on the south side of the flooded area are sending everyone down past the college to Seventeenth Street and up to Poplar Street then back east to Tenth. We cannot even manage to get a _good flood_ here it seems! Just here and there around town a few viaducts and bridge crossings are out, always on well-traveled streets, with police sending everyone who approaches the area off on a trip through other streets in the area. South of where my mother lives in the old people's home on Penn Street, one block of Penn is blocked off with a sign announcing 'Danger! High water ahead' and (since from there south is outside the city limits) on the east side of the street a fellow who has a half dozen cows and horses and pigs temporarily evacuated for the animal's safety has a rowboat and is out on his new 'lake' looking around. Cars coming down Penn Street see the sign, and with disgust turn east and go down Edison Street instead. The nearby farmers (outside the city limits of course since _we_ do not allow farming inside the city) have mostly evacuated their animals over to east of town on Cement Street near the big pastures over there. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #188 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 4 15:22:08 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 28B2521A1; Wed, 4 Jul 2007 15:22:07 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #189 Message-Id: <20070704192208.28B2521A1@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 15:22:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 4 Jul 2007 15:25:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 189 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Jersey Says 141 Sex Offenders Use My Space (Jon Hurdle, Reuters) Hackers Working to Unlock iPhone (Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service) Re: PBX For Home (William Warren) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (mc) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery (Paul Coxwell) Re: Rain, Rain Everywhere (T) Re: VOIP Question (Sam Spade) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:58:17 -0500 From: Jon Hurdle, Reuters Subject: New Jersey Says 141 Sex Offenders Use My Space By Jon Hurdle More than 140 sex offenders convicted in New Jersey had profiles on the networking Web site MySpace, the state's attorney general said on Tuesday. New Jersey is among several states leading the way in working with MySpace to curb online sexual predators. Of the 141 sex offenders identified as having been active on MySpace, 80 were found to be on parole or probation, and officials are working to determine if those individuals violated the terms of their sentences, said David Wald, a spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram. The identified individuals may now be subject to tougher prohibitions against using the Internet, Wald said. Those identified are among a national total of about 7,000 registered sex offenders whose names were deleted and handed over by Fox Interactive Media, the owner of MySpace, to law enforcement authorities in all 50 states in late May. "We have proof in hand to confirm the worst fears of New Jersey's concerned parents and educators: that sex offenders are active on Web sites used by children and educators," Milgram said in a statement. Milgram called the information provided by MySpace a first step and warned that other sexual offenders may still be surfing the Internet. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in seven American children between the ages of 10 and 17 is sexually solicited online. Officials are now working with MySpace to determine whether the identified sex offenders solicited any children for sex while active on the Web site. To protect children from sexual predators, Milgram urged parents to keep computers in common areas of the house rather than in a child's bedroom, to monitor the Web sites they visit, and to warn children about the dangers of sexual predators. 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: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 21:56:41 -0500 From: Sumner Lemon, IDG News Subject: Hackers Working to Unlock iPhone by Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service Efforts to unlock Apple Inc.'s iPhone continued on Monday, with hackers claiming "very significant progress." The locked iPhone only works with AT&T Inc.'s EDGE network, and cannot be used with cellular service from other providers. Locked phones are generally used to help operators recoup the cost of subsidizing handsets for their customers, but AT&T is not subsidizing the iPhone, which is priced at either US$499 or $599, depending on the model. Instead, the phone is locked because AT&T has a five-year agreement with Apple to be the sole iPhone provider in the U.S. Unlocking the iPhone would be a boon for users locked into a contract with another U.S. carrier, or for users outside the U.S. who want an iPhone. While initial signs indicate an unlocked iPhone is possible, hackers must first overcome several challenges. One of those involves circumventing the authentication process in iTunes that both lets users register for an AT&T service plan and turn on the phone's features, including its camera and music player. By Monday evening, U.S. time, hackers had made headway towards circumventing the activation process. But the phone remained locked at the time of writing. "We have been fairly successful in spoofing iTunes activation processes. This should allow us to activate the phone," poster gj wrote on the iPhone Dev Wiki, one of several Web sites tracking efforts to unlock the phone. "It may in fact also prevent the SIM locking from occurring in the first place ... though we haven't verified this yet." These advances allowed hackers to set and read data on the iPhone, including the ability to query whether a phone has been activated. "The rest of our work is legwork really, in understanding how certain functions operate with the rest of the phone," the site said, adding hackers are close to the ability to browse system files on the iPhone, a key step towards unlocking the handset. Once the activation problem has been overcome, hackers will be faced with other questions. For instance, does iTunes have the ability to recognize a phone that was not activated for use with the AT&T network? If so, how will iTunes react? After these questions are resolved, hackers can focus on unlocking the handset itself. That task is made easier by the iPhone's use of a removable SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), a smart card that contains a user's phone number as well as storage space for contacts and messages, instead of one that was hardwired into the phone. The use of a removable SIM card means the iPhone is locked using its firmware, which can likely be cracked. While hackers race ahead to unlock the iPhone as quickly as possible, iPhone Dev Wiki poster gj criticized those hackers competing against each other to unlock the phone, saying the lack of cooperation had slowed progress. "I can't emphasize enough how much this s*** stinks. Trust me, your ego is not as important as you think it is. If everyone worked together we would have been done by now, but instead we have a******* all over the world trying to 'beat us to the punch,'" the poster wrote. Copyright 2007 PC World Communications, Inc. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 22:44:48 -0400 From: William Warren Subject: Re: PBX For Home alextingle@gmail.com wrote: > Hi, thanks for answering my question: > I want to install a PBX system (landline) in my home. I've heard, > from sellers/installers, that you must have an individual wire from > each jack going to where the phone line comes in (i.e. a different > wire from each jack to one central location -- where the PBX would > plug in). Before I order a system, I want to make sure that I have > the proper wiring. I do not want to re-wire my home. > 1) How do I check if I have this wiring in my home? Go to the "Demarcation point", which is where the phone wire from the outside pole comes into your home. If you see a separate pair of wires attached there for each phone in your home, the chances are you already have "Home run" wiring. If you have five phones, but less than five pairs of wire at the demarcation point, then you're going to have to do some work. This is not a 100% perfect test, but it's a good place to start. > 2) Most sellers say that if I do have this wiring, the Merlin Legend > or Magix system is the only way to go. Are there any other Avaya/ > Lucent/even Nortel systems that would work? What wiring? Do you mean daisy-chained wiring, or a separate line for each phone? > 3) Is the Merlin Legend/Magix the best bet for a home PBX? You'll have to answer the question of "what PBX features do you find essential?" before you can make an informed purchase. First, ask yourself "What am I trying to accomplish?", and make a list of the things you want the machine to do for you. For example, do you have someone at home with limited mobility? Are some household members working off-hour shifts? Do you have a need to audit either cost or time on calls? Do you require the ability to shunt all calls to voice mail without audible ringing? Do you want wake-up or other notification features? Once you have a better picture of the system that you want, _then_ you can ask "Which one is best?". Start with this list: 1. Can use Category three wiring, the kind in most homes 2. Maintenance available from local firm 3. Major manufacturer 4. Paging, music-on-hold, other features 5. Reasonable cost 6. Ease of use and ease of programming 7. Good used market (check Ebay, other sites) 8. Compatible with existing instruments When you've decided what features are "Must have" and which are "nice, but not essential", you'll be ready to look at the available systems. HTH. YMMV. William (Filter noise from my address for direct replies) ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 17:54:04 -0400 > Sounds to me like it's not a normal splitter, but it's your ADSL > filter. Bingo. I concur. Some ADSL filters look like splitters, with one socket for the DSL and the other for the phone. A phone may work if connected to the DSL output, but DSL won't work if connected to the phone output. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 09:33:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery > I'm in the UK. We have a master phone socket downstairs, and an > upstairs extension that taps into the main socket by the use of a > splitter plugged into the main socket. The extension plug is an RJ14, > but the splitter's socket is an RJ11 (2 pins instead of 4). > On the downstairs socket, we can use a phone, yet on the upstairs one, > we can't -- we just get no dialtone. But here's the weird thing -- > the ADSL connection works fine when the modem's plugged into the > upstairs socket. Any ideas why that might be? I thought the extra > two pins on the RJ14 were superfluous when you only have one phone > line. I'm not excatly clear about your reference to the extension plug being RJ14. Do you mean the plug which fits into the master jack to feed the splitter and extension? That's not an RJ-anything configuration. The standard British BT431 plug is 4-conductor with the line on the OUTER pair of contacts. One of the inner contacts is also the bell feed (capacitor in the jack), which may or may not be used by the telephone depending upon its design/origin. Are you sure you have the wiring connected correctly at the extension jack? Standard coding for a basic line is blue/white on 2, orange/white on 3, white/blue on 5. The DSL modem could be getting enough signal to operate by capacitive coupling in the cable run, or if the connections are incorrect you might even have it connected to the line via the 1.8uF ringing capacitor in the master jack. Paul ------------------------------ From: T Subject: Re: Rain, Rain Everywhere Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 19:39:23 -0400 In article , nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net says: > Last summer we got quite a bit of rain here in the northeast. Now > we're not getting enough. > But do recall seeing the Woonasquatucket river overflowing it's banks > last year. Now there's barely six inches of water. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that is a bummer. Ditto here; a > small creek or tributary of the Vergidris River last summer was mostly > all dried up. That same creek this year has overflowed and completely > flooded South Tenth Street from the south city limits (where it > normally flows docially under a bridge crossing the creek at that > point) to a mile south of that point. Since South Tenth Street at that > point is also Highway 75, police on the south side of the flooded area > are sending everyone down past the college to Seventeenth Street and > up to Poplar Street then back east to Tenth. We cannot even manage to > get a _good flood_ here it seems! Just here and there around town a > few viaducts and bridge crossings are out, always on well-traveled > streets, with police sending everyone who approaches the area off on > a trip through other streets in the area. South of where my mother > lives in the old people's home on Penn Street, one block of Penn is > blocked off with a sign announcing 'Danger! High water ahead' and > (since from there south is outside the city limits) on the east side > of the street a fellow who has a half dozen cows and horses and pigs > temporarily evacuated for the animal's safety has a rowboat and is out > on his new 'lake' looking around. Cars coming down Penn Street see the > sign, and with disgust turn east and go down Edison Street instead. > The nearby farmers (outside the city limits of course since _we_ do > not allow farming inside the city) have mostly evacuated their animals > over to east of town on Cement Street near the big pastures over > there. PAT] I also remember that back in the early 80's I worked at the NHD (National Hardgoods Distributors) store on Branch Ave. in Providence, RI. Part of the West River runs behind the store and that used to flood on a regular basis. Still does so far as I can tell. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Today is 4th of July, a holiday here in USA, and we are _still_ under a 'boil order' on our drinking water, which the city says will be lifted tomorrow (Thursday) as long as 'all goes well' with our city water pump, etc. City had threatened to shut off the water everywhere on Sunday because the floods had caused some disturbances around the water works. They actually wound up having to shut down at 3 AM Monday morning until later in the day while one of the pumps which had gotten damaged was replaced. When the water came back on around 4 PM on Monday, cable-TV announced it of course with police asking everyone to please ration their water use; toilet flushing was okay, but no showers or baths, no ice cubes made from after water came back on, and boil order was in effect, which police explained over and over and over on cable-TV for the rest of the day and Tuesday as well. Red Cross set up two shelters with lots of drinking water for whoever wanted it. Apparently a few people got severe water damage in their homes which were in the vicinity of the Verdigris River both here and also in Coffeyville. Verdigris has crested both here and in C'ville, (about 15 feet over normal level) and it would appear C'ville got the worst of it; the oil refinery there had some leaking underground pipes and that caused C'ville's Verdigris overflow to leave _them_ with a lot of oily goo in otherwise filthy water. We did not get it _that bad_ here in Independence; only a few places had any substantial amount of water overflow, mainly where the river and the water works adjoined a few houses and south of the city where the creek (off of Verdigris runs usually bone dry) and other 'low spots' in town. For us here in Independence, it was more of a 'nuisance' (street detours, etc) instead of a 'disaster' as it was for many folks in Coffeyville, and South Coffeyville, OK. And Fredonia, Kansas and Neodesha, Kansas were pretty much flooded out as well. Anyway, it now looks like tomorrow we will get rid of the 'water boil' order here in Independence at least and FEMA will be in town to inspect the damage done to the few houses needing repairs and washing, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sam Spade Subject: Re: VOIP Question Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:28:13 -0700 Organization: Cox burris wrote: > What happens to the telephone numbers that were ported if a VOIP > provider goes out of business? > Do they have to notify customers and allow them to switch carriers? I've already heard some horror stories about trying to move a number out of a VOIP that is in business. Someone here probably knows the details better than I do, but it is seems to have to do with your number being assigned to a third-party when you ported it to the VOIP carrier. This is different than when you port to a wireline or wireless carrier. I would never port a "treasured" number to a VOIP carrier. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither would I, if the number meant anything to me. The only number I care about is my (dial 9) for an outside line, which relates to something special for me, and it has traveled with me from Southwestern Bell through Prairie Stream and on to Sage, my present carrier. My VOID line on Vonage at present, (or dial 8 for long distance) is a number out of Winfield, KS (620-402-0134) and Chicago-area (773-353-5067) is the number used for incoming calls to this Digest, but I don't care that much about keeping that specific number if I give up Vonage, which I may, when Cable One comes through with phone service, as expected around the end of July. Cable One will be VOIP also, and the 'ATA part' will be a modem-based connection. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #189 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 5 14:15:47 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 2B44B217F; Thu, 5 Jul 2007 14:15:46 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: 'TELECOM Digest V26 #190 Message-Id: <20070705181547.2B44B217F@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 14:15:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 5 Jul 2007 14:18:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 190 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 'DVD Jon' Cracks iPhone Activation (Jennifer LeClaire, News Factor) Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates (Deborah Yao, AP) Desk Fax (Ron Kerber) Rogers Finalizes Cable, Wireless Subsidiary (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (Jeremy Morton) Why Can't Bell Put Last Number Called (*69) Service on My Lines? (Some Guy) Re: PBX For Home (William Warren) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 11:59:43 -0500 From: Jennifer LeClaire, NewsFactor Subject: 'DVD Jon' Cracks iPhone Activation by Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Hacker Jon Lech Johansen, known widely as "DVD Jon," has cracked Apple's iPhone activation, or so he claims, meaning that iPhone buyers will be able to activate and use the new handset without having to commit to an AT&T wireless contract. Johansen announced his feat in a blog post entitled "iPhone Independence Day." The Norwegian cracker initially made a name for himself eight years ago when he cracked the encryption code on DVDs. And last year, he cracked the digital rights management code that prevents iPod users from playing songs purchased from competing online music stores. In his latest effort, DVD Jon has detailed a Windows workaround that he claimed will allow the iPhone to be used as a widescreen iPod and Internet communicator. The cracked iPhone cannot be used to make calls. "I've found a way to activate a brand new unactivated iPhone without giving any of your money or personal information to AT&T," Johansen wrote on his "So sue me" blog. "The iPhone does not have phone capability, but the iPod and Wi-Fi work." Foiled Again! DVD Jon offered a link to download the patch. Dubbed "Phone Activation Server v1.0," the patch requires users to have Microsoft .NET 2.0, which is freely available as a download from Microsoft. Those commenting on Johansen's "So sue me" blog said they were duly impressed with his cracking abilities. Some expressed hope for a Mac version. Others wanted to know whether they could use the patch to activate an inactive iPhone today and later still be allowed to activate it with AT&T later. A poster named "Jon (not the author of the blog)," shared another way to activate the iPhone surreptitiously. "If you know someone who has already activated their iPhone, borrow their SIM. Insert the SIM in the nonactivated iPhone. Then cradle the new iPhone in the dock with iTunes," he wrote on the "So sue me" blog. The promised result? Apple's iTunes quickly activates the new phone with AT&T. In this scenario, the iPhone requests to be activated even though the account is already active. This seems to be a way to get two phones activated for the price of one, but this second Jon said he is uncertain as to whether the first device would lose its activation. The sentiment among the cracking community is that it won't be long before iPhone users can port their service over to their carrier of choice, effectively leaving AT&T out of the loop despite a five-year exclusive contract with Apple. What's Next? With so much attention drawn to the iPhone, analysts are not surprised that such stories are quickly emerging. "There is an opportunity for people to do proof of concepts, not for viruses necessarily, but to show security weaknesses or things that could be exploited for whatever means," said Ken Dunham, senior engineer and director of the rapid response team at VeriSign iDefense. Dunham said he doesn't expect DVD Jon's escapades to do much damage to the iPhone's chances for success, or even to AT&T's contracts. He predicted that people will figure out how to port the iPhone to another service, but noted that most will continue to use AT&T. What hacks like this do, though, is erode consumer confidence, he explained. "Consumers didn't think much about security in the past, but today what we see is that consumers are thinking about security frequently," he said. "They just aren't sure what to do about it." Copyright 2007 NewsFactor Network, 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: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:03:00 -0500 From: Deborah Yao, AP Subject: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates By DEBORAH YAO, AP Business Writer Cable companies are planning to charge more for set-top boxes to help pay for new, more expensive versions mandated by the Federal Communications Commission. They say the price increases are a result of the government's push to spur competition for the boxes, which are required to receive digital programming and change channels. It's not yet clear how much the charges will rise. The FCC has been trying for nearly a decade to open up the set-top market so subscribers actually buy their own and then use a cable-company-provided card to decode their programming. The retail market for the boxes, however, has largely failed to materialize and millions of consumers still rent the boxes from their cable company. As of July 1, cable companies were required by the FCC to start shipping the new set-top boxes with detachable cable cards. The companies have lobbied against the rule, saying the new boxes are more expensive. Consumer groups say it's yet another excuse for cable companies to raise rates. And higher rates are definitely coming. Cable industry officials said even consumers using the older set-tops will likely be hit if the cable company decides to spread the cost to all box renters. Cable operators won't yet say exactly how much more consumers will pay to rent set-top boxes. It's also unclear whether the fee increases will apply to cable cards. Both cable trade groups have said consumers would see $2 to $3 more in monthly rental rates for the new boxes, but that doesn't take into account spreading the cost out to all box-renters. Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable operator with 24 million video subscribers, is planning to spread out the cost of the new boxes among all cable box renters. The FCC cable card requirement "amounts to an FCC tax of hundreds of millions of dollars on consumers," Comcast said in a statement. Time Warner Cable Inc. spokesman Alex Dudley said the company agrees with the cable industry's stance that the FCC cable card rule is a "tax" on consumers. New York-based Time Warner is the second-largest cable company with 13 million video subscribers. The FCC has said that it's time for cable operators to comply with the law, especially since the industry had already been granted extensions. The American Cable Association, which represents 1,100 smaller cable operators, said their members will be charging more for set-top box rentals. "It's guaranteed," said Ross Lieberman, vice president of government affairs for the trade group. "We can't absorb this cost. This rate will be passed along to consumers." He said the increases would likely come when cable operators typically raise rates: in early January after an announcement in late December. The cable industry is upset that the FCC on Friday denied its petition for a blanket exemption to the cable card mandate and yet granted a temporary one to Verizon Communications Inc. New York-based Verizon is rolling out its fiber-optic television, phone and Internet service. The FCC said Verizon provides needed competition against cable. The agency also gave waivers to several other video providers, including those that roll out all-digital systems by Feb. 17, 2009. "The commission's 11th-hour action on the many long-standing waiver requests doesn't bode well for consumers," said Rob Stoddard, a spokesman for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association in Washington. "There's nothing in these decisions to stave off a $600 million set-top box tax likely to affect the great majority of cable customers while providing no benefit to consumers." But Chris Murray, senior counsel at Consumers Union in Washington, said it's convenient for cable companies to blame regulators when they've stalled about complying with the FCC rule for years. Cable operators also have had no problem raising rates regularly for various reasons. "They raise rates three times faster than inflation every year, for more than a decade," he said. "Cable companies want to have absolute control. We don't think they should have it." 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: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 20:26:09 PDT From: Ron Kerber Subject: Desk Fax Hi, I worked for Western Union in the early 1970s (1973)?, one of my first jobs outside the shop was removing a desk fax system from Continental Can Co in Teterboro, NJ. I was told by the manager it was the last one in the state of New Jersey. FYI Ron c5b4u2@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 11:56:09 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Rogers Finalizes Cable, Wireless Subsidiary Integration USTelecom dailyLead July 5, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hqoofDtusXvdqTCibuddjINc TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Rogers finalizes cable, wireless subsidiary integration BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Alcatel-Lucent lands optical-network contract from Hanaro Telecom * Judge greenlights Amp'd Mobile-Verizon Wireless deal * Apple reportedly plans slow iPhone launch in Europe * Qwest, Comcast come to an accord over Internet-speed ads * Cable companies to pass along cost of new set-top boxes TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Energy management could be killer app of home automation * Study: Nearly half of U.S. adults have broadband access * TV ads to air on U.K. mobiles IP DOWNLOAD * VoIP provider cuts back on staff * Web-based video gives advertisers new formats REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Telefonica fined for anti-competitive pricing Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hqoofDtusXvdqTCibuddjINc ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Morton Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:36:20 GMT Organization: Virgin Net Usenet Service Adam Sampson wrote: > Jeremy Morton writes: >> I'm in the UK. [...] The extension plug is an RJ14, but the >> splitter's socket is an RJ11 (2 pins instead of 4). [...] But >> here's the weird thing -- the ADSL connection works fine when the >> modem's plugged into the upstairs socket. > Are you sure that's actually a splitter, not a microfilter? It sounds > from your description like the upstairs socket was installed for ADSL > use with a microfilter on the master socket -- an arrangement that was > pretty common in the early days of BT ADSL. Some models of microfilter > do look very similar to regular splitters, except that they have an > RJ11 for the ADSL modem rather than a normal BS6312 phone socket. I am sure that it's actually a splitter, not a microfilter. I bought it myself, as a replacement for the last part (that looked identical), which physically broke. :-) The 'splitter' in question is here: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=12815&doy=2m7#overview Now, they call it a telephone/model double adaptor. Presumably the non-BT style socket (the 'top' one) is meant to be for a modem. Here's the thing -- after looking at documentation, I can't tell why. As I said, it seems that only two connectors are needed for a fully functional phone line. They're called the 'A' and 'B' connections, according to this site: http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html The extra two are apparently superfluous, and are usually connected to look 'neat and tidy'... ? However, I distinctly remember the last splitter (looked identical to the one I linked above except it was broken) had four pins in the 'top' connector, whereas, as you can see from the picture, this one only has 2. Shouldn't make a difference, but I came to you guys to check. If the extra two do, why do they? It's definitely a splitter, not a microfilter... and it's connected directly to the master socket. Trouble with getting such splitters as RJ14s (4 pins) instead of RJ11s (2 pins) is they're damn-near impossible to find. In the form-factor I need, anyway. And I don't want to buy one unless someone can explain to me why the 4 pins are needed. Any help appreciated. Best regards, Jeremy Morton (Jez) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I personally do not think all four pins are needed; just two pins, but their placement in the little slots are critical. Again, to use the USA illustration, I see a lot of answering machines and other devices available with just two pins, but the two pins provided are the two _center_ pins. You'd think that as inexpensive as phone cords and sockets are; the manufacturers would just make them all with four pins, but 'they' say they are afraid the end user will plug it in 'incorrectly' or get the second phone line activated 'in error', etc. So, they prefer to sell those devices to an unsuspecting public and include a note saying 'this will only work on the first line', or words to that effect. By the way, I do not recall you saying you did or did not hear 'battery' on the upstairs phone or not, as though it was only the filter blocking out the dial tone from reaching you, or if the upstairs phone was totally DEAD (which means the pin outs are out of order up there. I have rebuilt a two-pin plug so that the two _required_ pins terminated in the center (openings) but that is a terrible pain to do; believe me, I would just go to Radio Shack and buy a new 4-pin piece in the future. That is why I suggested to you, based on what I knew at the time, to simply buy a new one and plug it in instead. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Some Guy Subject: Re: Why Can't Bell Put Last Number Called (*69) Service on My Lines? Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 19:08:12 -0400 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Geoffrey Welsh wrote: >> Is there a phone / telecom specific web forum or usenet group? > I'd recommend comp.dcom.telecom; there are some very experienced > and knowledgeable people in that forum. >> Can anyone here verify that Bell is technically not capable of >> activating or making the *69 function work on POTS lines because >> of roll-over configuration? > Telecom is part of my job, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with > the combination of POTS lines, hunt groups, and *69 to give you an > authoritative answer, but I'd guess that the problem would be > trying to associate the correct last incoming call with the line > in question... As you may discover as you read on, you are several posts behind in this thread. But there isin't a lot of new information. What is not explainable is why the *69 function can't work on the first line of the hunt group since calls made to it are not "rolled-over" from another other line. Also I don't see how call-display information can work on lines configured as part of a hunt group if *69 can't. Yet Bell has confirmed that I can order call display ($11 / line / month) on each of the 4 lines (which is not worth it). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: *69 probably _would_ work for calls which (you were certain) had arrived on the first line. But what about the time when a call arrived on a roll over line because line one was busy? If you are sitting there to watch the calls arrive, then of course you would see if it was on the first line or not. But most people use *69 to retrieve calls they missed when they were away from home (or at least away from the phone). They wonder 'who called me when I heard the phone ring a few minutes ago' and use *69 to find out. I suppose you could get *69 installed on each line and *69 on _each line_ would retrieve the last call _on that line_ but again, what if you were wrong about the line the call came in on? Now with caller-ID (which will not usually work at the _phone company level_ if *69 will not work at the _phone company level_) you can do as telco suggested, and equip each line with a caller-ID box) if you think it is worth your money. Or, a better solution to this would be to get a 'multi-line' caller-ID box from someone like Mike Sandman http://www.sandman.com and use it instead. His multi-line caller-ID boxes absorb the first ring (in order to display caller-ID between first and second rings) and display the _line_ the call came in on plus the usual details. Still though, that would not work with *69 service, unless, maybe, you get from him one of the devices which locks the 'call return' telephone on the line of the last arriving call, so that *69 would _truly_ go out on the specific line in question. In either of those instances, however, caller-ID or *69, the next incoming call is going to 'wipe the slate clean' and present the 'latest' information, and in either of those cases, you would need 4 x the feature, i.e. 4 times on *69 or 4 times on caller-ID. Mike Sandman may know better answers on this; his office phone is 630-980-7710. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:23:09 -0400 From: William Warren Subject: Re: PBX For Home NOT FOR PUBLICATION Pat, alextingle@gmail.com wrote: > Hi, thanks for answering my question: [snip] Go to the "Demarcation point", which is where the phone wire from the outside pole comes into your home. [snip] William (Filter noise from my address for direct replies) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #190 ******************************* From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 6 18:59:05 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id F4077228D; Fri, 6 Jul 2007 18:59:04 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #191 Message-Id: <20070706225904.F4077228D@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 18:59:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 6 Jul 2007 19:01:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 191 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Macintouch iPhone Review (Monty Solomon) An iPhone Changed My Life (Briefly) (Monty Solomon) Optimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone (Monty Solomon) IPhone-Free Cellphone News (Monty Solomon) Extensive, Technical, Article About the Greek Phone Taps (Danny Burstein) Verizon FTTH Subscribers Top One Million (USTelecom dailyLead) BSNL, India's Telecom Giant Provide Location-Based Services (naveenjain12) Proof Payphones Are Completely Obsolete? (John Mayson) Re: "All the President's Men" (Still More Movie Phone Trivial) (L Hancock) Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates (William Warren) Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates (Bill W1AC) Re: Rain, Rain Everywhere (Bill W1AC) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (David Quinton) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) (Dave Garland) Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery (Paul Coxwell) Re: VOIP Question (Mr Joseph Singer) Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? (Mr Joseph Singer) Announcement: Ceasing Publication (Angus TeleManagement Group) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 11:07:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Macintouch iPhone Review By Robert Mohns Introduction Starting up Features Security Pricing International Conclusions Pros and Cons Links Document History http://www.macintouch.com/iphone/review.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 11:07:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: An iPhone Changed My Life (Briefly) Cyberfamilias By MICHELLE SLATALLA The New York Times WHEN I took my iPhone out of the box on Friday to prove to my children that we were the first family on the block with one, I had a glimpse of what life will be like after I'm dead and they're fighting over my jewelry. "Can I have it?" asked Ella, 16. "I'm the oldest," said Zoe, 18. "I'm the only one who doesn't already have a cellphone," said Clementine, 9. "You shouldn't keep it for yourself, because you hate cellphones and don't even answer the one you have," Ella said. "You will neglect it and won't use all the features. Give it to someone who will appreciate it. Me." "Me," Zoe said. "Me," Clem said. I looked at my offspring -- so eager, so easily manipulated by the hype surrounding a shiny new gadget that could perform some but not all of the same functions as the gadgets they already owned - and wondered if the situation presented an opportunity to do far more than simply lord it over the neighbors. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/fashion/05Cyber.html?ex=1341288000&en=ec96f3806e3e1f8e&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 11:08:27 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Optimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 11:56:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: IPhone-Free Cellphone News State of the Art IPhone-Free Cellphone News By DAVID POGUE The New York Times Man, oh man. How'd you like to have been a PR person making a cellphone announcement last week, just as the iPhone storm struck? You'd have had all the impact of a gnat in a hurricane. But hard to believe though it may be, T-Mobile did make an announcement last week. And even harder to believe, its new product may be as game-changing as Apple's. It's called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home, and it's absolutely ingenious. It could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and yet enrich T-Mobile at the same time. In the cellphone world, win-win plays like that are extremely rare. Here's the basic idea. If you're willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you're out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual. But when it's in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always -- you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features -- but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves. These phones hand off your calls from Wi-Fi network to cell network seamlessly and automatically, without a single crackle or pop to punctuate the switch. As you walk out of a hot spot, fewer and fewer Wi-Fi signal bars appear on the screen, until -- blink! -- the T-Mobile network bars replace them. (The handoff as you move in the opposite direction, from the cell network into a hot spot, is also seamless, but takes slightly longer, about a minute.) O.K., but how often are you in a Wi-Fi hot spot? With this plan, about 14 hours a day. T-Mobile gives you a wireless router (transmitter) for your house -- also free, after a $50 rebate. Connect it to your high-speed Internet modem, and in about a minute, you've got a wireless home network. Your computer can use it to surf the Web wirelessly -- and now all of your home phone calls are free. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/technology/circuits/05pogue.html?ex=1341288000&en=39e3cc8226651f90&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 23:38:17 EDT From: Danny Burstein Subject: Extensive, Technical, Article About the Greek Phone Taps Summary: A couple of years ago some of the techies discovered that Vodafone's Greek cellular operations were being "wiretapped" to a very extensive degree. The "bad guys" used the Vodafone equivalent of a CALEA [a] entrance point, and took extremely good steps to cover their tracks. People that were bugged included the prime minister ... Lots and lots of info: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/5280 [a] CALEA = Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act It basically orders most telcos (and plenty of similar providers) to give law enforement types simple access and abilities to "wiretap" the users. (in quotes because it's not really wires anymore). ahhhhh Linkname: Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 12:44:12 CDT From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Verizon FTTH Subscribers Top One Million USTelecom dailyLead July 6, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hrcofDtusXvhcVCibuddSfMY TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Verizon FTTH subscribers top 1 million BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * AT&T's IPTV avoids need for FCC set-top-box waiver * Alcatel-Lucent partners to build national Russian WiMAX networks * Loss of jobs costs Motorola $101 million in second quarter * Clearwire borrows $1 billion to restructure debt * VimpelCom in talks to buy stake in Golden Telecom TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Nokia and Thomson join for 3G femto-cell agreement * LG, Verizon Wireless unveil Chocolate phone update IP DOWNLOAD * What you need to know about VoIP REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Michigan telecoms oppose proposed monthly fee on phone bills * Federal rule could lock out open source for "smart" radios Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hrcofDtusXvhcVCibuddSfMY ------------------------------ From: naveenjain12@gmail.com Subject: BSNL, India's Telecom Giant, First to Provide Location-Based Services Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:08:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Telenity's LBS Solution Soft Launched in BSNL Network -- location-based services (LBS) will be very useful for users. I saw the report at: http://theanalystmagazine.com/pr/801.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 12:08:59 -0500 From: John Mayson Subject: Proof Payphones are Completely Obsolete? Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007310151,00.html THE number's up for payphones as this picture of an ivy-covered BT callbox shows. The overgrown kiosk in the village of Compton Bishop, Somerset, still works but has clearly not been used for ages. You might as well use the bush telegraph. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: "All the President's Men" (still more movie phone trivial) Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:38:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Here's some additional telephone trivia from the movie. > As mentioned, in TV and films the dialing of a telephone can slow > down the pace. Often characters improperly "spun" the dial or > dialed fewer digits to speed up the scene. But in this movie they > purposely dialed deliberately as part of the drama. Indeed, they > not only dialed the full seven digit number, they also dialed the 9 > for the outside line and even paused waiting for the second dial > tone. This was when Redford was calling various CREEP officers to > track down money given to the Watergate burglars. There was a TV > set on in the background, adding to the scene. I took another look at the movie. While in some scenes they made a point of carefully dialing all digits necessary, even ten digits for toll calls, in other scenes they "spun the dial quickly" and dialed few digits to make a call to save screen time. They made extensive use of keysets (the six button kind) in the newsroom. All were black rotary. The line lamps lit up appropriately. Sometimes several people listened in to a conversation, and they showed Bernstein unscrewing the transmitter so that the other party wouldn't notice the listening in. They also correctly used the intercom button (far right) on the keyset for newsroom floor calls. One error, very common in movies _to this day_ was Redford using a single slot pay phone and the ding-ding sound when his coins dropped. Single slot pay phones eliminated that sound, but that's still heard today in productions. Redford used a phone booth which of course nowadays is a rarity. This booth was metal with a semi-modern sign on top. It had the old Bell System logo, but the word "phone" spelled out in lowercase letters in a modern style. It was a rotary single slot, with a red+white instruction code, which suggested the phone was equipped for TSP/TSPS and possibly 911. (Was basic 911 service available in 1972?) > The other notable aspect of this film was the _lack_ of computers and > other automated devices to help them in their research, all the things > we take for granted today. Redford had a _manual_ typewriter, as was > common for reporters in newsrooms in those years. Wire service came > over classic Teletypes operating at the princely speed of seven > characters per second. After typing their copy, it was edited by > hand, then sent to Linotype machine operators to set type. Almost everybody in the newsroom had a manual typewriter. These were large office grade and relatively modern machines for their day. They seemed to favor Olympia brand. Redford had an old tiny portable at home. There was a large fax machine in which they got a copy of another newspaper. In one scene they search through call slips at the Library of Congress. Today this could be done by computer instantly. In the old days, library books had a card in the back which was removed when someone checked out the book, and they wrote their name on that card. Some places used a code number instead of a name. But looking at the card would say who had the book before. In another scene Redford is on the floor searching through a pile of city phone books to find out about some person. Obviously today that would take but a second through the Internet and they'd get a lot more information about someone. For example, if someone was active in sports or in clubs, often there is a web reference to that activity, which could tell where someone went to school, etc. I was surprised at how freely people spoke to the reporters considering they were ordered not to and knew they were sitting on hot stuff that could come back and bite them on their butts. When I watch cop dramas, I'm surprised how much people tell cops without first calling their lawyer or just keeping their mouth shut. Cops have a way of intimidating people by their badge. But newspaper reporters have no badge, no authority. If a reporter asked me questions about myself or my employer I would never say a damn thing. They are not your friend "trying to help you" anymore than a cop is who says the same thing. I remember when the film "Absence of Malice" came out journalists were very offended but that movie was accurate in how journalists can be sloppy and hurt innocent people as a result. If I recall, W&B's efforts changed the face of political journalism into a more aggressive role. At that time they became big folk heros and lots of kids chose to study journalism as a result, causing a glut in the field. (Even then newspapers were shrinking with people getting laid off.) What is forgotten about Watergate is that a lot of young innocent people got dragged down and ruined by careless reporting or guilt by association. It is one thing to get the guilty, but our quest isn't so high and mighty that it's ok to sacrifice the innocent too along the way. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:15:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jul 5, 1:03 pm, Deborah Yao, AP wrote: > Cable companies are planning to charge more for set-top boxes to help > pay for new, more expensive versions mandated by the Federal > Communications Commission. They also are pushing more channels onto box-only reception, so consumers are forced to rent a box (not cheap) to get channels they used to deliver fine on coax. They advertised a box for "pennies a day". To me, that would mean at most 10 cents per day, or $3.00 a month. No. The charge was $30.00 a month, or a full _100_ pennies a day. To me that is disceptive advertising. We consumers either need aggressive consumer protection regulation or true real competition. The cable companies are fleecing all of us big time. (I'm also frustrated how they say they must pay for broadcast content, yet these so-called 'pay' channels are loaded with nothing but old reruns and a great many commercials. If they have commercials and so many of them, why is it necessary to 'pay' for them?) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:28:13 -0400 From: William Warren Subject: Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates Deborah Yao wrote: > By DEBORAH YAO, AP Business Writer > Cable companies are planning to charge more for set-top boxes to help > pay for new, more expensive versions mandated by the Federal > Communications Commission. > They say the price increases are a result of the government's push to > spur competition for the boxes, which are required to receive digital > programming and change channels. It's not yet clear how much the > charges will rise. [snip] That reminds me: does having a digital cable box mean that I'll be able to receive _all_ the digital channels on my analog TV, or are there exceptions? William (Filter noise from my address for direct replies) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Before long, _all_ analog TV sets will be useless; all broadcasters have been ordered to begin broadcasting in digital only sometime during 2009 (?). PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:29:26 -0400 From: Bill W1AC Subject: TELECOM Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates Deborah Yao wrote: > By DEBORAH YAO, AP Business Writer > Cable companies are planning to charge more for set-top boxes to help > pay for new, more expensive versions mandated by the Federal > Communications Commission. > They say the price increases are a result of the government's push to > spur competition for the boxes, which are required to receive digital > programming and change channels. It's not yet clear how much the > charges will rise. [snip] Are there TV sets that will take a cable company's card so that I don't have to buy a set-top box at all? Bill (Filter QRM for direct replies) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:36:04 -0400 From: Bill W1AC Subject: Re: Rain, Rain Everywhere > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Today is 4th of July, a holiday here in > USA, and we are _still_ under a 'boil order' on our drinking water, > which the city says will be lifted tomorrow (Thursday) as long as 'all > goes well' with our city water pump, etc. City had threatened to shut > off the water everywhere on Sunday because the floods had caused some > disturbances around the water works. They actually wound up having to > shut down at 3 AM Monday morning until later in the day while one of > the pumps which had gotten damaged was replaced. [snip] This puzzles me: you'd think they'd use the pumps to keep floodwater out of the building that houses the pumps, no? Bill (Filter QRM for direct replies) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Apparently they tried something similar. The intake (about a million gallons per day, I am told) is out in the Verdigris River somewhere. They apparently tried diverting some of the 'filthy water' directly to the sewer system, but something went wrong with that as well. About 3 AM Monday morning, the whole thing backed up and came to a halt. The attendants on duty were afraid that was going to happen Saturday night or Sunday morning, but they managed to keep it working until the end, Monday morning. All day Monday, from when a reserve pump was put in service through today, Friday, television/radio has been bleating about a BWO, or 'Boil Water Order'. We woke up Monday morning to _no water at all_ and finally about 3 PM Monday afternoon it started trickling through the pipes once again when the reserve pump had been installed and was operational, but very slowly.. Alert to the fact that something _very bad_ was going to happen on Sunday, the churches announced 'expect no water sometime Monday' and began planning for it. Monday evening the Red Cross set up shop in two local churches (Episcopal and Methodist) with large supplies of cold, _pure_ drinking water. Red Cross has been running a shelter at a large public building here (Wesley Center, part of the Methodist Church) since Monday evening, with food and large conspicuous signs on the drinking fountains saying 'DO NOT DRINK THIS WATER'. I am told the BWO (Boil Water Order) was largely compliments of the federal government and its insistence on pure water for everyone to drink. All week long, television and radio have been telling us to ration and conserve water. Anywhere I went to eat downtown since Monday night had no water to drink with meals. Arby's and McDonald's both had large conspicuous signs on their soda fountains marked 'Out of order, get beverage at counter' and the beverages consisted exclusively of luke- warm cans of soda. Finally today, Friday, July 6 at about 1:00 PM city lifted the BWO and said okay to resume 'regular' use of water. Cable television and radio started repeating the news, with their funny little siren sound followed by 'This is an announcement from the Independence Police Department' and their message that the Boil Water Order was lifted. And our local newspaper The Independence Reporter rushed the news into print in Friday afternoon's paper. Television has played that announcment all afternoon, about every thirty minutes or so. Meals on Wheels (the one meal I can count on for sure each day) skipped on Monday and Tuesday due to the road going to Coffeyville being washed out; I did not expect them to come on Wednesday of course; Thursday someone different brought a styrofoam container including a hot dog and something else and the person said 'probably will not come tomorrow; kitchen in Coffeyville is still under water' (meaning Friday); 'this today is compliments of Red Cross, but we will resume _for sure_ on Monday'. So today, Friday, I used my motorized chair to ride over to the Methodist Church at noon and will probably ride over there again tonight. Where just a week ago, I went up to a house party of some friends and midst the flooded streets, etc, had to detour several blocks out of my way because so many local streets were full of water, today it was much better. Red Cross said they intend to keep the overnight shelter at the Methodist Church open 'a few more nights, until it is no longer needed'. Everyone around town is helping out, it seems, although, IMO, the damage was not that bad here in town. Now, Coffeyville is a different story, as is Fredonia, Cherryvale and Neodesha, all of whom got trounced pretty badly with flash flood waters, etc. Miami, Oklahoma got hit pretty badly also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Quinton Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:06:20 +0100 On Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:36:20 GMT, Jeremy Morton wrote: > I am sure that it's actually a splitter, not a microfilter. Hmm ... Does this help at all? http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html Locate your Mobile phone: http://www.bizorg.co.uk/news.html ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery :-) Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:46:32 +0000 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when Jeremy Morton wrote: > Trouble with getting such splitters as RJ14s (4 pins) instead of RJ11s (2 > pins) is they're damn-near impossible to find. In the form-factor I need, > anyway. And I don't want to buy one unless someone can explain to me why > the 4 pins are needed. Any help appreciated. If you're plugging a modem into it, you don't need the outside pins. Most phones that will plug into it don't need (or use) those pins either. In the USA, those pins would be for a second phone line using the same 4-wire building wiring. There are 2-line telephones that make use of all 4 wires. There are splitters that take one 4-wire plug and turn it into two independent 2-wire receptacles (each a different line). I don't know anything about UK telephones, but I'd guess that if you only have one line, all of that is irrelevant to your usage. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 02:42:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: I Have a Telephony Mystery > The 'splitter' in question is here: > http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=12815&doy=2m7#overview > Now, they call it a telephone/model double adaptor. Presumably the > non-BT style socket (the 'top' one) is meant to be for a modem. > Here's the thing -- after looking at documentation, I can't tell why. > As I said, it seems that only two connectors are needed for a fully > functional phone line. They're called the 'A' and 'B' connections, > according to this site: That's a standard adapter which will pass the four connections of the BT431 plug straight through and tap the A and B wires (tip & ring respectively) for the RJ11 jack. The line appears on the OUTSIDE contacts of the BT plug (terminals 2 and 5). As Pat suggested, if you had a similar adapter before which had four contacts on the modem jack, then the outer contacts were almost certainly just spare. There is nothing in the adapter/splitter itself which specifically makes the RJ11 a modem jack. It's just the standard configuration used in the U.S. for a single line, and as modems sold in the U.K. now also use an RJ11 configuration this adapter means that you can connect them with a straight modular cable. http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html > The extra two are apparently superfluous, and are usually connected > to look 'neat and tidy'... ? In a simple domestic system white/orange (terminal 4) is superfluous, but orange/white (terminal 3) may be needed and should be connected. When this jack system was introduced in the early 1980s, British phones were wired to accept ringing on that third wire (by way of the capacitor at the master jack). In more recent years, many phones (intended for world markets) have appeared which don't actually rely upon that third wire and will work with a basic two-wire connection. By contrast, in the U.S. the standard connection is just two-wire and every phone has its own internal bell capacitor, so the third-wire issue doesn't arise. If I now understand your problem correctly, you have the Maplin adapter plugged into your master jack and an extension connected from the BT outlet on that adapter to a jack upstairs. And a phone connected to that upstairs jack is not giving your dialtone, correct? If that's the case, then plug the phone directly into the BT jack on the adapter downstairs and check that it works. If it does, then you have a problem in your extension wiring. > Trouble with getting such splitters as RJ14s (4 pins) instead of > RJ11s (2 pins) is they're damn-near impossible to find. Just to clarify this, RJ14 does NOT refer to the fact that there might be four connections in the jack itself. RJ14 is specifically a designation used (in the U.S.) to specify TWO phone lines to the jack. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have rebuilt a two-pin plug so that > the two _required_ pins terminated in the center (openings) but that > is a terrible pain to do; Ain't that the truth! Paul [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, if you can extract the wires from a phone cord you will find a little tiny strip of metal on the end; this little strip of metal can be _carefully_ inserted into the correct hole on the other half of the socket, and then bent over to make it stay in place. It is quite a hassle, but can be done if no other way is possible. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 16:04:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Mr Joseph Singer Subject: Re: VOIP Question Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:00:46 -0400 burris wrote: > What happens to the telephone numbers that were ported if a VOIP > provider goes out of business? It depends. If another entity takes up that business it goes to them. If the business goes belly up and goes out of business entirely the number goes back to the original entity that was assigned that NPA/NXX-X. That's what happens when you port a cellphone number from one carrier to another. If service is disconnected the number goes back to the original party that was assigned that prefix (and thousands block if applicable.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except, when Prairie Stream went out of business (the owner had been and still is operating Terra World, the ISP here in town) some of us were afraid what you said would happen; that we would be 'migrated' back to Southwestern Bell (from whence we all had started, with our 620-331 numbers). Sage Telecom did not 'take over' Prairie Stream, Prairie Stream simply folded up. But many/most of us got a letter from Prairie Stream saying that company was recommending 'Sage' as a replacement, and that if we did not choose a replacement within 30 days, _then_ we would be automatically shunted over to AT&T (which was about to be taken over by SBC). Sage has worked out quite well for me. Any of you currently in SBC 'territory' who want to try out Sage (for about half the price of the 'new' AT&T) are welcome to test it out. If you will write _personally_ to me at my ptownson@cableone.net address, I will tell you a number you can use to get me a $20-25 dollar credit on _my_ service in exchange for the referral. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 16:15:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Mr Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:47:11 -0700 wrote: > How much do people pay for their wireless handsets? Why? > I got mine (original and replacement) for free. You got it for "free" because the mobile carrier wanted to induce you to be a customer. The phone indeed did cost the mobile carrier money to buy the phone from the equipment manufacturer. The carrier is gambling that the "investment" that they've made in you will come back to them in the way of the charges that you pay every month for service. They're hoping that the ARPU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPU will make it attractive to have you as a subscriber. It's also part of the reason why GSM handsets are very often "locked" to a carrier so you don't use the subsidized equipment with a competing carrier. > At retail, including carrier-owned stores and kiosks, most handsets > seem to be for sale, not for free with plenty of buyers. At Verizon > stores, all were for sale, though on the Internet they had free > promotions. At Cingular, they had some for free as part of a > promotion. Generally phones sold by a carrier are sold at discount or "given" to a subscriber at a significant discount to make service attractive to the prospective subscriber. Apple's iPhone is a definite exception to this since there's no carrier subsidy at all which to me seems a wee bit strange as I don't see what the incentive is for you to get this phone to just give AT&T the "privilege" of having you indebted to them for two years with no advantage for the subscriber but lots of advantage for the carrier. Some of the handsets weren't cheap, like around $50. ------------------------------ From: Angus TeleManagement Group Subject: Announcement: Ceasing Publication Soon Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:27:26 -0700 DATE: July 6, 2007 TO: Telecom Update Subscribers FROM: Ian and Lis Angus SUBJECT: Our Retirement Dear friends: After 35 years (Ian) and 27 years (Lis), we will retire from the telecommunications industry at the end of this summer. The final issue of Telecom Update will be published on September 7. Our website, which includes all back issues, will remain online, but it will not be further updated. When we launched Angus TeleManagement Group in 1980, there were very few independent telecom consulting firms in Canada. When we began Telecom Update in 1995, Internet-based newsletters were a brand new idea. Both projects have been far more successful than we could ever have imagined. Over the years, we've met and worked with thousands of wonderful people and organizations, from across Canada and from many other countries. We owe all of you all our deepest gratitude for enabling us to spend our careers in an exciting industry, doing work we have loved. Our particular thanks go to the companies that have sponsored Telecom Update, which is still the most widely-read periodical in Canadian telecommunications. Your support of independent and unbiased reporting made it possible. We've had many fulfilling years in telecom, but now it's time for change, time for new projects and new opportunities. Thank you again for your support and friendship, Ian and Lis Angus [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, Ian and Lis, we will miss you. Your weekly newsletter was enjoyed by many of us here in the USA. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V26 #191 ******************************* From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jul 7 00:00:17 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 9206D225D; Sat, 7 Jul 2007 00:00:16 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #192 Message-Id: <20070707040016.9206D225D@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 00:00:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 7 Jul 2007 00:02:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 192 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Live Earth May Set New Stage for Web Viewing (Yinka Adegoke, Reuters) Norwegian Hacker Says He Can Bypass AT&T on i-Phone (Sinead Carew, Reuters) UCLA Student has Old Paris Hilton Cell Number (Associated Press Newswire) Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates (Barry Margolin) Re: Private Line History (Bill) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:57:08 -0500 From: Yinka Adegoke Subject: Live Earth May Set New Stage for Web Viewing By Yinka Adegoke The Live Earth event on Saturday is set to reach millions more people than previous global productions with its reach boosted by the fast-growing power of Web video sharing and social networks. Organizers estimate television broadcasts of the live concerts staged to raise awareness about climate change will be available to up to two billion people although there is no estimate of how many people will actually watch the shows. But that viewership may be trumped online where a generation hooked to social networks like MySpace and video site YouTube share ideas, photos and videos with their peers. "Users can create their own program from all the show assets from around the world," said Kevin Wall, Live Earth founder and CEO of Control Room which is producing the shows. "They're going to be able to share those experiences in a way that's never ever been done in history." The global Live 8 concert to fight poverty in 2005 was the first major multi-venue event successfully streamed live with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL portal on the Web. But Control Room, which produced Live 8, found it was the on-demand streams days after the event which had the most impact, especially after clips were passed round by e-mail. Live 8 was streamed by users over 100 million times in six weeks. Live Earth is expected to be three times bigger. "The viral natural of the streams at Live 8 really came off the back of that huge water cooler moment with people asking their friends if they'd seen a particular clip," said Wall. Live Earth is working with Microsoft Corp. Web portal MSN on live online broadcast. MSN will also be the only media platform to feature every minute of all the shows. TV NOT ENOUGH But in the age of Google Inc.'s YouTube, MSN and Control Room realize providing technology that helps friends share clips of their favorite Live Earth moments on other sites will be even more important than the live event. "When you think about the control we've given the user, you could put together your own Live Earth show after the event," said Joanne Bradford, chief media officer at MSN. Organizers expect more than 80 percent of the viewership will be on-demand in the days following the July 7 event. The live music performances by stars like the Police and Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as 60 original short films, will be edited into short clips by Control Room for easy sharing. For example, a user could add a video clip of Madonna performing her specially penned song 'Hey You' to a blog or social network page and add a feature allowing visitors to buy a download with proceeds going to an environmental cause. That flexibility has become possible with the artists agreeing to give up their rights without charge for the cause. Though details are still being finalized, Wall expects Live Earth to have rights to show the clips for months afterwards. Media experts say over-restrictive limitations over broadcast rights on on-demand viewing are fast becoming a thing of the past, particularly for an event which is trying to make a difference by getting in front of many eyeballs as possible. Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at New York's Fordham University, says video clips will show up eventually on YouTube or elsewhere outside of MSN, so it makes more sense to enable video sharing. "The idea that any organization can keep something in popular culture to itself is 19th Century thinking," he 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: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:16:27 -0500 From: Sinead Carew, Reuters Subject: Norwegian Hacker Says He Can Bypass AT&T on i-Phone A well-known hacker claims to have overcome restrictions on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, allowing highly technical users to bypass AT&T Inc.'s network to use the phone's Internet and music features. In a post dated July 3 on his blog, Jon Johansen, 23, a prolific hacker of consumer electronics gadgets since he was a teenager in Norway, said "I've found a way to activate a brand new unactivated iPhone" without signing up for AT&T service. "The iPhone does not have phone capability, but the iPod and Wi-Fi work. Stay tuned!" he wrote on his long-running blog, which is combatively named "So Sue Me." The post was entitled "iPhone Independence Day," a play on the July 4 U.S. holiday. The site contained technical details for other hackers, as well as links to software necessary to complete the process. One potential use would be for an iPhone user living or traveling outside the United States to access the iPhone's music player and Internet service over Wi-Fi connections without using the phone. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said it was necessary to activate the iPhone on AT&T's network to ensure optimum performance. Using the phone without AT&T's two-year service contract was unauthorized under the phone carrier's exclusive network service contract with Apple, Siegel added. "Any other use of the device is not authorized and we can't guarantee the device will perform as intended to. We'll monitor situations like this and if necessary we will take appropriate action," he said. "Our terms and conditions are very clear." He did not elaborate on potential action AT&T might take. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment on Johansen's claims. Apple has yet to reveal network operator deals in markets outside the United States. But the iPhone is a quad-band GSM phone and will work in many parts of Europe and Asia with international roaming deals arranged by AT&T, Kerris said. Neither Apple nor AT&T have disclosed sales figures since the iPhone went on sale in the United States on June 29, but some analysts have estimated sales of up to 700,000 units for the costly coveted phone's first weekend on the market. Johansen became known as "DVD Jon" earlier this decade for helping to reverse engineer the code used to protect DVD movies against piracy, saying he did so in order to play them on his Linux computer. The computer activist has engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with Apple to bypass copyright controls on various Apple products, including QuickTime, iTunes and Apple TV. 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/internet-news.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra.technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:19:21 -0500 From: Associated Press NewsWire Subject: UCLA Student has Old Paris Hilton Cell Number For months, Shira Barlow's cell phone was flooded with wrong-number calls and text messages, mostly between 2 and 4 a.m. on weekends. Told they had reached a college student, callers refused to believe it. "Baby girl, how are you?" one man purred in a foreign accent. "Why are you doing this?" a woman asked. "This is so rude." And there were several seemingly random references to "Paris." As in Paris Hilton. Barlow's story began on Valentine's Day during a night out with friends. She was carrying her phone in a back pocket when it fell into a toilet. When she replaced it, her wireless company insisted on assigning the San Francisco native a new number with a 310 area code rather than 415. Barlow had been given a recycled phone number that used to be Hilton's. The practice stems from efforts to conserve phone numbers to minimize area-code splitting. Just after Barlow got her new phone close to Hilton's Feb. 17 birthday, a flurry of calls and texts arrived. "Oh my God," one caller said. "Where's the party?" Then came the day Hilton was sentenced to jail after violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. Messages about parties were replaced by dozens expressing condolences. "People were scared for her," Barlow said. The phone traffic trailed off when Hilton entered jail last month. But when Hilton was released, a new crop of messages flooded in. "It's disgusting how they treated you in there, but once again you have showed the world that you can do anything," one wrote. Barlow said she has resisted the temptation to pose as Hilton to get into exclusive parties. But she did message supporters "thanks so much," believing Hilton would appreciate it. Barlow plans to keep the number because she says it has been a greater source of amusement than a hassle. "It was really out of convenience," she added. "I didn't want to switch again." 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 ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates Organization: Symantec Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:58:49 -0400 In article , William Warren wrote: > That reminds me: does having a digital cable box mean that I'll be > able to receive _all_ the digital channels on my analog TV, or are > there exceptions? With a provider-supplied cable box you should be able to receive all digital channels and interactive services (e.g. video-on-demand). With Comcast, if you have a customer-supplied cable box and a cable card, I think you can get all digital channels, but none of the interactive services. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group *** ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Private Line History From: Bill Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:10:28 GMT In the late 70's until the 1984 break up I worked at the NY7P AT&T Private Line office located at 811 Tenth Avenue, Manhattan. N7 PL was a conventional private line office that provided both switched and non- switched voice, as well as voiceband data. Digital Data (DDS) was offered by the NY7D DDS office on the eighth floor. I was slated to work at the CCSA#5 office in 1979, but at the last minute I was swapped with a guy that was a former WECo installer that had been laid off in 1974. CCSA#5 at the time was only a few lines drawn on the CO floor that signified where the equipment frames were to have been placed. The feeling was that the former WECo employee would give added benefit to the new office since he had worked on some 1ESS installations in the past. In the long run that swap did me a great favour, because I may have never ended up at NYT, and survive to see thirty years of service. Compared to my former AT&T coleages who saw many lay offs at AT&T beginning in the 1990's. There were two CCSA offices operating at the time CCSA#4 & CCSA#5. Both CCSA offices were equipped with four wire #1A ESS switches that carried private switched voice services under what was know as Feature pacgake 14 (FP14) services. As compared to FP12 which was limited to PBX/Centrex to PBX/Centrex inter-tandem tie trunk groups. CCSA #6 was also a #1A ESS that went in on the third floor over the mobile telephone garage area of the building, adjacent to where 5450T, a #4ESS , was later installed to replace the NY7 #4XB (Card reader), and latter NY6, a #4XB ETS. Both NY6 & NY7 were retired and were ripped out by late 1983. The #1A ESS machines were predated by #5XB's that had been already been retired and were being removed about the time I started working at NY7P. Interesting fact. In the early 1970's the old NY7 wideband data group, which eventually became the DDS group, was responsible for maintenance operations of the CCSA #5XB equipment. In fact the old CCSA 17B boards survived past divestiture and bacme the property of NY Telephone when the NY7 DDS HUB was transferred to NYT as a result of divestiture. The test boards were not in voice operation, but functioned on a limited capacity to support some DDS related traffic in the NY7D office on the 8th floor. One story from an old friend of mine, who works as a carrier technician at the nearby Verizon W50 Street CO, mentioned that some one in the Wideband /CCSA office had once amended a recorded announcement on a GE network that included the following at the end of the network voice announcment; "and you can be shure if it's Westinghouse." Needless to say, the appended message on the GE CCSA network did not last very long. Many of AT&T's CCSA customers in the mid 1980's used non-AT&T LD connecting facilities (MCI, SBS, US Transmission Systems) between CCSA offices. AT&T would supply a 2600Hz SF signaling unit at each AT&T end, and then connect strictly at the VF to the OCC carrier taking the trunk circuit to a far end city location. Most Off Net Access Lines (ONAL's) were local (POTS) ground start trunks. In some instances, the serving CCSA office might provide a loop start FX like connection to a telephone set, typically a key system, where users may not have had a local PBX to switch traffic. I recall from speaking to a few folks who I knew, and who were still working at AT&T in the late 1980's that there was a plan to replace the 1A's with 5E's. I recall handling GSA E&M trunk circuit troubles that originated at 811 Tenth Avenue CCSA offices via a T1 handoff between NYT & AT&T. The T1 interface was a significant change from the traditional eight wire Type 2 E&M metallic circuit interfaces that had been previously used by AT&T on access circuits at the 811 POP. To clarify a point about CCSA & the 1960's. the first #4ESS that went into message service was the Chicago 7 office in 1976. Since I left AT&T on January 1 1984, I don't know the time lines for the CCSA 1A retirtments, definitely well short of a 40 year replacement cycle, but with the introduction of SDN, and non hierarchal switching in the AT&T LD network, I suspect any migration of CCSA networks to 4ESS equipment must have occured in the early 1990's, in concert with AT&T's retirement of analog long haul FDM carrier facilites. Bill NY7 PL Alumnus hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote in news:telecom26.42.8@telecom-digest.org: > Charles Gray wrote: >> In retrospect, the CCSA was a predecessor to the "software defined >> network" that was introduced by AT&T, Sprint and MCI in the late >> 1980s. > Once again, thanks for your excellent and accurate description. >> I don't know for sure, but I expect the switches were the Western >> Electric 4E tandems. > Here's an extract from the Bell System history: > CCSA -- Common Control Switching Arrangement > "Growth in public switching was paralleled by expansion of private > line services, and, as might be expected, this required special > services and featurs. In particular, arrangements were developed for > No. 5 crossbar and No. 1 ESS so that the central office provided not > only Centrex service for one or more customers but acted in nationwide > two-level hierarchical private networks that served the > telecommunication needs of large businesses. By dialing an access > code, usually 8, the customer's employees could reach company or > agency locations on the network. In order for the switching offices > to be shared by several private networks, common-control switching was > required, hence the name CCSA. A special 4-wire version of the No. 5 > crossbar system was developed in 1960 to serve as the first or higher- > level (tandem) in these networks." > "In many cases, CCSA networks include not only PBXs but also Centrex > service from the same switching systems. CCSA service includes not > only access to private network switching and transmission facilities, > but also local and distant (foreign exchange) access to public network > and dial or tie trunk facilities between PBXs connected to the > network." ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #192 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 9 01:46:22 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1B35D21C4; Mon, 9 Jul 2007 01:46:20 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #193 Message-Id: <20070709054621.1B35D21C4@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 01:46:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Jul 2007 01:48:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 193 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Live Earth Internet Concert Generated 9 Million Streams (Reuters NewsWire) Live Earth May Set New Stage for Web Viewing (Yinka Adegoke, Reuters) Thieves Test Stolen Credit Cards on Charities (Robert MacMillan, IDG) Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates (Neal McLain) Enrico Fermi and the First Atomic Bomb Test (TELECOM Digest Archives) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 22:48:47 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Live Earth Internet Concert Generated 9 Million Simultaneous Streams Live Earth Internet streaming sets record. The Live Earth global pop concerts on Saturday broke a record for an online entertainment show by generating more than 9 million Internet simultaneous streams, Microsoft Corp. Web portal MSN said. As the last two of the nine Live Earth concerts got underway, MSN product manager Karin Muskopf said the number of streams had surpassed the previous record held by 2005's Live 8 global concerts to fight poverty. "We have exceeded any other online entertainment event," Muskopf said. "It's really exciting to see the enthusiasm for the concert." An Internet stream is when a person watches on a computer. People can stream an event more than once -- by switching it on and off -- so 9 million streams does not necessarily mean 9 million people watching, MSN said. Live 8 was the first major multi-venue event successfully streamed live with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL portal on the Web. AOL said 5 million people had logged on to the event on the day of those shows, but it did not say how many Internet streams of the event there had been. MSN said it would not be able to immediately determine the number of people who logged on to Live Earth. Control Room, producer of Live Earth and Live 8, said it found that the on-demand streams in the days after the Live 8 had the most impact, especially after clips were passed around by e-mail. Live 8 was streamed by users more than 100 million times in the six weeks following the shows. Live Earth is predicted to be three times bigger with organizers expecting more than 80 percent of the viewership will be on-demand in the days after the event. 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: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 22:51:55 -0500 From: Yinka Adegoke, Reuters Subject: Live Earth May Set New Stage for Web Viewing By Yinka Adegoke The Live Earth event on Saturday is set to reach millions more people than previous global productions with its reach boosted by the fast-growing power of Web video sharing and social networks. Organizers estimate television broadcasts of the live concerts staged to raise awareness about climate change will be available to up to 2 billion people although there is no estimate of how many people will actually watch the shows. But that viewership may be trumped online where a generation hooked to social networks like MySpace and video site YouTube share ideas, photos and videos with their peers. "Users can create their own program from all the show assets from around the world," said Kevin Wall, Live Earth founder and CEO of Control Room which is producing the shows. "They're going to be able to share those experiences in a way that's never ever been done in history." The global Live 8 concert to fight poverty in 2005 was the first major multi-venue event successfully streamed live with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL portal on the Web. But Control Room, which produced Live 8, found it was the on-demand streams days after the event which had the most impact, especially after clips were passed round by e-mail. Live 8 was streamed by users over 100 million times in six weeks. Live Earth is expected to be three times bigger. "The viral natural of the streams at Live 8 really came off the back of that huge water cooler moment with people asking their friends if they'd seen a particular clip," said Wall. Live Earth is working with Microsoft Corp. Web portal MSN on live online broadcast. MSN will also be the only media platform to feature every minute of all the shows. TV NOT ENOUGH But in the age of Google Inc.'s YouTube, MSN and Control Room realize providing technology that helps friends share clips of their favorite Live Earth moments on other sites will be even more important than the live event. "When you think about the control we've given the user, you could put together your own Live Earth show after the event," said Joanne Bradford, chief media officer at MSN. Organizers expect more than 80 percent of the viewership will be on-demand in the days following the July 7 event. The live music performances by stars like the Police and Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as 60 original short films, will be edited into short clips by Control Room for easy sharing. For example, a user could add a video clip of Madonna performing her specially penned song 'Hey You' to a blog or social network page and add a feature allowing visitors to buy a download with proceeds going to an environmental cause. That flexibility has become possible with the artists agreeing to give up their rights without charge for the cause. Though details are still being finalized, Wall expects Live Earth to have rights to show the clips for months afterwards. Media experts say over-restrictive limitations over broadcast rights on on-demand viewing are fast becoming a thing of the past, particularly for an event which is trying to make a difference by getting in front of many eyeballs as possible. Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at New York's Fordham University, says video clips will show up eventually on YouTube or elsewhere outside of MSN, so it makes more sense to enable video sharing. "The idea that any organization can keep something in popular culture to itself is 19th Century thinking," he said. Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know about others of you, but I spent a great deal of time on Saturday watching 'Live Earth' on televison. I could have chosen to watc it on Internet, but I chose to watch it on TV instead. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 22:55:40 -0500 From: Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Subject: Thieves Test Stolen Credit Cards on Charities by Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Credit card thieves are becoming big-time charity donors, but it's not out of the goodness of their hearts. According to Symantec Corp. the criminals are starting to use charitable donations as a way to check whether their stolen credit card numbers are working. Fraudsters have been using a similar technique for years, but until recently they tended to make minor purchases on online retail sites. Now, as these sites have become better at identifying and blocking these transactions, the criminals have begun looking elsewhere, said Zulfikar Ramzan, senior principal researcher with Symantec Corp. "Using a charitable organization as a way to verify a credit card number is a relatively new technique, and it's probably being used by a minority of the more innovative guys," he said. Credit card numbers are bought and sold in underground "carder" forums, which bring together the people who have stolen the credit card numbers with those who want to use them. These charitable donations are typically made by the person buying the card numbers as a final check to ensure that the numbers will work, Ramzan said. Last month the Red Cross was forced to return nearly US$7,000 that was donated in the course of 700 fraudulent transactions, said Carrie Martin, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross. "We routinely see this kind of activity," she said. "We have someone in place who deals with this on a regular basis." This fraud accounted for a tiny sliver of the Red Cross's $6 billion in revenue last year, but the organization also has to pay staff to stay on top of the fraud, Martin said. This is not the only time that fraudsters have found ways to misuse charities. In another common scam, the criminal will give the charity a fake check and ask that a portion of it be returned in cash. Though the check will initially clear in the charity's bank account it will eventually be returned. By then, however, the charity will have already paid out to the thieves. "These kinds of things have hit charities before," said Ramzan "I feel bad because all these charities are trying to do good and you have these fraudsters that try to take advantage of them because of the way they work." Copyright 2007 PC World Communications, 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: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Despite the many good things the Red Cross does, they _are_ a wee bit disorganized at times. They are busy here in southeast Kansas this past week, plus all of the next month (at least) working with the flood victims of which there are plenty; more here in Independence than I first realized when discussing this matter last week, but Coffeyville and Fredonia, KS got hit much worse than we, as did Miami, and Bartlesville, Oklahoma. And you might have thought they would have learned their lessons with those open-ended debit cards they handed out in New Orleans a year ago and all the fraud at that time by their own employees among others. But apparently they did not since when FEMA and Red Cross made a joint announcement in Sunday's Independence Reporter, Red Cross said they would be using the debit cards again here over the next week or two. Our city officials recruited everyone in town (not affected by the flood, which was about 95 percent of us, IMO) to work with the flood victims 'however possible'. Apparently the flood was the worst on record for the area. They got me to agree to work in the Southeast Kansas Food Pantry program which will be open daily during the next two weeks handing out food. I am _NOT_ doing this for the sake of the Red Cross, with whom I have my own arguments as discussed here in the past; my agreement was with Marilyn and Jack Gregory, the husband and wife co-partners and co-pastors of the local Methodist Church which has been running the shelter and drinking water supply all of last week and 'for the duration'. I'll be the Food Pantry clerk on the afternoon shift for a couple weeks. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:31:45 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Cable Firms Raise Set-Top Box Rates hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Jul 5, 1:03 pm, Deborah Yao, AP > wrote: >> Cable companies are planning to charge more for set-top >> boxes to help pay for new, more expensive versions mandated >> by the Federal Communications Commission. > They also are pushing more channels onto box-only reception, > so consumers are forced to rent a box (not cheap) to get > channels they used to deliver fine on coax. The day is coming when cable companies will deliver all video programming digitally. The short-term reasons for this should be obvious: better picture quality and more efficient bandwidth utilization. Longer term, the entire video industry -- broadcast, cable, telco, satellite -- is going digital. And, as you well know, the federal government is forcing all broadcasters to cease analog transmissions on 02/17/09. So, yeah, cable companies are "pushing more channels onto box-only reception." They're converting them to digital before the deadline. The day is also coming when all consumer equipment (TVs, DVRs, whatever) will be digital. When that day comes, those not-cheap-boxes will no longer be necessary. Unfortunately, that day is a long way off, and in the meantime, not-cheap-boxes are the only way to accommodate all consumers. > We consumers either need aggressive consumer protection regulation > or true real competition. The cable companies are fleecing all of > us big time. So who's fleecing whom? The cable companies or the programmers? If you think it's the cablecos that are fleecing you, you'll be happy to know that your basic cable rate may go up another $1.00 per month just so you can get Univision. You'll be especially happy to be reminded that it was *your* elected representatives in the United States Congress that enacted (over Bush 41's veto) the law that gives Univision the power to impose that charge (source: Fortune, 155:9, 92-98). As I've noted before in this space, if you don't like your cable/FiOS/U-Verse/DirecTV/DISH rates, tell Congress that they don't have to pass any new "aggressive consumer protection regulation" laws. Just repeal some of the laws that are already on the books. > (I'm also frustrated how they say they must pay for broadcast > content, yet these so-called 'pay' channels are loaded with nothing > but old reruns and a great many commercials. If they have > commercials and so many of them, why is it necessary to 'pay' for > them?) Because the programming carried on advertising-supported non-broadcast channels doesn't generate enough advertising revenue to cover the cost of producing it and delivering it (if it did, broadcast stations and networks would be carrying it, and advertising *already would be* supporting it). In order to support such programming, the producers and program suppliers have to rely on two revenue streams: advertising and subscriber fees. This is the same business model employed by the vast majority of print publications. The real significance of this dual-revenue-stream business model isn't just the sum of the two revenue streams; it's the way in which the two revenue streams reinforce each other: - Consumer revenue reinforces advertising revenue. There's an old adage in the advertising business that "paid advertising is worth more than free advertising." A consumer who pays for a publication (print or video) is more likely to read/watch it than a non-paying consumer. - Advertising revenue reinforces consumer revenue. Advertising revenue enables the producer to provide a better product (print or video), thus enticing consumers to spend more time reading/watching it, and, by extension, enticing more consumers to buy the product. And that, of course, is why the program suppliers demand that non-broadcast advertising-supported channels must be carried on the basic tier. William Warren wrote: > That reminds me: does having a digital cable box mean that I'll be > able to receive _all_ the digital channels on my analog TV, or are > there exceptions? What do you mean by "digital channels"? If you mean program signals that the cable company carries digitally, the answer is: it depends on the tiering scheme the cableco uses. Right now, "digital cable" IS a tier, but it can be further subdivided into two or more tiers, each subject to separate access control. Premium signals (HBO, Showtime, etc.) carried digitally are definitely subject to separate access control. You'll receive what you pay for. If you mean the digital signals of DTV broadcast stations, the situation is more complicated. Current FCC rules require cablecos to carry one signal (the DTV primary or the analog, but not both) from each station, and it must carried be on the basic tier. From what I've seen, most cablecos are carrying the analog signals (subscribers would be really upset if they had to rent a box to receive broadcast signals). http://www.ncta.com/IssueBrief.aspx?contentId=2716&view=3 After 02/17/09, all broadcast stations will be DTV-only, and all cable systems will have to carry the DTV primary signals. Consumers with DTV sets will receive the DTV signals; consumers with analog sets will get the downconverted signals from the box. There's been some talk about cablecos downconverting DTV signals at their headends and carrying both versions, but I don't think that's likely to happen. DTV secondary signals ("channels" identified ".2", ".3" etc.) may or may not be carried. Broadcasters are lobbying hard to get Congress to require carriage of all secondaries; my guess is that Congress won't pass it, but who knows. Broadcasters who elect retransmission-consent will certainly demand secondary-signal carriage in their retransmission agreements; how successful these efforts will be remains to be seen. Of course, as broadcasters develop new programming, they'll undoubtedly come up with some programming that cablecos will want to carry voluntarily. Whatever happens, the signals will be carried digitally, and digital boxes will downconvert them to analog. Bill W1AC wrote: > Are there TV sets that will take a cable company's card so > that I don't have to buy a set-top box at all? Yes, but the technology is still in what you might call primitive beta. As Sound & Vision magazine put it, "CableCARD was a half-baked technology, and federally mandating its adoption was a premature mistake." http://tinyurl.com/22taxv The ultimate dream is downloadable security: every consumer device has security built in at manufacture. If/when that happens (on some distant future date), all security will be built into consumer devices, and CableCARDs won't be necessary. Of course, hackers will have a field day. Neal McLain ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 00:04:59 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Enrico Fermi and the First Atomic Bomb Test Explosion This next item, from our Archives first appeared in this Digest on January 7, 1990 as an article entitled 'A Bad Time to Fall Asleep'. TELECOM Digest Sun, 7 Jan 90 01:30:15 CST Volume 10 : Issue 12 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Obscene Callers Plague MCI 800 Subscriber (Macy Hallock) One Solution to 800 Wrong Numbers (Lars J. Poulsen) Marking COCOTS Out of Order (Brian Kantor) A Bad Time to Fall Asleep (TELECOM Moderator) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 0:31:10 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: A Bad Time to Fall Asleep There were simpler times in the history of telephony, and simpler problems to deal with. During the several years I lived in the Hyde Park neighorhood on the south side of Chicago during the 1960's, my favorite neighbor was Lauri Fermi, widow of Enrico Fermi, known for his work on the Atomic Bomb. Mrs. Fermi and I lived in the same apartment building on East 56th Street, directly across the street from the Museum of Science and Industry, and we chatted and dined together frequently. In the fall of 1965, on the occassion of the twentieth anniversary of the completion and first testing of the bomb, Mrs. Fermi told a fascinating story of that summer day, twenty years earlier. Her comments were tape-recorded, and are transcribed below: ======================================= "The testing was of course kept closely under wraps, you know, the government was awfully sensitive about it. All the papers were giving reports that a monster-like weapon was in the final testing stages, but some of the newspaper accounts were ridiculous. Enrico was given his orders only two days earlier as to exactly where we were to be stationed in the test zone area. Even the local people in New Mexico were told as little as possible; I think the governor and some state officials were told, and sworn to secrecy. "In Alamogordo, we checked into the hotel then drove out to where Enrico had been assigned. It was set up that the scientists were deployed over about a two hundred square mile area; we were about fifteen miles from the target. "The test was set for 4:30 AM the next morning, so we returned to the hotel and went to bed early. We got up at 3 the next morning and drove out to the location, since it took about an hour to set up the test gear Enrico would use ... I suppose it was about 4:15, when a fierce rain storm developed. It lasted only five or ten minutes, but was quite a downpour, and Enrico remarked he hoped nothing would go wrong with the test because of it. "Well, the time came and went, everything was quiet, no bomb, nothing. About 4:45, Enrico decided we had better return to town and see what was what, and we drove back. He wanted to make a phone call and see if the test had been cancelled or not, and the only place open in town at that time of night was the hotel where we had stayed. There was a payphone in the lobby, and Enrico went in the booth, but he didn't get anywhere. I heard him flashing the hook and swearing softly, then he came out and said he could not get the operator. (Alamogordo had manual service at that time, just a small switchboard.) "We got in the car, and Enrico had me drive while he leaned out the window and kept looking overhead at the phone wires. He'd have me turn down one street, then turn back up another street, and finally he said pull the car over and stop. "Where we stopped was in front of a house on one of the residential streets there, but what looked odd to me was on the side of the house, there were hundreds of wires converging, coming in from a dozen telephone poles which all seemed to meet in the back yard or on the side of the house. And all these wires came down out of the sky you might say, and went in the side of the house in a big bundle. "The front porch light was burning, and when we went up on the front porch, the front door was open, but the screen door was latched from the inside. A radio was playing music very softly, and the room was rather dim with just a single light burning. A switchboard sat on one side of the room, and the signal lights on it were flashing off and on like Christmas tree lights. Over by the other corner was a sofa, and a woman was laying on the sofa, obviously sound asleep. This was right about five o'clock, I guess, or a few minutes after. "Enrico banged on the screen door a few times, then kicked it once or twice with his foot. All of a sudden, the lady woke up; she looked over at us very startled, standing at the door; she looked over at the switchboard; looked back at us; jumped up and rushed over to the board and sat down, pausing long enough to light a cigarette and she started frantically answering all the flashing signals. "We got back in the car, and drove out to where we had been before. We were there about five minutes, and the test was conducted. Everything the poets have said about the brilliance and beauty of that first explosion was true ... later, we got together with the others who had been assigned there and found out that it wasn't the rain that delayed things; it was that woman asleep; you see, the main people responsible were linked by phones through Alamogordo; they had to coordinate what they were doing and sychronize their work. All of them got the same thing on the phone we got: no answer from the operator for 45 minutes! "Really, I can't blame the lady much. The whole summer of 1945 was just horrid. When we arrived the day before, the temperature was over a hundred; the poor lady probably couldn't sleep at all that day from the heat, and still had to go to work that night exhausted. Then the rain cooled things off twenty degrees in fifteen minutes; that sofa was just too tempting for her; and probably every other night she only got two or three calls in the whole eight hour shift .... "No one ever said anything to her or the woman who owned the phone exchange there, so I suspect to this day, twenty years later, she doesn't realize she was responsible for causing the first atomic bomb explosion in the world to be delayed for a little over an hour ... but as I think back now, probably someone should have told her ahead of time about that very special morning, and sworn her to secrecy until the test was completed. "When I was there in town two weeks ago for the (twentieth anniversary) reunion, just from curiosity I went past that house; it took me awhile to remember where it was. No wires anywhere like before; and I asked someone there if the phone exchange was there. He told me the 'telephone lady' had been gone for years; Bell or someone had bought it and moved it to a building in the downtown area." ===================== End of Transcription ======================= And that was Laura Fermi talking about the summer of 1945 in the desert of New Mexico, in the fall of 1965 at a dinner. Enrico had been dead for a few years at that point. Times were indeed simpler and easier in those days, the summer of 1945. Today, 01-07-1990, we have seen many changes in the phone industry, almost 45 years later. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Note above I mentioned we had seen 'many changes' in the 45 years since 1945. Of course now, 17 years after that, the changes are still even greater. I have often wondered what happened to Laura Fermi. I am sure she must be long-dead by now. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #193 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 9 13:57:04 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 306292233; Mon, 9 Jul 2007 13:57:03 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #194 Message-Id: <20070709175704.306292233@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 13:57:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Jul 2007 14:00:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 194 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Apple Issues Battery Program for iPhone (May Wong, Associated Press) Harry Potter Worm/Virus Claims Potter is Dead (Sharon Gaudin, Info Week) BBC Fined Over 'Blue Peter' Phone in Scam (Reuters News Wire) American Values Urges FCC to Approve Sirius-XM Merger (PRN NewsWire) Verizon Cutting Off Copper? (Carl Moore) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 12:02:20 -0500 From: May Wong, Associated Press Subject: Apple Issues Battery Program for iPhone By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer A consumer advocacy group has expressed outrage over Apple Inc.'s battery replacement program for the iPhone, while developers and hackers are trying to figure out ways they could expand the capabilities of the hot new gadget. The hybrid cell phone, iPod media player and wireless Web-browsing device launched to much fanfare on June 29. On the same day, the Foundation for Consumer and Taxpayer Rights fired off a letter to Apple and AT&T Inc., the cell phone's exclusive carrier, complaining that customers were being left in the dark about the procedure and cost of replacing the gadget's battery. The iPhone's battery is apparently soldered on inside the device and cannot be swapped out by the owner like most other cell phones. Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Hakes said Thursday the company posted the battery replacement details on its Web site last Friday after the product went on sale. Users would have to submit their iPhone to Apple for battery service. The service will cost users $79, plus $6.95 for shipping, and will take three business days. The procedure is similar to the one it has for the company's best-selling iPod players, but because some users will not want to live without their cell phones, Apple is also offering a loaner iPhone for $29 while the gadget is under repair. Harvey Rosenfield, founder of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based consumer watchdog group that wrote the letter last week, contends the iPhone's battery and repair costs should have been clearly disclosed earlier. The company outlined its cellular service rates and many other features of the iPhone in advance of its launch, which drew snaking lines around stores across the country. "Some of them might be waking up now," Rosenfield said, "wondering who they got in bed with." Apple did not have an immediate comment on the consumer group's concerns, nor did AT&T. Rosenfield said he didn't detect the battery information, which is located under several layers of links on Apple's support page on its Web site, until earlier this week. Technology blogs also started reporting their discoveries of it this week while one of the questions Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg fielded Thursday from his readers was about what happens when the iPhone battery dies. "The cell phone industry is notorious for not being consumer-friendly while Apple has a fairly good reputation, so for Apple to stand on a technicality of a hidden disclosure that's going to cost the user as much as 20 percent of the purchase price I think will prove to be a colossal mistake," Rosenfield said. The iPhone costs $499 or $599, depending on the model, and requires a minimum two-year $60-a-month service plan with AT&T. The consumer and taxpayer organization has gone to court over these kinds of issues in the past. It is embroiled in a pending lawsuit against Cingular, now part of AT&T, over its service termination fees, and is also one of the plaintiffs in a pending lawsuit against Apple over an early model iPod Nano that was allegedly defective because it scratched easily. In addition, Rosenfield said, replacing the iPhone battery should be free to begin with while the product is under its one-year warranty. He also questioned why Apple chose to go against the norm of what cell phone users are accustomed to -- swapping out their own batteries and generally at a cost that is less than half of what Apple is charging now for the iPhone. "I'm just surprised at Apple's decision to defy the common practice of allowing people to purchase replacement batteries," he said. "And the fact that the information is buried is just not appropriate." Apple has not disclosed how many iPhones were available at launch, though analysts have speculated the amount was 500,000 or more. AT&T said the gadget had sold out at most of its stores on the night of the launch while many Apple stores ran out of stock by early this week. Those ordering the iPhone online through Apple's Web site on Thursday were being promised delivery would be in two to four weeks. Meanwhile, software developers anxious to find ways they could introduce applications tailored for the iPhone's Web browser were preparing to get together in Silicon Valley this weekend at an ad hoc conference called iPhoneDevCamp. Also, a tech-savvy audience cheered the latest work this week of a hacker known for cracking copy-protection technology and creating workarounds of Apple products. Jon Lech Johansen, also known as "DVD Jon," posted on his blog Tuesday a method for people to turn on the iPod and Wi-Fi features -- but not the cell phone functions -- of the iPhone without going through the required activation process and service fees of AT&T. Johansen did not respond Thursday to e-mails seeking comment. On the Net: iPhone battery replacement information: http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/battery/ iPhone service information: http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq/ 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: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:06:55 -0500 From: Sharon Gaudin, Information Week Subject: Harry Potter Worm/Virus Claims Potter is Dead By Sharon Gaudin, InformationWeek Can't wait to find out what happens to Harry Potter when the final book in the series comes out this month? Be careful where you get your spoilers from. Security researchers are warning people not to be lured in by online promises of information about the outcome of the final battle at Hogwarts. Sophos Inc. reported that a new worm is taking advantage of the Potter mania that is starting to build around the world. The worm, which is hidden in USB drives, isn't particularly damaging, according to Allysa Myers, a researcher with McAfee Avert Labs. In her blog, Myers said the worm "doesn't try to steal any system information, diddle with your data, or own your box -- it just makes system changes such that your system becomes largely unusable." With the millions of people waiting with bated breath for the final Harry Potter novel, and the premiere of the new movie coming in less than two weeks, hackers will be tempted to take advantage of the excitement, Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said. "There is a real danger that muggles will blindly allow their USB flash drives to auto-run and become infected by this worm," he said in a written statement. "Using such social engineering at this time is a trick dastardly enough for Lord Voldemort himself." The final installment in J.K. Rowling's seven-book series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," is set to be released on July 21. The previous book was the fastest-selling book in U.S. history, selling 6.9 million copies in the United States in the first 24 hours, according to a report on CNN. The W32/Hairy-A worm is set up to automatically infect a PC when users plug-in USB drives, which carry a file posing as a copy of the novel. If users allow USB drives to "auto-run" they will see a file called HarryPotter-TheDeathlyHallows.doc. Inside the Word file is the simple phrase, "Harry Potter is dead." Sophos researchers report the worm then looks for other removable drives to infect. After infecting Windows computers, the worm creates a number of new users, namely the book's main characters -- Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. After logging in, users are shown the following message via a batch file: "read and repent; the end is near; repent from your evil ways O Ye folks; lest you burn in hell ... JK Rowling especially." Cluley explained in an interview that the malware writer originally embedded the worm on a USB memory stick and then simply got it into the hands of an unsuspecting user. The malware spreads when a user shares the stick with a friend or colleague who wants to access a file on it. A user might go to a meeting and share the stick with everyone in the room, spreading the worm further. The trick, said Cluley, is not to use a memory stick that you just pick up somewhere. "This is an 'old school' virus, written to give the author a platform to show off rather than to steal identities or cash," said Cluley. "This person isn't being driven by the desire to inflate his or her bank account, but by a loathing for JK Rowling and her incredibly popular books." Copyright 2007 CMP Media LLC. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:46:48 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: BBC Fined Over 'Blue Peter' Phone in Scam LONDON (Reuters) - British media watchdog Ofcom has imposed an unprecedented 50,000 pound fine on the BBC over a phone-in scam on "Blue Peter," one of the public-service broadcasters most popular children's shows. The BBC was guilty of serious breaches of the broadcasting code, Ofcom ruled, by allowing a young studio guest to pose as a fake competition winner on the television programme. It was the first time Ofcom imposed a financial penalty against the BBC. In its ruling, Ofcom's sanctions committee concluded that the BBC was guilty of deception and making a child complicit in that deception. The broadcaster was found to have breached two rules: the first stating that competitions should be conducted fairly and the second stating that due care must be taken over the welfare and the dignity of people under 18 in such programmes. "The decision to involve a child in the deception for the sake of expediency demonstrated a casual lack of regard for the welfare of that child," Ofcom said. Almost 40,000 children called the "Blue Peter" premium rate phone line on November 27 last year in a competition to win a toy. Viewers were asked to identify a character from soap opera "EastEnders" from a picture of his feet and an accompanying clue. But when a technical glitch meant no winning entrant could be selected, a member of the production team asked a girl visiting the studio with her parent to pose as a winning caller. She was given the correct answer and put on air. Another member of the public visiting the studio on the same day observed what had taken place and blew the whistle in March this year. The regulator recently imposed its biggest ever penalty, a 300,000 pound fine, against Channel 5 television for faking winners in live call-in competitions "Brainteaser" and "Memory Bank." Premium rate regulator ICSTIS last week imposed a record fine of 150,000 pounds on Channel 4 television's "Richard and Judy" show over a fake phone-in. The BBC was not immediately available for comment. Copyright Reuters 2006. 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/BBC.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:51:05 -0500 From: PRN NewsWire Subject: American Values Urges FCC to Approve Sirius-XM Merger In a Letter to the FCC, President Gary Bauer Applauds Efforts of SIRIUS and XM to Empower Consumer Choice WASHINGTON, July 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American Values today called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve the proposed merger between SIRIUS Satellite Radio SIRI and XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR), highlighting the combined company's "block and rebate" offering and its benefit to American families. "Especially important to our membership is the commitment the parties have made to issue refunds to satellite radio subscribers who choose to block adult-themed programming," said American Values President Gary Bauer, in his letter to the FCC. "Like so many people, the majority of our members do not want their children and families exposed to programming they may find indecent or offensive." With all of the indecent and violent programming bombarding American families today, American Values applauds the efforts by XM and SIRIUS to empower consumers who want to avoid such content. The merger will benefit consumers by giving listeners more control when it comes to programming content. Subscribers who are not interested in satellite radio's adult-themed programming would have the ability to opt out of certain channels, as they currently do, but would receive a credit for those channels they blocked so as not to subsidize the programming they found offensive. The merger will also benefit consumers by making satellite radio a stronger player in the audio marketplace. Not surprisingly, satellite radio competitors like traditional AM/FM radio are keen to block the merger, claiming it would create a monopoly that would have an unchecked ability to harm consumers. This argument, many experts believe, is based more on competitive fears than any realistic assessment of the audio entertainment market. "We believe that incumbent competitors should be forced to respond to this consumer-oriented merger by making their own service offerings more attractive, and should not be able to simply obstruct advances in the marketplace in order to serve their self-interests," added Bauer. American Values serves as a key voice for those interested in protecting the core values of life, marriage, family, faith and freedom. The SIRIUS-XM merger will make satellite radio a more appealing choice for its members and consumers as a whole. Copyright 2007 PR Newswire 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/internet-news.html ------------------------------ Subject: Verizon Cutting Off Copper? Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 11:36:55 -0400 From: Moore, Carl Verizon Copper Cutoff Traps Customers http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=3Dbusiness&id=3D5461305 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #194 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 11 01:12:07 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id EE6F62199; Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:12:06 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #195 Message-Id: <20070711051206.EE6F62199@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:12:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:15:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 195 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cybercrime Flourishes in Online Hacker Forums (Byron Achohido & Jon Swartz) Microsoft Releases Three 'Fixes' on Tuesday (Associated Press News Wire) Gizmodo: No BS iPhone Review (Monty Solomon) Customer Service Troubles For Sprint Nextel (Teresa von Fuchs) Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer (David B. Horvath, CCP) Some Troubles With Telecom Digest (TELECOM Digest Editor) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:38:33 -0500 From: Byron Acohido & Jon Swartz, USA Today Subject: Cybercrime Flourishes in Online Hacker Forums Cybercrime flourishes in online hacker forums By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, USA TODAY SEATTLE -- Criminals covet your identity data like never before. What's more, they've perfected more ways to access your bank accounts, grab your Social Security number and manipulate your identity than you can imagine. Want proof? Just visit any of a dozen or so thriving cybercrime forums, websites that mirror the services of Amazon.com and the efficiencies of eBay. Criminal buyers and sellers convene at these virtual emporiums to wheel and deal in all things related to cyberattacks -- and in the fruit of cyberintrusions: pilfered credit and debit card numbers, hijacked bank accounts and stolen personal data. The cybercrime forums gird a criminal economy that robs U.S. businesses of $67.2 billion a year, according to an FBI projection. Over the past two years, U.S. consumers lost more than $8 billion to viruses, spyware and online fraud schemes, Consumer Reports says. In 2004, a crackdown by the FBI and U.S. Secret Service briefly disrupted growth of the forums. But they soon regrouped, more robust than ever. Today, they are maturing -- and consolidating -- just like any other fast-rising business sector, security experts and law enforcement officials say. In fact, this summer a prominent forum leader who calls himself Iceman staged a hostile takeover of four top-tier rivals, creating a megaforum. Security firms CardCops, of Malibu, Calif., and RSA Security, a division of Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC, and volunteer watchdog group Shadowserver observed the forced mergers, as well, and compiled dozens of takeover-related screen shots. "It's like he created the Wal-Mart of the underground," says Dan Clements, CEO of CardCops, an identity-theft-prevention company. "Anything you need to commit your crimes, you can get in his forum." The Secret Service and FBI declined to comment on Iceman or the takeovers. Even so, the activities of this mystery figure illustrate the rising threat that cybercrime's relentless expansion -- enabled in large part by the existence of forums -- poses for us all. In the spy vs. spy world of cybercrime, where trust is ephemeral and credibility hard won, CardersMarket's expansion represents the latest advance of a criminal business segment that began to take shape with the formation of the pioneering Shadowcrew forum. Shadowcrew, which peaked at about 4,000 members in 2004, arose in 2002. It established the standard for cybercrime forums -- set up on well-designed, interactive Web pages and run much like a well-organized co-op. Communication took place methodically, via the exchange of messages posted in topic areas. Members could also exchange private messages. Shadowcrew gave hackers and online scammers a place to congregate, collaborate and build their reputations, says Scott Christie, a former assistant U.S. Attorney in New Jersey who helped prosecute some of its members. In the October 2004 dragnet, called Operation Firewall, federal agents arrested 22 forum members in several states, including co-founder Andrew Mantovani, 24, aka ThnkYouPleaseDie. At the time, Mantovani was a community college student in Scottsdale, Ariz. In August, he began serving a 32-month federal sentence for credit card fraud and identification theft. Shadowcrew as catalyst Shadowcrew's takedown became the catalyst for the emergence of forums as they operate today. With billions to be made, new forums have reformed like amoebas, splintering into 15 to 20 smaller-scale co-ops. "They learned that it's best to disperse," says Yohai Einav, director of RSA Security's Tel Aviv-based fraud intelligence team. Forum leaders have become increasingly selective about accepting new members. "Vouching" for new members is now the norm, requiring a member in good standing to extend an invitation to new recruits. Some forums charge an initiation fee; others limit the power to invite new members to the forum leaders. Veteran vendors and buyers typically do business in multiple forums simultaneously, in case any particular forum shuts down. "If criminals get caught one way, they modify their behavior," says Kevin O'Dowd, an assistant U.S. Attorney in New Jersey who prosecuted the Shadowcrew case. Some forums have become known for their specialties, such as offering free research tools to do things such as confirming the validity of a stolen credit card number or learning about security weaknesses at specific banks. A few offer escrow services, handling the details of complex deals for a fee. The better-run forums invest in tech-security measures that have become the norm in the corporate world, such as use of encrypted Web pages. All forums run aggressive campaigns to identify and sweep out rippers -- the con artists who gain membership and instigate deals, only to renege on their part of the bargain. From this post-Shadowcrew milieu, Iceman has emerged as a forum leader to watch. RSA Security has tracked Iceman's postings on CardersMarket since October 2005; CardCops has compiled an archive of hundreds of postings on several forums by someone using the nickname Iceman since January 2006. In the boastful world of cybercrime, nicknames, or nics, are sacrosanct. It's not unusual for a hacker or cyberthief to go by two or three different nics, but unthinkable for two or three people to knowingly share the same nic, says RSA Security's Einav. "I believe we're talking about one guy and not a group hiding behind his name," he says. Hostile takeover Clearly enterprising and given to posting rambling messages explaining his strategic thinking, Iceman grew CardersMarket's membership to 1,500. On Aug. 16, he hacked into four rival forums' databases, electronically extracted their combined 4,500 members, and in one stroke quadrupled CardersMarket's membership to 6,000, according to security experts who monitored the takeovers. The four hijacked forums -- DarkMarket, TalkCash, ScandinavianCarding and TheVouched -- became inaccessible to their respective members. Shortly thereafter, all of the historical postings from each of those forums turned up integrated into the CardersMarket website. To make that happen, Iceman had to gain access to each forum's underlying database, tech-security experts say. Iceman boasted in online postings that he took advantage of security flaws lazily left unpatched. CardCops' Clements says he probably cracked weak database passwords. "Somehow he got through to those servers to grab the historical postings and move them to CardersMarket," he says. Iceman lost no time touting his business rationale and hyping the benefits. In a posting on CardersMarket shortly after completing the takeovers he wrote: "basically, (sic) this was long overdue ... why (sic) have five different forums each with the same content, splitting users and vendors, and a mish mash of poor security and sometimes poor administration?" He dispatched an upbeat e-mail to new members heralding CardersMarket's superior security safeguards. The linchpin: a recent move of the forum's host computer server to Iran, putting it far beyond the reach of U.S. authorities. He described Iran as "possibly the most politically distant country to the united states (sic) in the world today." At USA TODAY's request, CardCops traced CardersMarket's point of origin and confirmed that it is registered to a computer server in Iran. If Iceman succeeds in establishing CardersMarket as the Wal-Mart of forums, its routing through an Iranian server will make an already complex law enforcement challenge that much more difficult, security experts say. "Chasing these carding fraudsters is like chasing terrorists in Afghanistan," says RSA Security's Einav. "You know they are somewhere out there, but finding their caves, their underground bunkers, is almost impossible." The U.S. Secret Service declined to answer questions about Iceman and CardersMarket. It would not acknowledge whether they are under investigation as part of Operation Rolling Stone, the most intensive federal probe of cybercrime since Operation Firewall. This year, 35 suspects have been arrested. No names were initially released, but a few have surfaced after indictments were unsealed. Suspects include Binyamin Schwartz, 28, of Oak Park, Mich., indicted in July in Nashville for allegedly trafficking more than 100,000 Social Security numbers, and Paulius Kalpokas, 23, of Lithuania, whose extradition to Nashville on charges of trafficking stolen credit card data has been requested. Schwartz "got caught up in something on the Internet but did not profit from it," says Sanford Schulman, Schwartz's attorney. "He inquired about acquiring information online without criminal intent, nor was he involved in a sophisticated enterprise." Secret Service spokesman Thomas Mazur says Operation Rolling Stone is designed to "disrupt and dismantle any of these carding forums," but he declined to say which forums or how many are being investigated. Security experts worry that CardersMarket's emergence as a model for setting up hypersafe forums could translate into a spike of activity by the best and brightest cybercrooks. "It's called bulletproofing," says CardCops' Clements. "Guys will now migrate to CardersMarket because they really are untouchable there." Trust a thief? Iceman's masterstroke rattled his rivals and raised suspicions among his peers. In the tech industry, companies routinely spread what they call FUD -- fear, uncertainty and doubt -- about a competitor's business model. Shortly after Iceman swept up TalkCash's 2,600 members onto CardersMarket's website, TalkCash's leader, nicknamed Unknown Killer, e-mailed a shrill warning to TalkCash members: "I've talked to a number of guys and all say that they didn't merge a (expletive) with that site ... so please beware as they can be feds." Speculation abounds on the Internet that the FBI helped install Iceman as head of a dominant forum set up to lure kingpin cybercrooks into capture. In busting up Shadowcrew, law enforcement had used a high-ranking member of Shadowcrew as an inside informant, beginning in August 2003, according to court records. Security experts say it's possible, though unlikely, Iceman could be an informant. While not commenting directly about Iceman, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson says, "The FBI is not in the business of exposing Americans to fraud." Instead of being admired by his peers, Iceman found himself scrambling to deal with an intensifying backlash. A forum member, nicknamed Silo, posted this public comment on CardersMarket: "How Can we TRUST you and this boards admin? You breached our community's security. Stole the Databases of other forums ... you've breached what little trust exist's (sic) in the community." Ten days after the forced mergers, the deposed leaders of DarkMarket and ScandinavianCarding managed to reconstitute forums under those names. And CardersMarket appeared to be under assault, with some of the features on its website functioning sporadically, according to RSA Security's Einav. Security experts expect the infighting to run its course. They say Iceman's attack prompted forum leaders to beef up database passwords and patch other security holes, making both hostile takeovers and law enforcement investigations more difficult. Most experts expect the activity level of the forums to rise, because many consumers and businesses are uninformed or apathetic. Consumers' lax attitudes Consumers continue to exhibit lax attitudes, even as Internet intrusions and scams rise in frequency and sophistication. John Thompson, CEO of anti-virus giant Symantec, contends Internet users must adopt the same "sixth sense about security" they use when they get in their cars or leave home. Meanwhile, the commercial sector has been slow to ask consumers to take other steps, such as using a smartcard or fingerprint reader — along with typing a log-on and password — to prove they are who they say online. Thomas Harkins spent two decades as operations director for MasterCard International's fraud division, gaining an insider's view of cybercrime's breakneck rise. Now COO of security firm Edentify, based in Bethlehem, Pa., Harkins says identity theft is poised to increase by a factor of 20 over the next two years. "There's so many stolen identities in criminals' hands that (identity theft) could easily rise 20 times," Harkins says. "The criminals are still trying to figure out what to do with all the data." Meanwhile, stories such as Kevin Munro's will continue to pile up. In late August, the name, Social Security number and other data of the 51-year-old Warsaw, N.Y., building inspector turned up for sale on a forum monitored by CardCops. Munro recalls changing checking accounts after a thief tried to cash several bad checks in 2002. Since then, his personal data have persisted in circulation. Cybercrooks have used it online to order magazines, purchase three Dell computers and attempt to take out a real estate loan. Recently, MasterCard notified Munro that an account he's had for 20 years and uses infrequently was being canceled. "I work for a living," Munro says. "I do everything on the up-and-up, and some lowlife comes by and takes it away." Acohido reported from Seattle, Swartz from San Francisco. Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/infotheft/2006-10-11-cybercrime-hacker-forums_x.htm?csp=N009 Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. 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: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:33:29 -0500 From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Microsoft Releases 3 'Critical' Fixes Tuesday Microsoft Corp. published six security fixes -- half of them rated "critical" -- in its regularly scheduled software update Tuesday. The three patches with the company's most severe rating are designed to prevent malicious hackers from remotely taking control of computers without permission. One of the updates targets a vulnerability in the company's spreadsheet program, Excel, that could let hackers break into a PC if its user opened a tainted spreadsheet. Microsoft also addressed critical holes in its .NET Framework, a massive library of computer code that is part of its newest operating system, Windows Vista, and versions of Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. The third critical update is intended to prevent attacks on Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003. The company also released patches with less urgent security ratings for the firewall built into Windows Vista, and for Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 and Windows XP Professional. PC users can visit Microsoft's security Web site to download updates, or sign up for an automatic security update program. On the Net: http://www.microsoft.com/security 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: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 22:15:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Gizmodo: No BS iPhone Review By Brian Lam July 9 2007 Gizmodo Greetings irrational fanboys and Apple haters! Ten days and 12,000 words later, our stone-cold look at what it means to own an iPhone is done. Before we get to the in depth hands-on, here's the verdict I'd give any good friend: Wait to buy the iPhone. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/no-bs-iphone-review-276116.php iPhone Hands on Guide http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/no-bs-iphone-review-276116.php#iphonemassive ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:42:33 -0500 From: Teresa von Fuchs Subject: Customer Service Troubles For Sprint Nextel WirelessWeek - July 09, 2007 Customer Service Troubles for Sprint Nextel By Teresa von Fuchs Sprint Nextel is facing a veritable smear campaign from bloggers and the media regarding letters the carrier recently sent to customers "releasing" them from their contracts. Notices were sent to customers who frequently called Sprint's customer service department, and said that since the company was unable to resolve the users' technical issues "we are unable to meet your current wireless needs." Sprint adamantly claims that only a "very small percentage" of customers with "irresolvable" service issues were affected. But letter recipients have testified, mainly online, to the contrary. One user claimed he called customer service repeatedly over the last few months due to a defective phone and the carriers' botched attempts to find him a suitable replacement. Another former customer said she called the billing department twice a month because of errors on her bill. The company claims affected users called customer service on average 25 times per month over the last 12 months. Sprint graciously let customers off without an early termination fee, giving them until the end of July to find new service. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 2007 22:59:18 -0400 From: David B. Horvath, CCP Subject: Re: A Quaint Relic From Our Archives on Computer PAT: Please remove my email address, name is fine. On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:56:44 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com posted: > Again, some things, such as aquittals or mere suspicions, could be > buried in paper files never to see light again. With computerized > indexes, that is less likely. Sorry for the delayed response but I've been traveling a bit. Maybe for the general public that is true but not for those that really care. Without disclosing some of the identifying details, something along those lines happened to a family member. A little background: "Jane" had carpel tunnel surgery on her left wrist, later cubical tunnel surgery on her left elbow, both work related. A few years later her right side started to bother her. She went for the carpel tunnel surgery, and before her doctor cleared her to return to work, the employer tried to force her back (even though she had surgery scheduled for right cubical tunnel). This all happened at one employer and there were other work related medical issues. The attorneys got involved and eventually got into court. At the hearing, the attorney starts asking questions about a community-policing course that she took. They had information from a weekly free-local newspaper article (based on press release from the Police department). The paper does not have a web page. A web search discloses none of the details. Based on the company's attorney, it was clear he was laying the groundwork to claim that her injury was from the activities of/learned in the class. Without going through the full transcript, he asked: "In the class, did it include doing X?" To which she replied "yes." Then he asked "Did you do X?" Her, completely honest and unscripted answer was "Yes, I tried it once, it hurt, so I stopped." The attorney then went through his note pad crossing off pages of questions. He had a few other questions but the hearing was essentially over at that point. Again: the fishrag had no paid circulation and was/is not available on the Internet. And yet, the attorney knew about the mention of her name and had a copy of the article. Just because certain information is not in the Internet does not mean that it is unavailable to someone or some organization willing to pay to find it. Information on the Internet is easier to find ... Another point about newspapers: Usually (most of the time, not *always*) they will print an item when someone is acquitted or suspicions are reported as "unfounded" (or someone else is arrested). A web search for someone's name should grab both sets of articles. David B. Horvath, CCP Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor Member: ICCP Educational Foundation Board and ICCP Test Council; Chair of LPR&GC CMP [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To respond briefly to David: He said (these things) 'may happen to the general public, but not to those people who really care'. My question would be what people are those, David? And I would agree with Lisa about newspapers printing acquittal notices or retractions. Generally they do not do it. Consider the Chicago Tribune: Large, front page stories may discuss in lurid terms about someone's alleged misbehavior. When the person is either acquitted (if it went to court) or the paper was simply mistaken in how they reported the matter to start with, it becomes the problem of the newspaper's "ombudsman" to print a correction/retraction which goes in a little tiny box somewhere inside the paper. New York Times is the same way. And the "ombudsman" not only prints the real version of events (in tiny little print on an inside page) but often times asks the newspaper it came to the conclusions it did, and the editor will as often as not insist 'the Tribune stands by its story.' PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Some Troubles With Telecom Digest Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:33:44 -0400 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) On Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday, there were some difficulties with the Telecom Digest re-director. John Levine, a friend of many years of the Digest has since the start of the web back in 1994 served as 'webmaster' and been in charge of re-directing calls to the URL 'http://telecom-digest.org'. One of his computers receives all incoming calls to the Digest web site, and points, or re-directs those calls to our REAL home, which is at http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives. John said the computer which does that job (not only for me, but apparently other web sites as well) crashed, went dead, and refused to answer any calls. I found out about this Sunday night, and notified John in email. The answer I got from John was that he is in Quebec all this week, but he wold get someone else to reboot the computer. Nothing happened all day Monday, but I was busy with some other work and did not notice it until late Monday night. I sent him a reminder request, and he responded early Tuesday saying the computer was apparently dead. Again, I spent all day Tuesday doing flood relief work here in Independence and did not worry about the Digest. Now I get home this evening and note that the re-director is again working as it should. A note from John indicated that: > if you get this message then my band-aids worked. So indeed, it seems they did work. *Thank you, John.* So as just a reminder to all of you, the _preferred_ address to reach the Digest is http://telecom-digest.org but in the event that address draws a blank (as in cannot find the page; or address does not resolve or some similar kind of stalling, then feel free to use the alternate address (and my real home) which is http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives which is a 'direct address' at MIT to reach me. All that happens with http://telecom-digest.org (or .com or .net) is that you are transparently re-routed over to massis.lcs.mit.edu and the telecom-archives directory therein. Please make a note of this in the event you get stalled again for some reason. And if you are on the mailing list for the Digest or read this through Usenet, you should also note that the Digest is published *almost* every day at least once or sometimes twice. In the event you do not receive your daily email or newsgroup messages from me, then please feel free to look at our website and see what is going on. Thanks. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #195 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 12 01:42:24 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id C7F0D2194; Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:42:23 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #196 Message-Id: <20070712054223.C7F0D2194@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:42:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:41:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 196 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Military Files Left Unprotected Online (Mike Baker, Associated Press) FTP is Simple, But Open to Leaks (Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press) AOL to Pay $3 Million, and Reform Cancel Penalties (Michael Liedtke, AP) Facebook Innovators Win Funding, Settle for Jobs (Eric Auchard, Reuters) Re: Microsoft Releases 3 'Critical' Fixes Tuesday (Linc Madison) Go On, Read the Rest of the Article; Tell Me What You Think (courtyard) Some Troubles With Telecom Digest (TELECOM Digest Editor) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:40:29 -0500 From: Mike Baker, AP Writer Subject: Military Files Left Unprotected Online By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq. Geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad. Plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The military calls it "need-to-know" information that would pose a direct threat to U.S. troops if it were to fall into the hands of terrorists. It's material so sensitive that officials refused to release the documents when asked. But it's already out there, posted carelessly to file servers by government agencies and contractors, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. In a survey of servers run by agencies or companies involved with the military and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Associated Press found dozens of documents that officials refused to release when asked directly, citing troop security. Such material goes online all the time, posted most often by mistake. It's not in plain sight, unlike the plans for the new American embassy in Baghdad that appeared recently on the Web site of an architectural firm. But it is almost as easy to find. And experts said foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists working with al-Qaida likely know where to look. In one case, the Army Corps of Engineers asked the AP to promptly dispose of several documents found on a contractor's server that detailed a project to expand the fuel infrastructure at Bagram — including a map of the entry point to be used by fuel trucks and the location of pump houses and fuel tanks. The Corps of Engineers then changed its policies for storing material online following the AP's inquiry. But a week later, the AP downloaded a new document directly from the agency's own server. The 61 pages of photos, graphics and charts map out the security features at Tallil Air Base, a compound outside of Nasiriyah in southeastern Iraq, and depict proposed upgrades to the facility's perimeter fencing. "That security fence guards our lives," said Lisa Coghlan, a spokeswoman for the Corps of Engineers in Iraq, who is based at Tallil. "Those drawings should not have been released. I hope to God this is the last document that will be released from us." The Corps of Engineers and its contractor weren't alone: The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency -- which provides the military with maps and charts -- said it plans to review its policies after the AP found several sensitive documents, including aerial surveys of military airfields near Balad and Al Asad, Iraq, on its server. Benham Companies LLC is securing its site after learning it had inadvertently posted detailed maps of buildings and infrastructure at Fort Sill, Okla. "Now, everything will be protected," said Steve Tompkins, a spokesman for Oklahoma City-based Benham. Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, two of the nation's leading nuclear laboratories, closed public access to their file transfer protocol servers after the AP contacted them about material posted there. Both said the change was unrelated to the AP's inquiry. The AP has destroyed the documents it downloaded, and all the material cited in this story is no longer available online on the sites surveyed. The posting of private material on publicly available FTP servers is a familiar problem to security experts hired by companies to secure sites and police the actions of employees who aren't always tech-savvy. They said files that never should appear online are often left unprotected by inexperienced or careless users who don't know better. A spokeswoman for contractor SRA International Inc., where the AP found a document the Defense Department said could let hackers access military computer networks, said the company wasn't concerned because the unclassified file was on an FTP site that's not indexed by Internet search engines. "The only way you could find it is by an awful lot of investigation," said SRA spokeswoman Laura Luke. But on Tuesday, SRA had effectively shut down its FTP server. The only file online was a short statement: "In order to mitigate the risk of SRA or client proprietary information being inadvertently made available to the public, the SRA anonymous ftp server has been shutdown indefinitely. In the coming months, a new secure ftp site will be introduced that will replace the functionality of this site." Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of BT Counterpane, a Mountain View, Calif.-based technology security company, said the attitude that material posted on FTP sites is hard to find reflects a misunderstanding of how the Internet works. "For some, there's sort of this myth that 'if I put something on the Net and don't tell anybody,' that it's hidden," Schneier said. "It's a sloppy user mistake. This is yet another human error that creates a major problem." File transfer protocol is a relatively old technology that makes files available on the Internet. It remains popular for its simplicity, efficiency and low cost. In fact, several agencies and contractors said the documents found by the AP were posted online so they could be easily shared among colleagues. Internet users can't scour the sites with a typical search engine, but FTP servers routinely share a similar address as public Web sites. To log on, users often only need to replace "http" and "http://www" in a Web address with "ftp", such as "ftp://sitename". Some are secured by password or a firewall, but others are occasionally left open to anyone with an Internet connection to browse and download anonymously. Experts said that when unsophisticated users post sensitive information to the servers, they would not necessarily know it could be downloaded by people outside of their business or agency. "What they don't realize is that every time you set up any type of server, you have that possibility," said Danny Allan, director of security research for Watchfire, a Waltham, Mass.-based Web security company. "Any files that you are putting on the server you want to monitor on a continuous basis." Allan said he and others in the security industry have watched for more than a decade as files -- including credit card information, sensitive blueprints of government buildings and military intelligence reports -- spread through the public domain via unsecured FTP servers. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war in Iraq, declined to say if material accidentally left on the Internet had led to a physical breach of security. But among the documents the AP found were aerial photographs and detailed schematics of Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run facility for detainees in Iraq. One of the documents was password-protected, but the password was printed in an unsecure document stored on the same server. They showed where U.S. forces keep prisoners and fuel tanks, as well as the locations of security fences, guard towers and other security measures. "It gets down to a level of detail that would assist insurgents in trying to free their members from the camp or overpower guards," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute. "When you post ... the map of a high-security facility that houses insurgents, you're basically giving their allies on the outside information useful in freeing them." The Corps of Engineers expressed a similar concern when it learned that the AP had downloaded the details about the fuel infrastructure upgrade at Bagram from a contractor's FTP site. Spokeswoman Joan Kibler said that kind of information "could put our troops in harm's way." The AP's discovery led the agency to ask all its contractors to immediately put such material under password protection. In fact, all the agencies and contractors contacted by the AP have either shut down their FTP sites, secured them with a password or pledged to install other safeguards to ensure the documents are no longer accessible. "We saw that there have been instances where some documents have been placed on FTP sites, and they haven't had any safeguarding mechanisms for them," Kibler said. "We've determined that those documents need to be safeguarded, so we've amended our practices here to require that any of those types of documents have restricted access when they're placed on FTP sites." Documents found by the AP about Contingency Operating Base Speicher near Tikrit, Iraq, describe potential security vulnerabilities at the facility and paraphrase an Army major expressing concerns about a "great separation between personnel and equipment" as the base prepared for the military's current counterinsurgency push. "For force-protection reasons and operational security, that's sensitive stuff," said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a military spokesman based at Speicher. "That's for a need-to-know basis. The enemy regularly takes that stuff and pieces it together for their advantage." The information about Camp Bucca, Bagram Air Base and Contingency Operating Base Speicher was found on the FTP server of CH2M Hill Companies Ltd., an engineering, consulting and construction company based in Englewood, Colo. "None of the drawings are classified and we believe they were all handled appropriately per the government's direction," said CH2M Hill spokesman John Corsi. But the company added a password protection to its FTP site after the AP's inquiry and referred the direct request for the documents to the government. Military officials said they could jeopardize troop security and refused to release them. Other files found by the AP didn't appear to pose an immediate threat to troop security, but illustrated advanced military technologies. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency posted PowerPoint presentations outlining military GPS systems, including plans to combat GPS jammers. Files from Los Alamos give an early look at a developing technology to combat enemy snipers in urban environments, including one file describing the levels of security behind the new program. Dean Carver, a counterintelligence officer with the federal Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said at a recent security conference that such trade secrets -- even those dealing with a basic technology -- are often a common target for foreign espionage because they can be used to advance a country's own military technology. "Every military-critical technology is sought by many foreign governments," said Carver, mentioning China and Russia as the leading culprits of snooping on the Internet. Christopher Freeman believes he may have witnessed such hunting for secrets. While working on an internal security review at his job with the city of Greensboro, N.C.., Freeman watched as a computer with an electronic address from Tehran, Iran, accessed the city's FTP server and downloaded a file that contained design drawings for the area's water infrastructure. He said that while there's no way to know if there was malicious intent behind the download, "when you think of Iran, you think of all the bad stuff first." "It could have been anyone," Freeman said. "It opened our eyes to show that we're not just little old Greensboro. We're a part of the global community." That was years ago, and it led Freeman to start looking for FTP sites he thought should be secure. He found a manual describing how to operate a Navy encryption device on the server of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. He also found photographs and graphics detailing the inner workings of missiles designed at Sandia. "It's not something that had any business being on a FTP site," said Sandia spokeswoman Stephanie Holinka of the material Freeman found. The agency has shut down its FTP site while a security upgrade is put in place, she said. Many sites housed raw data, presentations and documents that didn't have security classifications, while other documents were clearly marked to prevent public release. The manual of the encryption device tells users to "destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of this document." A warning says exporting the document could result in "severe criminal penalties." "The military is often criticized for making too many things secret, but when you're enabling an enemy to find out how you use encryption devices, you easily could be helping them to defeat America," said Thompson, the military analyst. Freeman, who showed the AP the documents from Sandia and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, said he made a conscious effort to avoid information labeled classified but still managed to accidentally download files from Sandia with "top secret" classifications, forcing him to wipe his computer hard drive clean and notify authorities. Freeman passed along his findings to the FBI and the Department of Defense and later aided investigators in securing the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command site. After getting calls from a contractor and the Army Materiel Command asking about what he found online, Freeman has sought legal representation from Denner Pellegrino, a Boston-based firm that specializes in cyber crime. "This is a treasure trove for terrorists," Freeman said. "They can just waltz in and browse. I'm by no means a high-tech person. I'm not a programmer. I don't know hacking. I'm just a slightly above-average computer user." FBI officials declined to specifically discuss Freeman and what he told the agency. But Mark Moss, a Charlotte-based FBI agent who focuses on online security, said foreign intelligence agencies spend a lot of time on the Internet because online intelligence-gathering is cheap, quick and anonymous. "If they steal your technology through the Internet, it's overseas in an instant," Moss said. "It's the perfect conduit." 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: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:36:08 -0500 From: Anick Jesdanun, AP Writer Subject: FTP is Simple, But Open to Leaks By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer The Internet was a mere 19 months old when engineers first developed a file-sharing system still in wide use today. Although many of the technologies from those early days eventually faded away, replaced by newer developments such as the World Wide Web and search engines, file transfer protocol remains a common way for distributing larger files and updating Web sites, thanks to its simplicity and versatility. "It says remarkably good things about the guys who designed the Internet," said John Levine, an FTP user for a quarter-century and co-author of "The Internet for Dummies." "FTP was designed well enough that there's never been a pressing need to come up with something better." Its simplicity, though, also leads to security challenges that simply weren't imagined back in the Internet's early days. FTP was first described in a 1971 paper, "A File Transfer Protocol," and became canonized as a standard in 1985. For years, FTP was the primary way to transfer files. Two networked computers can send files back and forth, regardless of the file type or the computer's filing and storage system. Each computer would only need to know this common way of transferring files. After the Web's development in the early 1990s, its hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP, became the standard way to retrieve text and smaller images over browsers. But FTP has remained the go-to technology for downloading larger files such as documents, databases and songs; FTP download capabilities are built into standard browsers. Standalone FTP software also can let Web developers upload Web pages onto servers for viewing, something difficult or impossible with browsers. FTP comes with password-protection options, though usernames and passwords to access files are sent over the Internet unencrypted as regular text, allowing spies along the way to capture the information. A bigger problem, though, is FTP's ability to let people log on anonymously, a capability purposely included to promote file sharing, but one that can accidentally expose private, sensitive documents. The username is typically "anonymous" and the password can be anything, meaning everyone on the Internet has access to your files and servers that aren't configured correctly. Though anonymous FTP can be turned off, many older systems come with it automatically on -- and inexperienced or careless users may forget to make the change. "You're most likely to find an open anonymous server on some workstation on somebody's desk at a university that's been sitting there for 10 years," Levine said. "You have to be careful." Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. For more news and headlines, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:38:21 -0500 From: Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer Subject: AOL to Pay $3 Million, and Reform Cancel Penalties By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer Averting a looming court battle over how it has handled the exodus from its Internet dial-up service, AOL has agreed to make it easier for its remaining customers to leave as part of a $3 million settlement with 48 states and the District of Columbia. The resolution announced Wednesday was driven by a deluge of complaints from AOL customers who said they tried to close their accounts, only to be thwarted in their attempts or discover they were still being billed for services that they thought had been canceled. The outcry triggered a multistate investigation that would have culminated in a lawsuit if AOL hadn't agreed to ante up and change its ways, said David Tiede, a deputy attorney general in California. California was among the states that played a leading role in the settlement. New York and Florida were the only states that didn't participate in the inquiry. AOL, the Internet division of Time Warner Inc., didn't acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement. Company spokeswoman Amy Call downplayed the impact of the settlement, saying AOL had already voluntarily improved the way it handled cancellations during 2005 and 2006. "This just codifies those safeguards," she said. As part of the settlement, AOL agreed to maintain an online channel for processing cancellations. Although it has long been one of the Internet's best-known companies, AOL didn't set up an online cancellation system until last August. Previously, all cancellation requests had to be made by fax, mail or telephone. Subscribers who phoned AOL to cancel their service sometimes were greeted by aggressive customer service representatives who were paid bonuses of up to $3,000 if they found a way to retain the business, according to the multistate settlement. Customers complained that AOL's incentive system created an obstructive culture that made service cancellations difficult. "Consumers who called were put on hold or transferred repeatedly until they hung up in disgust," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who described AOL's practices as "outlandish and underhanded." The settlement requires AOL to issue refunds to consumers who can show they were still charged monthly fees after trying to cancel their services. AOL's fees currently range from $9.95 to $25.90 per month. Tiede said the multistate investigation didn't estimate how much money AOL might have to refund. The $3 million settlement will be divided among the 48 states and the District of Columbia to cover the costs of their inquiry into AOL's practices and finance other consumer protection efforts. AOL ended March with 12 million U.S. subscribers, down from 21 million less than two years ago. Customers have been defecting with greater frequency since last August, when AOL began giving away e-mail accounts and software that was previously available only to subscribers. The decision, prompted by free services from Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., removed one of the main reasons many customers had been clinging to their AOL accounts, even if they lived in households with high-speed Internet access. California Attorney General Jerry Brown predicted Wednesday's multistate agreement "will minimize the potential for consumer confusion during the transition to free e-mail accounts." This isn't the first time AOL has run into legal trouble for frustrating customers who wanted to dump the Internet access service. In 2005, AOL paid $1.25 million in penalties and costs to resolve a similar complaint in New York. In 2003, the company agreed to improve the way it dealt with customer cancellation requests as part of a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into allegations about unfair billing practices. In a separate development, investors hurt by accounting shenanigans that inflated AOL's advertising revenue from 1998 to 2002 will begin to receive payments from a $2.65 billion class action settlement later this month. The initial distribution of the money was held up last month after a technology company, BizProLink LLC, filed an appeal seeking a share of the proceeds. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:33:41 -0500 From: Eric Auchard, Reuters Subject: Facebook Innovators Win Funding, Settle for Jobs By Eric Auchard First came the dot-com gold miners. For those who stayed on after the bust, there was still some silver to be found. But for latecomers and recent graduates seeking to cash in on the latest Silicon Valley craze, it's mostly decent paid salary work that's left. The going rate for a hit new product from a talented programmer on social networking sensation Facebook is tens of thousands of dollars, a plane ticket to California, and a job. Facebook, which allows users to share their online activities with a circle of friends, is seeing some of the first successful products snapped up by venture capital backers or in outright acquisition deals. Yet it's a far cry from the tens of millions of dollars venture capitalists dished out nearly a decade ago in the dot-com start-up craze, or the hundreds of thousands in seed money with which Web entrepreneurs have had to learn to build businesses since then. Instead, companies looking to cash in on the excitement over Facebook -- where successful programs can attract millions of users in a matter of days -- are acting more like aggressive college job recruiters handing out generous signing bonuses. "There's this giant competition for brilliant young developers," said Max Levchin, founder and chief executive of San Francisco software developer Slide Inc. "Facebook is this instant leader board of who's best at user engagement and technical ability." In May, Facebook began allowing independent software makers to build applications in the site, a move that has led to the creation of more than 1,700 new applications in less than two months and sparked a surge in usage among Facebook members. Applications range from those that share your favorite music videos, albums and television shows with friends to one that sends text messages to mobile phones through Facebook. Slide http://www.slide.com said on Tuesday it had acquired SuperPoke, one of the 10-most-popular programs on Facebook, and hired the three-student team behind it. Also this week, Menlo Park, California-based Bay Partners said it had created AppFactory, a program to fund "tens" of different Facebook application projects using a fast-track approval process and grants ranging from $25,000 to $250,000. "Bay wants to find the killer apps, whatever they may be," said Salil Deshpande, a partner in the early-stage venture capital firm. SMALL, FAST, CHEAP Bay said it was betting on individuals or small teams and their concepts, and moving fast to capitalize on demand -- rather than the classic venture capital approach of building companies with stable track records over many years. In late June, Slide hired the creator of "Favorite Peeps," a simple program with 1.6 million users already that lets Facebook members show off pictures of their closest friends. "That really opened us up to the caliber of people you could meet through this filter of watching who was building successful Facebook applications," CEO Levchin said. Levchin co-founded online payments leader PayPal Inc. in 1998 and sold it to online auctioneer eBay Inc. in 2002. Terms for Favorite Peeps were undisclosed but Spongewire, a review site that tracks new Facebook programs, reported that Slide paid $60,000 and hired its creator, Dennis Rakhamimov, a Columbia University graduate now working in San Francisco. Slide, a 50-employee company, is the leading creator of mini-programs known as "widgets" -- simple software used by members of social networks like MySpace and Facebook to express themselves or add features to their personal Web pages. Slide's acquisition, SuperPoke, is a humorous software application that allows users to define their current standing with friends on Facebook. The application has signed up 3.8 million users. SuperPoke encourages users to virtually "slap, bite, chest bump, dropkick ... or headbutt" friends. It was created by two Stanford University graduates -- William Liu, 26, and Jonathan Hsu, 28 -- who collaborated with a recent University of California, San Diego undergraduate, Nik Gandhy, who is 24. 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/internet-news.html or http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jul 2007 10:55:19 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Microsoft Releases 3 'Critical' Fixes Tuesday Organization: Linc Mad dot com In article , Associated Press News Wire wrote: > Microsoft Corp. published six security fixes -- half of them rated > "critical" -- in its regularly scheduled software update Tuesday. > One of the updates targets a vulnerability in the company's > spreadsheet program, Excel, that could let hackers break into a PC if > its user opened a tainted spreadsheet. It really seems to me that you would have to TRY to write a spreadsheet program that allows someone to remotely take control of your computer without your knowledge. Microsoft works hard to live up to its reputation for writing software that may incidentally perform some useful function as it fulfills its primary purpose of giving malware authors fertile ground for their latest code. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom at Linc Mad d0t c0m URL: < http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits Read my political blog, "The Third Path" US, California, and Washington State laws apply to LINCMAD.COM e-mail. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 2007 11:34:04 +0700 From: courtyard Subject: Go on, Read the Rest of the Article; Tell Me What You Think Vision Airships Global Expansion! BANGKOK, THAILAND, Jul 09, 2007 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) - Vision Airships Inc. (PINKSHEETS: VPSN) - The company wishes to announce that it has finalized arrangements for funding for its global expansion. Check out the news and get on VPSN first thing Thursday! I mean, why else would you? Remove the sanding dust with a tack cloth. And I know this because I checked, like, a zillion different times in a zillion different ways. Now I can access my Google Reader and play with Google's other account-access toys without having to run extra browsers and get IE slime all over the place. Steps: Carefully study the hole. All is not perfect with this unusual shrub though. Make sure the frame is clean, dry, and well sanded. A taggable desktop is my pony. Confronting new ideas without sufficient preparation can be dangerous! Hey Google -- why can't you fix this? On every block there is a different bar with a different band, packed with kids dancing and generally getting smashed. It's a license to be a busybody. Thankfully mirrors open up a world of unrealized space, that's something to reflect on when you're decorating. Not only will you get a more realistic road crew experience, but you'll also find the asphalt easier to work with when it's warm and soft. I learned about the joys of asphalt repair when I was growing up in small-town Ontario. Step Two -- Fill That Baby Dump enough bitumen into the hole to reach half an inch higher than the surrounding driveway surface. And since there is no actual way to get past the Google Help house o'mirrors to talk to a real person, I've basically been pulling my hair out over this. These holes give homes a messy feeling, especially if they're at eye level. My Dad would call the town to report a pothole in front of our place. I have that dream too. Two that are burned in my memory are 'Country Dancer' and 'Carefree Beauty'. So my question is, would we die anyway, or is the process of reviewing ghastly repairs the actual cause of death? Hang the mirror as required then add a wood block behind the frame at the top of the mirror -- forcing it to angle downwards. In July it puffs out with the most amazing pink flowers, like a confection from the CNE midway. But while you're driving over it, at least make the sound of a steamroller. The real mission of this trip was to attend a jazz festival and hear the incomparable Herbie Hancock. I learned about the joys of asphalt repair when I was growing up in small-town Ontario. The wheel never lies. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So you have learned, as have many of us that there is no such thing as a 'customer service' phone number at Google. Look all through their pages, and check out the limited number of 'contact us' entries shown; _very few_ of them have any phone number shown. And if you try boldly just calling directory assistance for that area in California you _can_ get a switchboard or general number for Google, but the people who man that line screen _all callers_ very closely, and keep insisting that you check out the online help pages, many of which are almost meaningless. Meaningless, that is, unless you wish to read about how you can be a Google 'partner' and the best way to organize your files to optimize your profits. Basically, all you can do is just keep reading and reviewing their 'help' files. I wish someone would provide me with a phone number (I should be so lucky if it was an 800 number) where a real, live, experienced person could look up your files and make simple changes. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Some Troubles With Telecom Digest Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) On Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday, there were some difficulties with the Telecom Digest re-director. John Levine, a friend of many years of the Digest has since the start of the web back in 1994 served as 'webmaster' and been in charge of re-directing calls to the URL 'http://telecom-digest.org'. One of his computers receives all incoming calls to the Digest web site, and points, or re-directs those calls to our REAL home, which is at http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives. John said the computer which does that job (not only for me, but apparently other web sites as well) crashed, went dead, and refused to answer any calls. I found out about this Sunday night, and notified John in email. The answer I got from John was that he is in Quebec all this week, but he wold get someone else to reboot the computer. Nothing happened all day Monday, but I was busy with some other work and did not notice it until late Monday night. I sent him a reminder request, and he responded early Tuesday saying the computer was apparently dead. Again, I spent all day Tuesday doing flood relief work here in Independence and did not worry about the Digest. Now I get home this evening and note that the re-director is again working as it should. A note from John indicated that: > if you get this message then my band-aids worked. So indeed, it seems they did work. *Thank you, John.* So as just a reminder to all of you, the _preferred_ address to reach the Digest is http://telecom-digest.org but in the event that address draws a blank (as in cannot find the page; or address does not resolve or some similar kind of stalling, then feel free to use the alternate address (and my real home) which is http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives which is a 'direct address' at MIT to reach me. All that happens with http://telecom-digest.org (or .com or .net) is that you are transparently re-routed over to massis.lcs.mit.edu and the telecom-archives directory therein. Please make a note of this in the event you get stalled again for some reason. Right now, the outbound mailing list is not working correctly. Thanks. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #196 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 12 14:49:51 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 21ECD21BD; Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:49:50 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #197 Message-Id: <20070712184951.21ECD21BD@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:49:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:53:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 197 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Court Denies Webcasters' Stay Petition (Reuters News Wire) More ID Thievery in Ohio; This Time 859,800 Names, ID Stolen (M. Leingang) Alcatel-Lucent Awarded $400 Million Network Contract (US Telecom DailyLead) Some Troubles With Telecom Digest (TELECOM Digest Editor) Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (Fred Atkinson) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:56:03 -0500 From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Court Denies Webcasters' Stay Petition A federal appeals court has denied a petition by U.S. Internet radio stations seeking to delay a royalty rate hike due July 15 they say could kill the fledgling industry. While the July 11 ruling by the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was a setback, the SaveNetRadio coalition of Webcasters vowed it would continue fighting the hikes in Congress. Late last month, thousands of U.S. Internet radio stations, organized by SaveNetRadio, held a "Day of Silence" to protest the hikes in performance royalties paid to musicians and record companies. Under a Copyright Royalty Board ruling in March, Webcasters will pay a performance royalty of $0.0008 for each listener of each song in 2006, rising to $0.0019 in 2010. The first payment, backdated to January 1, 2006, is due on July 15. The new ruling means the six biggest Internet radio stations -- Pandora, Yahoo, Live365, RealNetworks Inc., Time Warner Inc's AOL and Viacom Inc's MTV Online -- will pay 47 percent of their anticipated 2006 combined revenue of $37.5 million in performance royalties, said SaveNetRadio. "We are disappointed that the Court failed to acknowledge the irreparable and quite frankly, devastating effect these new royalties will have on the Internet radio industry," said Jake Ward, a spokesperson for the SaveNetRadio coalition of Webcasters, net radio listeners and artists. SoundExchange -- a non-profit group representing more than 20,000 artists, 2,500 independent record labels and four major record companies -- collects the royalties from Internet and satellite radio, as well as digital cable. Ward said the ruling by the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington puts the ball squarely in the hands of Congress, which has already received more than half million messages urging members to pass legislation to cut the royalty rate to 7.5 percent of a company's annual revenue, bringing Internet radio in line with the rate by satellite radio. 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 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: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:00:51 -0500 From: Matt Leingang, Associated Press Subject: More ID Thievery in Ohio; This Time 859,800 Names Stolen Ohio: Stolen device contains 859,800 IDs By MATT LEINGANG, Associated Press Writer A stolen computer storage device contained more than twice the number of taxpayers' identifications than had been previously reported, Gov. Ted Strickland said Wednesday, but he emphasized there is still no indication the data have been compromised. The names and Social Security numbers of 561,126 people who had not cashed state income refund checks were on the device, as well as 14,874 people who did business with the state, according to an ongoing review of the information it held. That brings the total number of taxpayers affected to 859,800, Strickland said. The device was stolen June 10 from an intern's unlocked car. Strickland said no ID theft cases linked to the stolen device have been reported, and that extracting data from it would require a high degree of knowledge and specialized equipment. In addition to the refund check recipients, others whose information was on the device include state employees, welfare recipients and lottery winners who have yet to cash their tickets. Strickland noted that the estimate of affected people may include duplicates because some people may belong to more than one of the groups whose information was on the device. 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: 12 Jul 2007 12:29:30 -0500 From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Alcatel-Lucent Awarded $400 Million Network Contract USTelecom dailyLead July 12, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hvlAfDtusXvzcnCibuddvgWx TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Alcatel-Lucent awarded $400 million network contract BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Nextlink creates "largest broadband wireless access network in U.S." * Telus launches EVDO network in British Columbia, Alberta * Kuwait planning third national mobile network * Shaw Communications plans stock split * NTT DoCoMo, AT&T to bring 3G to Hawaii * South Korean handset production drops 20% TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Nokia adds Skype functionality * Study: Most use cells for calls, text, not games or video IP DOWNLOAD * Turk Telecom plans $3.4 billion IP network, rural broadband REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * EU wants to consolidate telecom regulation Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hvlAfDtusXvzcnCibuddvgWx ------------------------------ Subject: Some Troubles With Telecom Digest Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:33:44 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) On Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday, there were some difficulties with the Telecom Digest re-director. John Levine, a friend of many years of the Digest has since the start of the web back in 1994 served as 'webmaster' and been in charge of re-directing calls to the URL 'http://telecom-digest.org'. One of his computers receives all incoming calls to the Digest web site, and points, or re-directs those calls to our REAL home, which is at http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives. John said the computer which does that job (not only for me, but apparently other web sites as well) crashed, went dead, and refused to answer any calls. I found out about this Sunday night, and notified John in email. The answer I got from John was that he is in Quebec all this week, but he wold get someone else to reboot the computer. Nothing happened all day Monday, but I was busy with some other work and did not notice it until late Monday night. I sent him a reminder request, and he responded early Tuesday saying the computer was apparently dead. Again, I spent all day Tuesday doing flood relief work here in Independence and did not worry about the Digest. Now I get home this evening and note that the re-director is again working as it should. A note from John indicated that: > if you get this message then my band-aids worked. So indeed, it seems they did work. *Thank you, John.* So as just a reminder to all of you, the _preferred_ address to reach the Digest is http://telecom-digest.org but in the event that address draws a blank (as in cannot find the page; or address does not resolve or some similar kind of stalling, then feel free to use the alternate address (and my real home) which is http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives which is a 'direct address' at MIT to reach me. All that happens with http://telecom-digest.org (or .com or .net) is that you are transparently re-routed over to massis.lcs.mit.edu and the telecom-archives directory therein. Please make a note of this in the event you get stalled again for some reason. There is presently some difficulty getting the Digest out each day to the mailing list as well (same machine also handles that part of it.) I trust mailing list readers will see this message one way or another. Thanks for passing the word along. PAT ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 2007 10:05:48 -0400 From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List I received an email from a gentleman here in the Atlanta area. He claims that the telemarketers will be allowed to call cell phones within the next couple of weeks and advised everyone to add their cell phones to the National Do Not Call List. I've not seen any other information on it so I don't know if that is true. Does anyone from Telecom Digest have any information on that? Is this for real or just a rumor running around the 'Net? Regards, Fred Atkinson [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know if this is true or not, but the way _I_ handled it long ago was to add my cell phone number to the 'regular' DND list, without regard to it being a cell phone. In other words, I called up the list, and told it to add my number xxx-xxx-xxxx to the list without bothering to indicate that it was a cell phone number. After all, how is anyone going to know if it is a cell phone or a 'regular' number anyway? I believe I read somewhere that we were 'not supposed to do that', that the list was for landline (or regular) numbers only. But I included every number over which I have control; cellular, VOIP, landline, etc. It seems to have worked out okay thus far. I think I inserted four numbers on the DND list; my landline, my distinctive ring-ring number, my cell phone number and my VOIP number. Therefore I do not have to worry about whether or not these 'rumors' are true or false. You might try the same approach. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #197 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 13 00:07:04 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 948022298; Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:07:03 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #198 Message-Id: <20070713040703.948022298@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:07:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:10:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 198 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Research Downplays Personal Info Threat (Anick Jesdanun, AP) Cingular Faces Class-Action Lawsuit Alleging Overcharging (Stephen Lawson) Lightning Strikes Reported by iPod Users (Linda A. Johnson, AP) Where Did This Call Come From? (Mr. Land) Re: Go on, Read the Rest of the Article; Tell Me What You Think (Margolin) Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (John Levine) Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (ranck@vt.edu) Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (panoptes@iquest.net) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:23:55 -0500 From: Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer Subject: Research Downplays Personal Info Threat By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet writer Almost every lesson on Internet safety warns against posting personal information such as phone numbers and school names. Researchers are now suggesting, though, that such advice, however well-intentioned, doesn't necessarily make children safer from predators and related threats. In a recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, researchers found no evidence that sharing personal information increases the chances of online victimization, such as unwanted sexual solicitation and harassment. Rather, victimization is more likely to result from other online behavior, such as talking about sex with people met online and intentionally embarrassing someone else on the Internet. "For a long time, we really didn't know," said Michele Ybarra, one of the study's authors. "It made sense if you post or send information you increase your risk. It's also a very easy message: Don't post personal information and you'll be safe." But Ybarra, who is president of the nonprofit Internet Solutions for Kids, warned that parents and educators must now reassess the lessons, saying resources may be wasted on tips that do not address the underlying problem. Instead of discouraging children from communicating, she said, the better approach is to teach them about what at-risk behaviors to avoid and warning signs to spot. "We now need to be a lot more specific and accurate in our message," she said. The research, published in February, was based on telephone surveys of 1,500 Internet users ages 10 to 17. In a separate study of 2,574 law-enforcement agencies, researchers found that online sex crimes rarely involve offenders lying about their ages or sexual motives. The 2004 study, published in Journal of Adolescent Health, said offenders generally aren't strangers, and pedophiles aren't luring unsuspecting children by pretending to be a peer. "Most of these sexual-victimization (cases) happen at the hands of people they know, and a lot happen at the hands of peers," said Janis Wolak, co-author of both studies and a researcher with the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center. The research also found that online victims tend to be teens with troubles offline, such as poor relationships with parents, loneliness and depression. "A lot of parents, I think, can breathe a big sigh of relief," said Anne Collier, editor of the online newsletter Net Family News. "If their kids are just socializing with their friends online, they are going to be fine." Nancy Willard, author of "Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens," said predators don't need to be snatching kids by piecing together clues from personal information when they can go for the low-hanging fruit -- the teens specifically engaging in at-risk behavior, such as posting sexually provocative images in their profiles. Many Internet-safety experts remain skeptical that parents and educators can let their guard down on the posting of personal information at sites like Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace. "The only way they can get into trouble is if they end up meeting the stranger, and that's going to come from giving out personal information," said Susan Sachs, chief operating officer with the nonprofit Common Sense Media. "It's pretty clear to connect the dots between personal information and predators." Monique Nelson, executive vice president of the Internet safety group Web Wise Kids, said kids "don't have the sense of ... knowing when a predator would be grooming them" so a blanket message against posting personal information is a good first line of defense. Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, agrees that the attention on personal information may be misplaced, but she said caution may still be wise. "There is something to be said for preserving your privacy for other reasons," Lenhart said, noting that too much information could come to haunt teens when they apply for college or jobs. "Safety is not necessarily the No. 1 reason." 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: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:26:57 -0500 From: Stephen Lawson, IDG News Subject: Cingular Faces Class-Action Lawsuit Alleging Overcharging Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service Washington State's highest court on Thursday let a class-action lawsuit alleging overcharging by Cingular Wireless LLC go forward. The state Supreme Court said a clause in Cingular's contract that prevented subscribers from starting class-action suits was unfair and sent the case back to the trial court in King County where it began. The suit was filed in 2004 on behalf of a small number of Washington customers of Cingular Wireless LLC, now part of AT&T Inc. It said the carrier advertised free roaming in areas covered by AT&T Wireless, which was then a separate company, but hit the customers with roaming charges anyway. It also said customers were improperly charged for long distance on some calls, said Douglas Dunham, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. They alleged Cingular had overcharged customers between US$1 and $40 per month. The plaintiffs' attempt to start a class-action suit was blocked by a clause in the Cingular customer contract, which said disgruntled subscribers couldn't form or join classes to sue the carrier. As a result, they didn't even get to the stage of finding out how many customers in Washington or nationally may have been affected, Dunham said. Now that they have won on appeal, the plaintiffs will pursue a class action, he said. AT&T is studying the ruling, spokesman Walt Sharp said. The carrier could appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to F. Paul Bland, staff attorney at Public Justice, a public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., that helped argue the plaintiffs' case. In cases involving small amounts of money, consumers need to be able to pursue class actions, Bland said. "Cingular was trying to write a contract term that would make it impossible for their customers to vindicate their legal rights... if Cingular cheated them out of small sums of money," Bland said. "Even though Cingular broke its contract and engaged in a bait-and-switch that netted it millions of dollars, almost no individuals would ever be able to take their claims forward and get justice." The decision will make it harder for other companies, such as credit card issuers, to introduce similar bans on class-action suits in Washington, Dunham predicted. In the Cingular case, it will probably take several months to get the class of plaintiffs certified and to gauge damages, he said. The case might not go to trial for two years, he added. Copyright 2007 PC World Communications, 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: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:29:48 -0500 From: Linda A. Johnsonm AP Subject: Lightning Strikes Reported by iPod Users By LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Listen to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes. A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player's wires. Last summer, a Colorado teen ended up with similar injuries when lightning struck nearby as he was listening to his iPod while mowing the lawn. Emergency physicians report treating other patients with burns from freak accidents while using personal electronic devices such as beepers, Walkman players and laptop computers outdoors during storms. Michael Utley, a former stockbroker from West Yarmouth, Mass., who survived being struck by lightning while golfing, has tracked 13 cases since 2004 of people hit while talking on cell phones. They are described on his Web site, http://www.struckbylightning.org. Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don't attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does. "It's going to hit where it's going to hit, but once it contacts metal, the metal conducts the electricity," said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an ER doctor at University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago. When lightning jumps from a nearby object to a person, it often flashes over the skin. But metal in electronic devices -- or metal jewelry or coins in a pocket -- can cause contact burns and exacerbate the damage. A spokeswoman for Apple Inc., the maker of iPods, declined to comment. Packaging for iPods and some other music players do include warnings against using them in the rain. Lightning strikes can occur even if a storm is many miles away, so lightning safety experts have been pushing the slogan "When thunder roars, go indoors," said Cooper. Jason Bunch, 18, says it wasn't even raining last July, but there was a storm off in the distance. Lightning struck a nearby tree, shot off and hit him. Bunch, who was listening to Metallica while mowing the grass at his home in Castle Rock, Colo., still has mild hearing damage in both ears, despite two reconstructive surgeries to repair ruptured eardrums. He had burns from the earphone wires on the sides of his face, a nasty burn on his hip where the iPod had been in a pocket and "a bad line up the side of my body," even though the iPod cord was outside his shirt. "It was a real miracle" he survived, said his mother, Kelly Risheill. The Canadian jogger suffered worse injuries, according to a report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The man, a 39-year-old dentist from the Vancouver area, was listening to an iPod while jogging in a thunderstorm when, according to witnesses, lightning hit a tree a couple of feet away and jumped to his body. The strike threw the man about eight feet and caused second-degree burns on his chest and left leg. The electric current left red burn lines running from where the iPod had been strapped to his chest up the sides of his neck. It ruptured both ear drums, dislocated tiny ear bones that transmit sound waves, and broke the man's jaw in four places, said Dr. Eric Heffernan, an imaging specialist at Vancouver General Hospital. The injury happened two summers ago and despite treatment, the man still has less than 50 percent of normal hearing on each side, must wear hearing aids and can't hear high-pitched sounds. "He's a part-time musician, so that's kind of messed up his hobby as well," Heffernan said. Like the Colorado teen, the Canadian patient, who declined to be interviewed or identified, has no memory of the lightning strike. In another case a few years ago, electric current from a lightning strike ran through a man's pager, burning both him and his girlfriend who was leaning against him, said Dr. Vince Mosesso, an emergency doctor at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Eardrum ruptures are considered the most common ear injury in lightning-strike victims, occurring in 5 percent to 50 percent of patients, according to various estimates -- whether or not an electronic device is involved. A broken jaw is rare, doctors say. On the Net: http://www.nejm.org National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/ 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/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 2007 13:18:55 -0700 From: Mr. Land Subject: Where Did This Call Come From? Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, I received a cellphone voicemail from someone (I think in Europe) in a language I can't identify. My cellphone voicemail service will give me the originating number, and I'm trying to figure out where it came from and what language it's in. The source number as reported by my voicemail is of the form: 349502nnnnn (I've left out the last 5 digits to maintain anonymity of the caller.) Anything I can find on the Web seems to indicate that the leading "34" implies the call came from Spain, but the language is definitely not Spanish. Can anyone help? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 2007 21:28:39 -0400 From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Go on, Read the Rest of the Article; Tell Me What You Think Organization: Symantec What the F*** is this? It looks like the random text that spammers use to get their messages through bayesian filters. Isn't one of the jobs of a list moderator to filter this junk from the rest of us? And then PAT added editorial comments about Google's (lack of) customer service -- what does that have to do with this? In article , courtyard wrote: > Vision Airships Global Expansion! > BANGKOK, THAILAND, Jul 09, 2007 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) - Vision > Airships Inc. (PINKSHEETS: VPSN) - The company wishes to announce that > it has finalized arrangements for funding for its global expansion. > Check out the news and get on VPSN first thing Thursday! > I mean, why else would you? Remove the sanding dust with a tack cloth. > And I know this because I checked, like, a zillion different times in > a zillion different ways. Now I can access my Google Reader and play > with Google's other account-access toys without having to run extra > browsers and get IE slime all over the place. Steps: Carefully study > the hole. All is not perfect with this unusual shrub though. > Make sure the frame is clean, dry, and well sanded. A taggable desktop > is my pony. Confronting new ideas without sufficient preparation can > be dangerous! Hey Google -- why can't you fix this? On every block > there is a different bar with a different band, packed with kids > dancing and generally getting smashed. It's a license to be a > busybody. Thankfully mirrors open up a world of unrealized space, > that's something to reflect on when you're decorating. Not only will > you get a more realistic road crew experience, but you'll also find > the asphalt easier to work with when it's warm and soft. > I learned about the joys of asphalt repair when I was growing up in > small-town Ontario. > Step Two -- Fill That Baby Dump enough bitumen into the hole to reach > half an inch higher than the surrounding driveway surface. And since > there is no actual way to get past the Google Help house o'mirrors to > talk to a real person, I've basically been pulling my hair out over > this. > These holes give homes a messy feeling, especially if they're at eye > level. My Dad would call the town to report a pothole in front of our > place. I have that dream too. Two that are burned in my memory are > 'Country Dancer' and 'Carefree Beauty'. > So my question is, would we die anyway, or is the process of reviewing > ghastly repairs the actual cause of death? Hang the mirror as required > then add a wood block behind the frame at the top of the mirror -- > forcing it to angle downwards. In July it puffs out with the most > amazing pink flowers, like a confection from the CNE midway. > But while you're driving over it, at least make the sound of a > steamroller. > The real mission of this trip was to attend a jazz festival and hear the > incomparable Herbie Hancock. > I learned about the joys of asphalt repair when I was growing up in > small-town Ontario. The wheel never lies. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So you have learned, as have many of us > that there is no such thing as a 'customer service' phone number at > Google. Look all through their pages, and check out the limited number > of 'contact us' entries shown; _very few_ of them have any phone > number shown. And if you try boldly just calling directory assistance > for that area in California you _can_ get a switchboard or general > number for Google, but the people who man that line screen _all > callers_ very closely, and keep insisting that you check out the > online help pages, many of which are almost meaningless. Meaningless, > that is, unless you wish to read about how you can be a Google > 'partner' and the best way to organize your files to optimize your > profits. Basically, all you can do is just keep reading and > reviewing their 'help' files. I wish someone would provide me with > a phone number (I should be so lucky if it was an 800 number) where > a real, live, experienced person could look up your files and make > simple changes. PAT] Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group *** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please read paragraph six and in particular line three (of that paragraph) quoted above: 'Hey Google, why can't you fix this?' was the statement upon which my reply was predicated. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 02:13:53 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List > I received an email from a gentleman here in the Atlanta area. He > claims that the telemarketers will be allowed to call cell phones within > the next couple of weeks and advised everyone to add their cell phones > to the National Do Not Call List. This is an urban legend that's been floating around for at least a year. Like most urban legends, it's about 1% true and 99% false. Adding your mobile number to the DNC list won't hurt anything, but junk calls to mobiles are fairly illegal already. -John] ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 2007 13:00:41 -0700 From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List Organization: http://groups.google.com On Jul 12, 10:05 am, TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Fred Atkinson by writing: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > But I included every number over which I have control; cellular, > VOIP, landline, etc. Good advice. However, there is no guarantee. Often telemarketers will violate the lists knowing that 99.999% of the people they bother won't or can't do a damn thing about it. That is, it is way too much trouble to get an accurate identifier number and submit a complaint. Further, the authorities don't act on one or two complaints. They only react when there are many complaints. The scammers know this*. Nursing home phones are not supposed to be solicited but that didn't stop them from bothering my mother. On another line supposedly illegal to solicit I got a scam call last night (message said I won $25k and to call in for my prize). As we've discussed here and in the tech group, there are people with auto dialers who just let them call every number sequentially and not give a damn. They're not gonna bother to check any lists or even whether it's a cell phone or other restricted line. I think this state of affairs sucks. The #@%$@# lobbyists force us consumers to accept this crap, they got the legislatures to water down laws. MY RECOMMENDED SOLUTION: The national telephone network should not accept any call except duly registered carriers. Registration would be such to eliminate any fly- by-night outfits and those with inadequate capital and technical protection. Corporate officers would have to have a background check as is done for other professional licensing. Also, no calls will be accepted without true autheticated caller-ID information. The network would be rquired to do a test comparing the provided caller ID against the physical entry (that is, a call originating in DC must have a DC area code and exchange matched to the physical line. If this hurts VOIP or new carriers seeking easy entrance for "competition", too bad! Protection of consumers comes first. To put it another way, suppose we want to encourage other restaurants than McDonald's. Are we willing to suspend health and buidling code requirements so to give new restaurnats a break on start-up? I don't think so. So why should new telephone companies get a similar break? [public replies, please] *A friend of mine ordered a new $50 book by mail. The author subsequently decided he would not be able to publish the book, but refused to refund the advance order money. My friend knew several other people who were burned as well and contacted the US Postal Service Inspector unit. Yes, that was a crime they said. No, we're not going to do anything about it because it was too small. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 2007 21:23:48 +0000 From: ranck@vt.edu Subject: Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA Fred Atkinson wrote: > claims that the telemarketers will be allowed to call cell phones within > the next couple of weeks and advised everyone to add their cell phones > to the National Do Not Call List. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know if this is true or not, > but the way _I_ handled it long ago was to add my cell phone number to > the 'regular' DND list, without regard to it being a cell phone. In > other words, I called up the list, and told it to add my number > xxx-xxx-xxxx to the list without bothering to indicate that it was a > cell phone number. After all, how is anyone going to know if it is a > cell phone or a 'regular' number anyway? I believe I read somewhere > that we were 'not supposed to do that', that the list was for landline Well, when I first added my phone number to the list it was a landline at my house. I have since transferred that number to a cell phone. I've also "re-entered" the number in the Do Not Call list since then, but it did not ask what kind of phone it was. I also entered my mother's phone number for her while I was there. She's 92 and doesn't really need the aggravation. Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 2007 19:26:22 -0700 From: panoptes@iquest.net Subject: Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Fred Atkinson: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know if this is true or not, The FCC seems to think it's false. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/truthaboutcellphones.html "Rest assured that placing telemarketing calls to wireless phones is -- and always has been -- illegal in most cases." "For example, it is unlawful for any person to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with express prior consent) using any automatic telephone dialing system or any artificial or prerecorded voice message to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, mobile telephone service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call. This prohibition applies regardless of whether the number is listed on the national Do- Not-Call list." Also, they had a press release in 2005 about a similar false email that included the following: "JUST A REMINDER ... In a few weeks, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS ... To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS..." ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://feeds.feedburner.com/telecomDigest ***************************************************************** Wild Jack Casino has long been recognized as one of the best online casinos on the internet. While specializing in blackjack, Wild Jack offers more than 300 exciting online real-money casino games, including online slots, roulette, keno, craps, and more. Now, this top _Blackjack Online Kasino_ http://de.wildjack.com/ is available in Germany too. Take advantage of our generous sign-up bonuses, our great promotions, our big payouts, and our courteous and professional customer support team. Join Wildjack.de today! ***************************************************************** One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2007 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #198 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 13 22:01:14 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ptownson Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 2971A2147; Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:01:13 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V26 #199 Message-Id: <20070714020114.2971A2147@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:01:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:03:00 EDT Volume 26 : Issue 199 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson No Phone Calls Allowed For Many Detainees (Spencewr S. Hsu, Wash Post) Users Threaten Mobile Phone Security; Not Malware (Liam Tung) Removing SSH on PIX (Represto) NTT DoCoMo Feels the Need For Speed (USTelecom dailyLead) Grandcentral - Google Phone (www.Queensbridge.us) Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (Henry) Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (Matt Simpson) Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List (Scott Dorsey) Re: Enrico Fermi and the First Atomic Bomb Test Explosion (Lisa Hancock) Re: Where Did This Call Come From? (mc) Re: Where Did This Call Come From? (Colin) Re: Where Did This Call Come From? (ranck@vt.edu) Re: Where Did This Call Come From? (Juan Monico) ====== 26 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest, and why not support Net Freedom Now http://www.savetheinternet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:24:07 -0500 From: Spencer S. Hsu, Washingon Post Subject: No Phone Calls Allowed For Many Detainees GAO Report Cites Violations of Guidelines for Dealing With Immigrants By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer The number of immigrants detained by the United States has grown from 90,000 to 283,000 over the past five years, and many were improperly barred from making even a single phone call to a lawyer, congressional investigators reported this week. Detainees' calls were completed 35 to 74 percent of the time each month between November 2005 and November 2006, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm. The United States uses a criminal-detention model to hold immigrants, although most are charged with administrative violations of immigration laws. The detainees are not guaranteed the protections routinely provided to U.S. citizens or criminal defendants, including access to public defenders. As a result, federal authorities have agreed to 38 nonbinding detention guidelines with the American Bar Association as a form of due process, including providing telephone access to legal counsel. "Without sufficient internal control policies and procedures in place, ICE is unable to offer assurance that detainees can access legal services, file external grievances and obtain assistance from their consulates," the July 6 GAO report said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Concern about potential mistreatment has grown in Congress and among civil liberties groups as a national enforcement crackdown has sent the detention population soaring. "The importance of meaningful access to legal representation and materials for individuals in immigration detention cannot be overstated," said Karen J. Mathis, president of the American Bar Association, whose staff praised the GAO's work. "When the detention standards are not implemented properly ... immigrants in detention are denied due process." ICE spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback said her agency has agreed to improve its telephone service and contractor oversight. "We are encouraged by the finding in the GAO's most recent report, which notes that detention facilities generally complied" with ICE's standards, even though the size of the detainee population had tripled, she said. The GAO said that its investigation of 23 detention sites was not scientific and that the results cannot be projected to all 352 sites. It reported pervasive telephone system failings and isolated violations of at least one of eight standards audited -- including those on food, medical care and use of force -- at nine sites studied. For example, four facilities did not fully comply with grievance standards. The same number reported overcrowding of as much as double their rated capacity and "triple-bunking" in detainee cells built for two. The overcrowding is the subject of pending litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union. The GAO report said ICE's Detention and Removal Operations unit also did not reliably track the number of complaints received or their outcome. "Standards for internal control in the federal government call for clear documentation of transactions and events" to ensure that "potential systemic problems throughout the detention system" can be detected, the investigators wrote. The increase in detentions is a result of the stepped-up enforcement campaign that was meant to underpin the Bush administration's immigration overhaul effort, which failed. The daily detention population increased from 19,718 in 2005 to about 26,500 in February, even as officials sped up or denied additional hearings for detainees and deported virtually all the non-Mexican ones. Illegal immigrants spent an average of 37.6 days in custody as of April, although a fourth of them, about 70,000, were held for more than 44 days, and 5 percent, about 14,000, were detained for more than four months. Federal law provides illegal immigrants 30 days to go to an appeals board and the courts before the rulings against them become final. 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This sounds a lot like Cook County Jail in Chicago. The only communication with the outside world possible for inmates is via _collect call only_ style payphones, and finding one of those in working order is a miracle. I had _thought_ police were supposed to give prospective inmates ONE FREE PHONE CALL at the time of arrest, _NOT_ one phone call on a collect basis that you may or may not be allowed to make at some later point. But I guess that shows how little I know about anything. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:30:32 -0500 From: Liam Tung, ZDNet Subject: Users Threaten Mobile Phone Security; Not Malware By Liam Tung, ZDNet Australia URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,62028360,00.htm Users are the weakest link when it comes to protecting information systems because of social engineering, which relies on the manipulation of people rather than machines. The same trickery is being used against mobile phone users--despite attempts by companies such as Nokia to create relatively secure operating systems such as the market leader, Symbian. F-Secure security expert, Patrik Runald, said in an interview with ZDNet Asia's sister site, ZDNet Australia, last week that the Symbian operating system is "fairly secure". "All the malware we've seen so far relies on the user installing it themselves, bypassing three to four security warnings, so there hasn't really been a flaw in the operating system," he said. Runald admits some problems may be caused by unclear instructions on the user-interface (UI) but, by and large, it is caused by users ignoring warning signs. Runald said that there have been a few cases where cyber criminals have disguised files to make them look like an interesting shareware or freeware, but mostly he blames user ignorance. "They think it's about ringtones, games, wallpapers, videos; all good and fun things but there are actually malicious things out there as well," said Runald. Threat from Bluetooth Bluetooth users may find themselves asked the question "Would you like to install this program now?" When they click "no", the question persists. Often immediately until they choose the other option out of frustration. "That's the reason why people get infected: because they repeatedly click no and obviously 'no' doesn't work and so they click 'yes' and they get infected," said Runald. When faced with this, Runald advises users to "Just walk away". "Bluetooth has a very limited range -- it's about 15 to 20 meters. Then go into your Bluetooth settings and disable Bluetooth completely or make it hidden for all other devices," he added. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 10:11:03 -0700 From: Represto Subject: Removing SSH on PIX Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello all, This might seem like a simple answer for most, but I just want to make sure that I'm not missing something. I need to remove all remote access (SSH) into my PIX. All administration will be done directly from the console port. Can I just enter this command for every ssh entry in my config? hostname(config)# no ssh 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.255 inside Thanx. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 12:26:52 -0500 From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: NTT DoCoMo Feels the Need For Speed USTelecom dailyLead July 13, 2007 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hvzQfDtusXvCepCibuddDyOj TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * NTT DoCoMo feels the need for speed BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Motorola CEO getting Internet pressure * Report: Hanaro Telecom draws no domestic bidders * China Netcom executive moves to China Unicom * Google CEO: "Viacom is a company built from lawsuits" TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Forecast: Europeans will double spending on Web ads in five years * Analyst urges China to continue broadband growth * Research: Suite bests breed in today's market * IBM aims for India's Vodafone IP DOWNLOAD * Report: Two-thirds of consumers want TV to link with Web * Startup lets you call using e-mail address REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Verizon Wireless says open access will hurt innovation Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/hvzQfDtusXvCepCibuddDyOj ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 21:53:26 -0000 From: www.Queensbridge.us Subject: Grandcentral - Google Phone Organization: http://groups.google.com I am surprised that I have not seen any comments about Grandcentral phone. See http://www.grandcentral.com/home/intro ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 09:25:00 +0300 From: Henry Subject: Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List Organization: Saunalahti Customer wrote: > I think this state of affairs sucks. No argument there. > The #@%$@# lobbyists force us consumers to accept this crap, they > got the legislatures to water down laws. Whoa, nelly. Lobbyists don't / can't force consumers to do anything. Lobbyists don't / can't force legislatures to do anything. Lobbyists are paid to influence legislatures. Presumably, the clients who pay them want them to do a good job. If said lobbyists have 'got' legislatures to do something the client desires, then they have done a good job. However ... legislatures are paid to represent the will of the people. If legislatures 'water down laws' that the people, their clients, desire, then said legislatures have not done a good job. Remember: in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. Cheers, Henry ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 08:38:58 -0400 From: Matt Simpson Subject: Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List Organization: None http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What does Snopes suggest doing in this case: A phone number is _not_ on the DNC list. The nature or type of phone is unknown, as to cell, private residence, nursing home, etc. Is the solicitor supposed to NOT call the number since he does not know for sure what category it is, or is he permitted one call in order to find out, or? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 12:41:45 -0400 From: Scott Dorsey Subject: Re: Cell Phone Numbers and Do Not Call List Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) > I received an email from a gentleman here in the Atlanta area. He > claims that the telemarketers will be allowed to call cell phones within > the next couple of weeks and advised everyone to add their cell phones > to the National Do Not Call List. That's great! I received an email from a gentleman in Nigeria. He claims that he has some money that he's going to send me if only I do a few things. And I hate to tell you this, but the accuracy of these two email messages is about the same. Not, mind you, that cell phones don't get their share of telemarketing calls anyway. It's just illegal, that's all. Next time I suggest checking these things out on snopes.com rather than on the telecom list. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am just curious ... why would you suggest checking it out on snopes.com rather than telecom-digest.org? It is basically a telephone-related question. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 07:12:09 -0700 From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Enrico Fermi and the First Atomic Bomb Test Explosion Organization: http://groups.google.com Pat, I hate to be a wet blanket on this discussion, but I'm not sure if the part on the local phones is true. Here are my thoughts on it: 1) The test, code named Trinity, has been extensively written about by its participants. I don't recall anyone suggesting that the town's local telephone operator caused any delay. (It's been awhile since I read up on this stuff. If anyone is familiar with a published source that describes this, please share it with us.) 2) The town hosted an important air force base. I suspect wartime telephone traffic may have been high enough, even late at night, to keep an operator somewhat busy. 3) Unattended switchboards with light overnight traffic were purposely equipped with very loud bells to wake or fetch the operator when a call came through. (Unless the operator forgot to turn on the bell when she went to bed). 4) The writings say the army used its own radio communication system. The histories describe the army laying its own communication lines, and then needing to lay them again as other equipment accidently torn them out. Thus, I don't think they were dependent on the civilian telephone system. 5) Fermi was not an active participant in the test, but rather an invited special guest. He and other guests were at an observation point some distance away. Had he been delayed the test would still go on. Fermi's claim to fame on the test was that he used a very simple method to estimate the weapon's yield: he dropped some torn papers to the ground and measured the distance they travelled before hitting the ground, from that, his estimate turned out to be pretty accurate. (Fermi's major achievement was the development of the nuclear reactor which was first built in a handball court in a stadium. No shielding at all.) 6) The test was on hold on account of the bad weather. Again, this has been extensively written about in great detail. The time picked for detonation was based on predictions of when the storms would leave the area. I believe the time selected was decided long earlier and as such, couldn't have been affected by local telephone service. Some other comments on Trinity: 1) I don't think any local or state officials were told of the test. There were plans to issue various press releases depending on the results of the test. If the test was a dud, nothing would go out. If the test worked, a press release that flare magazine ignited at the air force base. If the test spread dangerous radiation and people needed to be evacuated, they had prepared for that as well. 2) The test did produce some dangerous radioactive fallout that fell on some ranchland and the army reacted to that. However, the army did not expect fallout to be a problem in actual use since the weapon would be detonated high up as an air burst, rather than close to the ground where it would pull up the earth and irridate it. Some scientists (like Fermi) died at a young age from a rare cancer, but others lived to old age. It's hard to do a proper medical study since back then there were many chemical and industrial pollutants freely spewed into the air and almost everyone smoked. For example, today we know that PCBs and asbestos are dangerous, but back then those products were seen as beneficial and very widely used. 3) Some of the sand at grand zero got fused by the great heat into glass crystals. Scientists took them as souvenirs, not realizing they were radioactive. The attitude of radioactive safety back then was drastically different than today. That is, back then they assumed a human could safely tolerate much higher doses of radiation than is known today. They did have extensive medical checks and safety precautions for radiation, but scientists tended to be cavailier about safety due to pressure from the war. Ironically, it was only until after the war that two scientists at Los Alamos sadly died from radiation posioning in lab accidents due to unnecessarily sloppy work. 4) The Manhattan Engineering District (it's real name) was the second strictest military secret of the war (cryptography was the highest). Security rules were strictly enforced. The army believed in "compartmentalization" in which every worker was told only what he needed to do his specific job and nothing more. Scientists chaffed under these restrictions. The project had three major sites, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Hanford, plus numerous minor ones. At the major sites workers and their families lived in special spartan housing on the site under strict military control. The needs of families and the military often clashed and many articles and books have been written about life on the reservations. But the Soviets penetrated the project with several effective spies. Opened archives have subsequently shown that the Rosenbergs were indeed quite guilty as espionage leaders (they spied on other activites as well). They were offered a chance to avoid execution if they cooperated but they refused. 5) Mrs. Fermi and her descendants have written a variety of interesting books that I recommend. Rachel Fermi wrote an excellent book, "Picturing the bomb : photographs from the secret world of the Manhattan Project". 6) The Hanford Works was a pioneer application of industrial use of CCTV. Cameras monitored highly radioactive processing chambers where workers controled the units by remote control. (How the cameras themselves were serviced and how well the fuzzy image quality of that day allowed remote control work I don't know.) 7) During the war the workers' homes did not have telephones. A few years after the war they were put in, a necessary amenity to attract workers to stay with the projects. The Los Alamos site was served by only two forest service lines. The army demanded, without any explanation, that the local Bell company install more lines and internal service. The local Bell office and to search to find wire and parts as by that point in the war nothing was easily available. BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS: There are a great many books written about the project. I do not recommend those books with an agenda, such as preaching the bomb was wrong, since such books over criticize the hard work of the project's participants or army life. The project was unprecedented in that it took leading scientists, locked them up behind barbed wire, and had them focus on a single project. The sociology and administrative aspects of such life are very interesting and something we can learn from even today. The lifestyle and attitudes of Americans in war in the 1940s was very different than that of today, and using today's human relations standards to judge life and work in those days is foolish. I do recommend: 1) "Now it Can be Told" by General Groves. Groves was the tough non- sense head of the entire project. He gives the history and why he made the decisions he did and does not pull any punches. A good insight into the military point of view. 2) "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! : adventures of a curious character" by Richard Phillips Feynman. Feynman was a scientist at Los Alamos who did not like authority and had a strong sense of humor. Tells how Feynman learned to crack safes. 3) "Manhattan Project; the untold story of the making of the atomic bomb" by Stephane Groueff. This book focuses more on the industrial side behind the scenes. It's the only book that I know of that covers that area so thoroughly. The author is a bit preachy, though, heaping generous praise on the inventors and engineers for their work (though perhaps it is deserved). 4) "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes. This is mostly on the hydrogen bomb, but it has some chapters on espionage using newly released secret US and Soviet government archives. (Rhodes also wrote the definitive but long book on the project.) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 00:15:27 -0400 From: mc Subject: Re: Where Did This Call Come From? Organization: BellSouth Internet Group > Anything I can find on the Web seems to indicate that the leading "34" > implies the call came from Spain, but the language is definitely not > Spanish. Does it sound related to Spanish? If so, consider Catalan. Does it sound completely unintelligible even to a person who knows a lot of languages? If so, maybe it's Basque. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 23:28:31 +1000 From: Colin Subject: Re: Where Did This Call Come From? Mr. Land wrote: > Hi, > I received a cellphone voicemail from someone (I think in Europe) in a > language I can't identify. My cellphone voicemail service will give > me the originating number, and I'm trying to figure out where it came > from and what language it's in. > The source number as reported by my voicemail is of the form: > 349502nnnnn > (I've left out the last 5 digits to maintain anonymity of the caller.) > Anything I can find on the Web seems to indicate that the leading "34" > implies the call came from Spain, but the language is definitely not > Spanish. > Can anyone help? > Thanks. 34950 is Almera in Spain on the Mediterranean coast. There are probably more foreigners holidaying there (or retired there) than there are Spaniards. Colin ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 15:25:08 +0000 From: ranck@vt.edu Subject: Re: Where Did This Call Come From? Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA Mr. Land wrote: > I received a cellphone voicemail from someone (I think in Europe) in a > language I can't identify. > Anything I can find on the Web seems to indicate that the leading "34" > implies the call came from Spain, but the language is definitely not > Spanish. The only thing I can think of is the language might be Basque. That is a region of Spain with its own culture and language that is not related to any other known language. Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 2007 08:39:27 -0700 From: Juan Monico Subject: Re: Where Did This Call Come From? Organization: NewsGuy - Unlimited Usenet $19.95 Mr. Land wrote: > Hi, > I received a cellphone voicemail from someone (I think in Europe) in a > language I can't identify. My cellphone voicemail service will give > me the originating number, and I'm trying to figure out where it came > from and what language it's in. > The source number as reported by my voicemail is of the form: > 349502nnnnn > (I've left out the last 5 digits to maintain anonymity of the caller.) > Anything I can find on the Web seems to indicate that the leading "34" > implies the call came from Spain, but the language is definitely not > Spanish. > Can anyone help? > Thanks, Basque, spoken in north-eastern Spain is the oldest known language in the world. It is unrelated to any other language, and is believed to date back to the stone age. It may also have been one of the half dozen regional dialects of Spanish. Some of them like Galician, don't sound like Spanish at all. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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