From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 12 22:03:46 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA15065; Thu, 12 Aug 1999 22:03:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 22:03:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908130203.WAA15065@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #301 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Aug 99 22:03:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 301 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Mission Impossible: The Emergence of Self-Destructing E-Mail (M. Pollock) Mexican Service/Access Codes (was Re: Mexico's Version of 911) (M. Cuccia) Re: Lexington/Northern Kentucky Will Get NPA 859 (Matt Simpson) Re: Lexington/Northern Kentucky Will Get NPA 859 (Ed Ellers) Re: Minitel Emulation Freeware (Frederic Faure) Re: Minitel Emulation Freeware (Brad Houser) Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop (Roy Smith) Re: US West In Court Over ISDN Net Service Speeds (Tad Cook) Re: Need to Convert One Line Phone to Two Line (Matt Bartlett) Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes (Neal McLain) Telegeography Map (Joseph Wineburgh) Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Bob Banks) Small Voice Mail Mystem: Looking For Opinions (dmitri@ryutov.com) Re: What to Do With a Used AMPS Cell Phone? (steven@primacomputer.com) Re: Worldcom's Customer Service (Ken Dulin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 21:07:41 EDT From: itsamike@yahoo.com (Mike Pollock) Subject: Mission Impossible: The Emergence of Self-Destructing E-Mail This message was forwarded to you from ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com) by itsamike@yahoo.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------- This article is from ZDNN (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/). Visit this page on the Web at: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2314024,00.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- "This message will self-destruct in five seconds." Like something out of Mission: Impossible, a London-based firm hopes to sell Web surfers on the next level of privacy: Encrypted self-destructing e-mail. "There are thousands of cases where people have gotten in trouble because of their e-mail," said Leo Scheiner, CEO of Internet venture Global Markets Ltd. -- the owner of Web-based e-mail start-up 1on1. "They'll send out e-mail without any thoughts of the consequences of what they are saying. That's well and good, but those words have a way of coming back and hitting you in the face." Privacy or paranoia? Call it e-mail for the paranoid. Requiring a custom e-mail client, the Web e-mail service promises unbreakable encryption to give individuals privacy and corporations some protection against competitors and lawsuits. "What we have is a service that provides what any businessman would want: Confidentiality, reliability, and the ability to assure that your e-mail has arrived," said Scheiner. [TABLE NOT SHOWN] With 2,048-bit encryption, trying to break the code hiding users' messages is impossible, he said. Yet, the service has only been running for a week, and is relatively untested. Not for long. The company invites hackers to try their hand at breaking the encryption by offering a standard reward of $50,000 to whoever can do it. The company adds other features as well. To avoid that pesky e-mail that comes back to bite the writer, 1on1 can automatically be set to delete e-mail after a certain period of time has passed. As an added benefit, the security features of the system also make it nigh impossible to send spam to its users. More is not necessarily better Yet, despite its short history, the service is already gathering critics. "(2,048-bit encryption) is ridiculous," said Bruce Schneier, noted cryptographer and author of Applied Cryptography. "It is irrelevant. The security is determined by the password anyway. If the user picks a bad one, the security is bad." [TABLE NOT SHOWN] Dov Smith, spokesman for Internet privacy service Zero Knowledge Systems Inc., agrees. "It's less important to look at key length as a barometer of security and more important to look at the implementation," he said. "We look at privacy as a lot more than e-mail." Zero Knowledge's service, known as the Freedom Net, encrypts all communications to the Internet, essentially hiding the user's identity. Another encrypted e-mail service, known as Hushmail, is also critical of the self-destructing e-mail component of the service. "That's a gimmick," said Jon Gilliam, spokesman for Hush Communications Inc., which runs the Hushmail service. "It's nothing new." Are there secrets? Yet, for lawyers, doctors and financial firms, such privacy-enhancing features are gaining popularity, said Global Markets' Scheiner. On that, at least, Hushmail's Gilliam agrees. The Aguilla-based company has also seen a lot of interest from such professionals. The reason is no mystery. Last year during the anti-trust suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, Microsoft Corp.'s chief and several other execs had to defend, not just against the government, but their own e-mails. That event and others scared some companies, Gilliam said. "When they see Bill Gates fighting his own e-mail in court, that means something," he said "If he can't stop it, who can?" For 1on1 mail, the answer is obvious.[TABLE NOT SHOWN] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 15:54:51 -0500 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Mexican Service/Access Codes (was Re: Mexico's Version of 911) Martin McCormick (wb5agz@dc.cis.okstate.edu) wrote: > I was once listening to XEW, a Mexican national broadcasting > network. My Spanish is admittedly very slow, but I heard something > that got my interest. A man was being interviewed on a public > affairs-type program about an emergency telephone number that could > be called in Mexico City. The examples for use sounded like the > guidelines for all well-managed 911 systems in the United States in > that people could use the number to report crimes, fires, > accidents, etc. The number to call was 080, repeated many times so > I am sure of what I heard. > Some time later, I corresponded with a person who lives in Warez > and I happened to ask him about the emergency number. He said it > was 060, there. The "generic" list of Mexican special service codes prior to changes in the dialing and numbering scheme in 1997/98 had '06' for Emergencies and '08' for the Police. The generic list of special codes since the 1997/98 numbering/dialing expansion shows '060' for Emergencies and '080' for the Police. Maybe different towns prefer one to call one rather than the other, similar to 911 (more or less standard throughout the NANP) vs. the newer 311 used in some parts of the US for "non-emergency" access to the police or other government/ health services. Incidently, there are several competing interests for a "standard" use of 211 here in the NANP. The United Way wants 211 to become a US standard to reach an agency referals center, while many local/state/county governments or associations want 211 to be a standard code for (government supplied) weather and/or traffic/ highway/travel info. In Canada, various groups for the blind and print-handicapped want 211 to be used for "audiotext" - i.e. some form of "newspapers and magazines for the blind". As for Mexico, the OLD (pre-97/98) numbering/dialing scheme for special services used '9X+' codes for dialing various types of toll calls - different 9X+ access codes depending on whether direct "sent-paid" dial vs. Operator assisted, or whether one was calling a cellular, domestic toll, NANP-toll, or International/Overseas, and '0X' codes for things like the Operator, Police, Repair, Directory, etc. The current scheme (phased in during 97/98) uses '0NX' codes for special services such as the Operator, Police, Directory, etc., mostly taking the old '0X' code and adding a third digit '0' to it. Thus, there can be additional future special service codes available '0N1' through '0N9'. The older '9X+' access codes have been changed to '01+', '02+', '010+', '00+', '09+' and '090+', which include codes to access alternate long distance carriers, such as the NANP's '101+' in such 101-XXXX+ Carrier Access Codes (the new format for the NANP is REALLY the generic 101-XXXX+, NOT "just" the so-called "ten-ten" codes "10-10-XXX+"). Also, the older (and even the new/current) format of Mexican access and special service codes weren't necessarily standard throughout Mexico. Particularly in the northwestern Mexican towns bordering the US states of California and Arizona. Some of them have phased some of their older codes to conform with the new Mexican dialing format, but others which have been "unique" to the northwestern Mexican border might still be used, such as '123' for the Business Office, and a range of '13X' codes for accessing various government and social service offices. And, at one time, the northwest Mexican border towns were using _NANP_ format dialing and access codes! These northwestern Mexican border towns are not served directly by TelMex, but by TelNor which since the early 1980's has been a SUBSIDIARY of TelMex. Prior to that, the telco was Telefonica Fronteriza, which I've been told was partially held (but significantly) by executives of Pacific (Bell) Telephone and AT&T. And prior to 1980, these northwestern Mexican border towns were part of NANP (+1) Area Code 903 (since reclaimed in 1980, and reassigned in 1990 to split 214 in Texas), and they actually "homed" on the AT&T/PacBell/MntnBell toll switches in California and Arizona. And most of these border towns connected with the Mexican interior (Country Code +52) via these US-based "Bell System" toll switches. While these border towns presently use the 0X+ and 0NX access and service codes for toll and for the operator, directory, and repair, back in the 1970's, they dialed the OLD NANP service codes (used in Step offices) of '113' for Directory and '114' for Repair and also dialed '0' for the Operator! Some of these older NANP-like codes were used into the late 1980's and early 1990's in the northwestern border towns. MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ From: msimpson@uky.edu (Matt Simpson) Subject: Re: Lexington/Northern Kentucky Will Get NPA 859 Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 09:05:31 -0400 Organization: University of Kentucky Computing Center In article , w9vhe@earthlink.net (Scott Wilkerson) wrote: > I have seen an article in a local KY paper that the governor has > requested to keep Lexington in the 606 area code. Wrong. Actually, according to an article in the 8/10 Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader, Gov. Patton was one of "a small number" who requested that 606 be assigned to Eastern KY instead of letting Lexington keep it. See http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/news/081099/businessdocs/10AreaCodeBox.htm For the geographically challenged, Lexington is not in Eastern KY. 606 currently includes the entire eastern half of the state, including Lexington and the Northern KY metro area near Cincinnati OH. When a split was first proposed, they considered overlay vs. geographic split. Apparently nobody liked the overlay idea, so they split the 606 area, with the Lexington/Northern KY area going in one area and Eastern KY getting the other. Next question was who got to keep 606; lots of folks presumed it would be the faster-growing Lex/Northern area. The state PSC made the decision to take it away from Lexington, and Gov. Patton was one of the ones who requested that they do so. Matt Simpson - Paris, KY ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Lexington/Northern Kentucky Will Get NPA 859 Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 00:37:20 -0400 Darren Stuart Embry (dsembr01@ox.slug.louisville.edu) wrote: > So have any other such "vanity" area codes been assigned? :) The one I know of is 321, for the Space Coast region of Florida. (As in "3-2-1-blastoff!") BTW, do you realize that University of Louisville phone numbers now begin with "UL?" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When the former 809 code was broken up into several parts, a lot of the former users got vanity codes in the form of numbers which matched abbreviations of their country names. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com (Frederic Faure) Subject: Re: Minitel Emulation Freeware Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:25:36 GMT Organization: What? Me, organized? Reply-To: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com On Wed, 11 Aug 1999 12:03:51 +0200, Mourad Komiha wrote: > I am looking after a Minitel (French standard) emulation freeware for > Windows 98, any suggestion will be much appreciated. HyperTerminal handles this, provided your modem supports V.23. FF. The system required Windows 95 or better, so I installed Linux! ------------------------------ From: Brad Houser Subject: Re: Minitel Emulation Freeware Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:34:01 -0700 Organization: Intel Corporation Try HTPE, at: http://www.hilgraeve.com/htpe/index.html << Brad Houser "Not Speaking for Intel" >> Mourad Komiha wrote in message news:telecom19. 298.16@telecom-digest.org: > I am looking after a Minitel (French standard) emulation freeware for > Windows 98, any suggestion will be much appreciated. ------------------------------ From: roy@endeavor.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop Organization: NYU School of Medicine, Educational Computing Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 16:16:13 -0400 > RCN has evidently negotiated a long-term contract with the landlord > under which the landlord may not allow any other telecommunications > carrier into the building to install cable of any type. There is another issue here, and it's (literally) a messy one. As the past president of a co-op board in an apartment building, I (unfortunately) have some taste of what things look like from the landlord side of the fence. Cabling in a typical residential building is a nightmare. The only places to run the wires are usually surface-mount raceway in the hallways or exterior drops to each apartment. We supervised one cabling project (rooftop antenna/distribution-amp system before cable was available in our area). We used the exterior drop method. It was a real effort to end up with an installation which was neat and clean, unobtrusive, weathertight, didn't have workmen destroying the roof of the building, etc. The thought of going through that several times over for each of N competing operators who wanted to install their own cable plants is mind-numbing. Hard to blame a landlord for wanting a single-carrier contract. Roy Smith New York University School of Medicine ------------------------------ Subject: Re: US West In Court Over ISDN Net Service Speeds Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 14:57:12 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) wrote: > Yes and no, I have a USWest 256K DSL Connection, I rarely > see speeds higher than 100K, usually in the 60K - 90K range, > and if I hit a busy site forget it, my old 28.8K modem would > be just as good. I have had the basic 256K DSL service from US West for several months now, and I find it blazingly fast compared to my old V.90 connection. I live just a few blocks from the LAkeview C.O. in Seattle, and my old V.90 connection to the same ISP (aa.net) was good. It really shines on sites that have lots of high density content, like Microsoft's Terraserver. Recently I connected to some sort of test page that the computer section of MSN was running, (I think at http://computingcentral.msn.com) and it reported my throughput at the time at about 216 kbps. The throughput probably varies according to the quality of the connection that your ISP has to the net, and of course another factor will be the connection and traffic to whatever web site you may be trying to view. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com Seattle, WA ------------------------------ From: Matt Bartlett Subject: Re: Need to Convert One Line Phone to Two Line Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 00:56:47 -0400 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Hey I resent that ... j/k. Anyway we stopped carrying that automatic two line switch I believe about a year and a half ago. Matt Dennis Metcalfe wrote in message ... >> I have an old one line phone that I'd like to use on two lines. I'm >> looking for a simple box with incoming and outgoing phone jacks (four >> conductor and two conductor respectively), where you can select either >> line one or line two and then call out on that line. From the phone's >> perspective, it's always calling on line one. Does such a thing >> exist? >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tandy/Radio Shack has exactly what you >> are looking for. They even have a model that will force the phone onto >> whichever line is ringing automatically in the case of an incoming call. >> You press a button on the little plastic box to use whichever line you >> want for outgoing purposes. LEDs on the box show which line is in use, >> which line is ringing, etc. PAT] > If you can't find at Radio Shack ... I bought a couple of these from > Mike Sandman in January ... $14.95 each plus tax ... called Jasco Two > Line Telephone Adaptor, model 1950 > http://www.sandman.com/ > Dennis Metcalfe > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And frankly, Mike's merchandise is a > lot better quality than Radio Shack. He is an important sponsor of > this Digest as well, so help him (and me!) out when you can. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 07:13:01 -0400 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes In TD 19:297, Mark J Cuccia wrote: > Also, there are always going to be conflicts and inconsistancies > amongst the two-letter Internet domain extensions, "official" Postal > abbreviations, NON-official but POPULAR (postal) abbreviations, and > telco abbreviations... and even telco-assigned abbreviations might > vary between different countries as to what each country considers > "official" for their internal purposes! Even different branches of the US government can't agree. Here in Wisconsin, the postal code is WI. But register a boat and the Coast Guard tells you it's WS. Stupid. Neal McLain nmclain@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: Joseph Wineburgh Reply-To: Subject: Telegeography Map Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 09:13:21 -0400 What can I say besides - Awesome! It's printed on Thick (and I mean thick - almost posterboard) vinylized anti-tear paper, the actual coloring of the areas on the map are shaded by average number of minutes per citizen. It details the connectivity between continents/countries as far as pipes and minutes per pipe. Another neat thing is that the time zone key along the bottom starts with eastern time (one at the top for GMT), where I am. There are charts that show outgoing international call minutes by country, by carrier and by region. They also break down the traffic within some of the continents to and from cities. One other thing I like is that it has the country codes over the respective countries. That way, when someone calls me to complain they can't get through, I just walk over to the map on the wall and figure out where they were really calling (hehehe) ... I can't wait to get the internet/satellite chart as well. I just need to make some room for it! They are literally 3 feet by 4 feet in size. Oh, and in one day, I received a few comments as well - ranging from 'what the heck is that' to 'awesome'. Enjoy. #JOE ------------------------------ From: Bob Banks Subject: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 08:34:36 -0500 Organization: Microsoft Corporation I hope you can help me. I'm a student and our Telecom teacher was asked why a 66 block is called that. He did not know and told us for extra credit find out what the 66 means. I called AT&T and Ameritech yesterday and no one there could help me. If you could help I would really appreciate it, I hope you don't mind I've book marked your page; it looks like a great source of information. Thanks, Bob [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, can anyone tell Bob why a 66 block is called by that name? And yes Bob, you are free to bookmark this site or link to pages here. Visitors are always welcome. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dmitri@ryutov.com Subject: Small Voice Mail System: Looking For Opinions Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:02:42 -0400 Hello all, I am currently evaluating a couple of voice mail systems for about 30 users, namely Active Voice Lingo and Comdial Small Office system. Does anybody have any experiences with those two? If so, could you share them with me? Are there any other systems in this price range that are worth looking at? Any help is appreciated. ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: What to Do With a Used AMPS Cell Phone? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 19:58:42 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer Paint it red, glue small wheels onto the sides and give it to your kids to play with. The battery is a good source of vitamins and minerals such as cadmium. Steven In article , Wlevant@aol.com says... > What can one do with one of these? Since the carriers here all give > away AMPS phones with AMPS activation (and, at least in my case, they > replace 'em free when stolen), the resale value here is nil. ------------------------------ From: Ken Dulin Subject: Re: Worldcom's Customer Service Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:30:28 -0500 Organization: Jump.Net Amazing ... they have a problem and they don't care :) I have been told by a representative of MCI that it is their policy to avoid contact with customers. Why? I don't know, but I was never able to reach anybody who could help me over three or four months of trying. I talked to live people a few times, but nobody could help. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's nothing new where not caring about problems is concerned. Bank One has had some severe security problems with their online banking web site since they merged with First Chicago a few months ago. Hearing from customers who are con- cerned about the difficulty they have in logging in and the ability of others to use cut and paste techniques to 'deep link' into pages with customer's balances, etc is the last thing they care about. Try sometime going to Bank One's home page for customer login and source it ... review the source ... it looks like something a twelve year old beginning hacker would put together. So you think MCI tries to avoid customer contact whenever possible? Why don't you simply avoid paying them whenever possible, and see if that encourages them to make themselves a little bit more avail- able. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #301 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 13 00:50:57 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA21214; Fri, 13 Aug 1999 00:50:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 00:50:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908130450.AAA21214@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #302 TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Aug 99 00:50:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 302 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cramming is Down, But Not Out (Monty Solomon) InfoWorld and Deep Linking (Monty Solomon) Don't Link or I'll Sue! (Monty Solomon) Re: Deep Linking Proposal (Barry Margolin) Accessible Telecommunications Course - Section 255 (Jim Tobias) Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? (Ed Ellers) Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop? (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Universal ANI Number Wanted (Bruce Kille) Re: VP on Steps to Address Unlawful Conduct on Internet (Chuck Forsberg) Prison Rules, (was Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners (Danny Burstein) Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls (BV124@aol.com) Starium Promises Phone Privacy (Monty Solomon) Last Laugh! A Very Wrong Number (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 02:06:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cramming is Down, But Not Out WASHINGTON, DC ... "Cramming," the number one complaint reported to the National Consumers League's National Fraud Information Center in 1998, has fallen to number two in the first six months of 1999. Cramming complaints have dropped from an average of 228 per month in 1998 to 60 per month in 1999, a 74 percent decrease. "We have spoken to several telephone companies that bill on behalf of third-party vendors for miscellaneous services and they also report that the volume of cramming complaints is going down," said Susan Grant, NFIC Director. "It's still too early to declare victory, but it looks like crammers are on the run." http://www.fraud.org/news/news.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 14:13:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: InfoWorld and Deep Linking Another message from Dave Winer passed along FYI: Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 15:48:45 GMT From: dave@scripting.com (DaveNet email) Subject: InfoWorld and Deep Linking From Scripting News... It's DaveNet! Released on 8/12/99; 8:46:30 AM PST ***Good morning! The Deep Linking thread continues. Lawrence Lee, the editor of Tomalak's Realm, sent me a pointer: http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStat.pl?/readerservices/permissions.htm The title of the page is "Using copyrighted material from InfoWorld". ***Quote "Like most online publications, InfoWorld Electric has a policy regarding links. When we refer to a link, we mean a hypertext link, where you post the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of some content on our site to your site. This can be simply including the link in text form or attaching a URL to one of our logos for the reader to click on. "To link to an article on InfoWorld Electric, send an e-mail request to Meera Srinivas with the URL of the InfoWorld content you want to link to. If your request is approved, we will ask you to confirm back to us the exact URL of the place on your site where we can find the link." ***Why this is a problem After reading this page, I posted this notice: "We have been linking to InfoWorld.Com since the inception of Scripting News. We're going to keep doing it until we hear otherwise from InfoWorld. I assume their linking policy is an old not-updated page explaining an old not-enforced policy. However, if they object, we will stop linking to them in the future." ***The policy is serious I received an email from an InfoWorld insider, a friend, who said that the policy is serious. My correspondent asked not to be identified, and I'm respecting that. "Dave, there's a strong feeling here that allowing other sites to link to us would draw people away from our home page." ***Questions Do they have facts to back up that belief? Do they know for a fact that if I link to an InfoWorld story that there will be fewer reads of their home page? Would the readers of my site read the InfoWorld piece if I didn't link to it? I don't know, do they? If they read an article a second time because I link to it, does that harm InfoWorld? How does that deprive them of a view of their home page? And why are views of their home page so important? Isn't there a link to the home page on every article? (There is.) And finally does InfoWorld require that search engines get permission before linking to an InfoWorld article? (I checked with a few search engines, they link to InfoWorld, completely disregarding their policy.) ***Irony Isn't it ironic that the rest of the web is looking for ever-more-creative ways to get other sites to link to them, and a supposed leader in the web has a policy that turns away linkers? ***Why I link to InfoWorld Every week InfoWorld runs a couple of stories that I think my readers should see. Occasionally I link to them because they mention my product or some cause I support. But the links always come with an implicit endorsement: "Read this because I think you will find it interesting." ***Why they should revise their policy If InfoWorld's management pauses to think about this seriously,I think they will realize that the web makes them stronger, allows their point of view to be more widely disseminated. Linking builds the value of their brand, and thereby builds value for their advertisers. Further, I believe this policy puts InfoWorld at a competitive disadvantage with publications that don't have such a policy. And probably even more serious, such a policy puts them at odds with the entire web, which is something I don't think they can afford to do. I read InfoWorld, and I understand that their readers care about the web. You can see it in the stories they write. And in this area, InfoWorld, as a leader in the application of technology, is setting a bad example. The web is uncontrollable in this way. I won't apply for permission to link, instead I will simply stop reading them. Given that choice, would you choose to have an overly restricted linking policy or have an open one? Bottom-line, could the web get by without InfoWorld? Yes. Could InfoWorld exist without support from the web? I think not. ***Other policies? To the rest of the web -- are there similar linking policy pages we can examine? Send me email, I'll post them on http://news.userland.com/. Please post comments at http://discuss.userland.com/. Dave Winer Scripting News: [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Again I thank Dave Winer for his input on this, but once again I am compelled to point out that regardless of what Infoworld may prefer take place, linking is a perfectly legal and acceptable activity on the web. If they do not agree with the way the web was established and its purposes then they should not be on the web. If a site which is non-commercial, non-privacy invading and operated for the purpose of benefitting the web as a whole requests that entry be through their front page, I would be inclined to honor that request. There are good, creative and hardworking webmasters who sincerely accept the basic premise here, which is 'share what you know and learn what you don't know ...' There are many sites offering what I would call an 'entire presentation' which is best viewed starting at the beginning as defined by the webmaster or person(s) who built the pages. But if you got on the net for the purpose of selling advertising (I do not mean a few low-key sponsors who help you keep above water financially while you devote your time to your site) clicking and double-clicking your visitors to aquire all sorts of statistics, and like being on the net because of the relative inexpense of being here as opposed to a traditional storefront or mailorder operation, then you came to the wrong place. There are a lot of sites on the net who are not here for the intention of sharing what they know and learning what they do not know. They are here for one reason only: to get you to share your credit card number with them and supply them with a lot of demographics so they can build up a database which is worth some money to someone. They could care less where the net came from, its history, the intentions of the people who put it together or anything else. For them, it is a cheap place to squat with a bunch of merchandise for a sidewalk sale. For them, email is a lot cheaper than a 33 cent stamp or a page of advertising in the newspaper, especially since your admin/ISP and mine help pay for the bandwidth and the email processing. Don't allow them to turn the rules on their head. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:15:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Don't Link or I'll Sue! salon.com > Technology August 12, 1999 Don't link or I'll sue! "Deep linking" lawsuits threaten everything that makes the Web work right. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Scott Rosenberg Links are the Web's essence and its genius. Every public Web page's URL, its address, is available to all; we can point any Web page to any other. That's why the Web keeps growing -- and everyone from Yahoo to you can slice new paths through its vastness and recombine its pieces in new ways. http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/1999/08/12/deep_links [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Precisely. Scott describes exactly how it was built and the intentions of the people who developed it and the thousands of admins/ISPs who installed the software (i.e. a web server) and maintain it. I have said more than once in recent times that I think we are coming very close to losing this medium for the people on account of the way so many large corporations are trying to take it over and bully the rest of us to get out of the way. Unfortunatly, a few very l----o-----n-----g ! time netizens whose names I won't mention right now, just to show I am a good sport about it (with a wink to a reader in California and a wink to another reader in New York State, both of whom I have exchanged correspondence with on this topic) actually support the move to make the internet a business network. When the government or a big business interest has some question about the net, they go to see these half-dozen or so 'pioneers of the net' -- who claim to be our spokespersons -- and find out what to do next. These folks receive government support yet keep their meetings with business interests secret. Instead of taking my word for it, ask Ronda Hauben what happened when *she* tried to sit in and take notes at one of their meetings, to file reports with this and other newsgroups. They bounced her out of the meeting. You all probably remember her report here about it several months ago. So whatever you do, don't let some lawyer screaming about litigation bully or scare you into dropping your links, deep or otherwise. If you wish to be nice, answer the lawyer once explaining the procedures in place on the web, and that you will continue to exercise your right of free speech by pointing to any spectacle -- and some of them really are spectacles! -- on public display as you wish. You may have no legal right to copy the file to your computer, and you certainly have no right to resell the information (i.e. with advertising around it) or claim it to be your own work. But you do have the right to point at it, discuss it or critique it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Deep Linking Proposal Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 20:29:44 GMT In article , Linc Madison wrote: > In order for the "deeplink.txt" file to work, it would have to be > implemented by the web server software on the host. In other words, if > I have a page deep in my site that someone has linked directly to, but > I want to make visitors come in through the front door, I would > configure my "deeplink.txt" file to disallow access to anything but the > main page. If someone then clicked on an external direct link to the > deep page, my server would automatically redirect the request to the > main page. > Thus, you can put a deep link to my site anywhere you please, but it > won't work if my server software is configured to block it. If this is what you're after, you don't need to define a standard file. Just ask the developers of web servers to add this feature to their servers. The whole point of robots.txt is that it's something that clients need to look at. But there's no reason why deeplink.txt needs to be a standard, any more than there needs to be a standard for implementing per-directory passwords. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: Jim Tobias Subject: Accessible Telecommunications Course - Section 255 Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 21:43:51 -0400 Organization: Monmouth Internet You may be aware that Section 255 of the Telecom Act requires that "a manufacturer of telecommunications equipment or customer premises equipment shall ensure that the equipment is designed, developed, and fabricated to be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, if readily achievable." and that "A provider of telecommunications services shall ensure that the service is accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, if readily achievable." The Access Board has developed Guidelines for this section, and the FCC is preparing complance regulations for it, to be released later this month. What remains is that the telecom industry as a whole improve its understanding of this issue: where it comes from and how to address it. Designing for Usability, Flexibility, and Compliance is a unique two-part course, structured to provide practical information as well as opportunities for hands-on application and networking with people involved in different aspects of the field. The course is presented at the Trace Research & Development Center, where you'll have the opportunity to see and try out some of the latest access and design techniques. Part One is offered September 12-14, 1999, in Madison, Wisconsin. Part Two of the course will be offered October 27-29, 1999. It will provide more technical depth, building on the concepts and techniques presented in Part One. Enrollment in the course is limited to 27 participants, and this initial offering of the course is being targeted to key individuals in telecommunications, as well as consultants and regulatory specialists involved in improving the usability of telecommunications products. Some of the Key Questions Addressed How do we create practical, accessible (and profitable) products while still addressing regulatory requirements? Where do access features add functionality for all users? What is the "low-hanging fruit"? Why was Section 255 of the Telecom Act created, and what does it really mean to a telecommunications company? What are the market justifications for making products more accessible? What are cost-effective ways of implementing accessible telecommunica- tions products? How can features for different disabilities not interfere with each other, or with the standard product features? Can they be reinforcing? You can get more information about this course, including how to register at: http://trace.wisc.edu/ufcdesign or contact Kate Vanderheiden at 608.265.4621, email mailto:vanderk@trace.wisc.edu Jim Tobias Inclusive Technologies 732.441.0831 v/tty 732.441.0832 fax www.inclusive.com ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 21:14:28 -0400 Someone wrote: "Am I the only one who's found the URL: http://www.telephones.att.com/?" I did too, but either my post didn't get through or Pat skipped it. Daryl Gibson (drgibson@vegas.infi.net) wrote: > I've got several Lucent/AT&T phones, bought recently, and they are > pretty good phones, with the exception of the newest one, which seems > be able to pick up a hum on the line. Anybody know how to ground a > demarc? If your demarc isn't grounded, time to call the telco. (And pray, if you're on BellSouth. :-) I don't know if grounding will help much on newer phones, since the phones themselves aren't grounded (only tip and ring are used). I have two Lucent/AT&T Trimline 210s, which are IMHO one of the best single-line corded phones on the market today -- the handset has the same shape, feel and approximate weight of the original Trimline, the buttons are lighted (from telco battery, not an AC adapter as on the first Trimlines) and have a good feel, and the phone is generally of much better construction than most of its competition though still not up to the old 20-year Bell System standard. (The Trimline 230 is the same phone with speed dial added; frankly I never use speed dial because it's easier for me to remember and dial a person's actual number than to remember both the speed dial code -- for use in one place -- and the actual number for use elsewhere.) I also have a recent, cheap 25-channel Lucent cordless phone and a Lucent single-cassette answering machine, both of which get the job done without much ado. ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop? Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 01:59:12 GMT In article , LincMad001@telecom- digest.zzn.com says: > In article , Kevin DeMartino > wrote: >> Linc Madison followed up with: >>> Personally, I think we need a federal law prohibiting landlords >>> (whether commercial or residential or mixed-use) from engaging in any >>> exclusive contract for telecommunications services, period. Only the >>> end user (the person paying for the service) should have the right to >>> select the supplier. >> There may be some justification in terms of economy of scale for >> allowing landlords to choose certain telecommunication services for >> the entire building, just like they can choose other utilities. For >> example, a landlord may want to install a satcom system to provide TV >> for the entire building. For a large complex, it may be desirable to >> negotiate for an ISP point of presence (POP). Clearly, we don't want >> to give landlords the absolute right to select telecommunication >> services for their tenants. Some restrictions, preferably locally >> imposed, are in order. However, I wouldn't want to see a federal law >> prohibiting landlords from contracting for services on behalf of their >> tenants. > I didn't propose any such law. I proposed a federal law prohibiting > the landlord from entering into an EXCLUSIVE contract for services on > behalf of the tenants. > Certainly there are occasions where there may be an economy of scale > and an advantage to having the landlord make a NON-EXCLUSIVE contract > for some such services. However, just because my landlord got a great > deal on XYZ phone service doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to get a > phone from ZYX. If I don't like the service provided on the satellite, > I should be free to ask the cable company if they will string a wire to > my unit, or to put up my own DSS mini-dish. As for the ISP, I might > have some strong reason for wanting to have someone else's DSL, and I > should have that freedom. > There is no benefit to the tenant from the landlord's EXCLUSIVE > arrangement for any of those services. > I also vehemently disagree with your statement that the restrictions > should be locally imposed. I believe that they should be uniform > across the nation, which means they must be federally imposed. The > patchwork of local regulation would be a nightmare to manage, both for > the landlords and tenants and for the telecomms companies. Here in Providence, RI it's already been said that Providence Place Mall will have it's telephone service supplied by Cox Communications. They don't have any choice in the matter. If my landlord ever decided to pull a stunt like that I'd be cutting cable on a regular basis. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop Date: 12 Aug 1999 23:30:14 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Roy Smith wrote: >> RCN has evidently negotiated a long-term contract with the landlord >> under which the landlord may not allow any other telecommunications >> carrier into the building to install cable of any type. > There is another issue here, and it's (literally) a messy one. > As the past president of a co-op board in an apartment building, I > (unfortunately) have some taste of what things look like from the > landlord side of the fence. > Cabling in a typical residential building is a nightmare. The only > places to run the wires are usually surface-mount raceway in the > hallways or exterior drops to each apartment. We supervised one > cabling project (rooftop antenna/distribution-amp system before cable > was available in our area). We used the exterior drop method. It was > a real effort to end up with an installation which was neat and clean, > unobtrusive, weathertight, didn't have workmen destroying the roof of > the building, etc. The thought of going through that several times > over for each of N competing operators who wanted to install their own > cable plants is mind-numbing. > Hard to blame a landlord for wanting a single-carrier contract. That's one way to look at it. On the other hand, this building just had a complete gut-and-rebuild, and were it in, say, Chicago, where it's illegal to do something like rent the entire house wiring system to a LEC, the six pairs installed from the basement cable closet to every unit would likely prove quite sufficient for the needs of both those tenants who wished to use Bell Atlantic or other carrier and those who wished to use the current monopoly carrier RCN. As of the demise of the Bell System, the telco doesn't own the house wiring any more, and it that was *precisely* to avoid nonsense like this. You either have enough house pairs for the number of units, or you don't. Pretending that you'd need that number multiplied by the number of carriers is disingenious in the extreme -- tenants aren't going to have (number of carriers * real demand) demand for pairs, after all, just because there's more than one choice of carrier available to them. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ From: Bruce Kille Subject: Re: Universal ANI Number Wanted Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 22:11:16 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises 10-10-732-1-770-988-9664 is a number that should work. T. White wrote in message: > Does anyone know of a universal ANI number? Sprint had one a while > ago but it does not work now. Appreciate any help. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: VP on Steps to Address Unlawful Conduct on the Internet From: caf@agora.rdrop.com (Chuck Forsberg) Date: 12 Aug 1999 19:02:19 -0500 Organization: Newsfeeds.com http://www.newsfeeds.com This worries me. Why attack the Internet instead of the illegal behaviour itself?? Is this perhaps an end run to nuzzle the one major source of information that is not dominated by liberals? Why else would Gore stick his head out with the patently foolish assertion he invented the Internet, if there weren't an unstated agenda?? > THE WHITE HOUSE > > Office of the Vice President >________________________________________________________________________ >For Immediate Release August 6, 1999 > > > VICE PRESIDENT GORE ANNOUNCES NEW STEPS > TO ADDRESS UNLAWFUL CONDUCT ON THE INTERNET Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX PP-ASEL/HP Skylane N2469R caf@omen.COM Omen Technology Inc The High Reliability Software www.omen.com Author of YMODEM, ZMODEM, RZ, SZ, Pro-YAM, ZCOMM, GSZ, and DSZ TeleGodzilla BBS: 503-617-1698 FTP: ftp.cs.pdx.edu pub/zmodem POB 4681 Portland OR 97208 503-614-0430 FAX:503-629-0665 ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Prison Rules, (was Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners) Date: 12 Aug 1999 18:49:24 -0400 In Jack Decker writes: > Collect calls > Some family and friends of Michigan prisoners are refusing to accept > collect calls from loved ones behind bars. For the month of August, > they're boycotting what they say are the high prices of collect > calls. That's the only way an inmate can call home. [snip] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Jack, you are missing the point. The > attitude of the corrections industry (is that prisoners are scum)... [snip] > and part of this includes making contact with outsiders who might > otherwise help them as difficult as possible or preferably non-existent. I thought my experience, not as a prisoner, but as someone corresponding with one, might be of interest to TELECOM Digest readers. About five years ago a "computer hacker" (not Kevin) was convicted and imprisoned. I thought hard as to what I could send him, and concluded that a set of blank, pre-stamped, official US Postal Service postcards would be helpful. I figured that these would be acceptable to the prison authorities since anything he wrote on them could, of course, be easily read by the authorities. A couple of weeks later I got them back with a note from the gendarmes saying that these were _not_ acceptable and were being returned to me. However, they were nice enough to allow my cover letter to go through. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: BV124@aol.com Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 21:40:35 EDT Subject: RE: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls May I suggest that it would seem appropriate to keep the conversation(s) in postings "on point" which I believe is not the case here. If the Editor wants to make what could be called political statement(s), I believe those statements should be posted, as a separate, unique, item, by the editor. Much as newspapers have editorial pages where opinions are placed, and noted as such, the same would seem in order here. Certainly, it appears that the charges for calls from Michigan prisons are excessive, This is an appropriate issue for discussion here and in the political system in Michigan to address. To suggest that the police routinely arrest people, in some role as sales (referral?) agents for the corrections industry, is a little far-fetched and implies that we are now in the arena of personal complaint and hyperbole. Any other thoughts? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:22:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Starium Promises Phone Privacy by Declan McCullagh 3:00 a.m. 12.Aug.99.PDT MONTEREY, California -- The sleepy coastal town of Monterey, California, is not the kind of place where vision-fired entrepreneurs come to change the world. Monterey Bay is better known for sea lions than silicon, and for Cannery Row -- made famous half a century ago in John Steinbeck's gritty, eponymous novel. Today, the third floor of a converted sardine factory on Cannery Row is home to a startup company developing what could become a new world standard in privacy protection. By early 2000, Starium Inc. plans to begin selling sub-US$100 telephone scrambling devices so powerful that even the US government's most muscular supercomputers can't eavesdrop on wiretapped conversations. http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/21236.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:01:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Last Laugh! A Very Wrong Number One Book Yellow Pages distributed a new phone book in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio with an insert which lists the White House's web address as http://www.whitehouse.com/ instead of http://www.whitehouse.gov/. The unfortunate problem is that whitehouse.com is a porn site. Full story at http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5874,00.html Monty ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #302 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 13 02:37:24 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA24974; Fri, 13 Aug 1999 02:37:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 02:37:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908130637.CAA24974@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #303 TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Aug 99 02:37:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 303 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson It's Official: Iridium Can't Pay (Monty Solomon) FCC Steers Clear of Broadband (Monty Solomon) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (Jack Decker) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (James Bellaire) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (Daryl R. Gibson) Basic Math (was Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings) (Dave O'Shea) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (Linc Madison) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (Michael G. Koerner) Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons (Peter Corlett) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:41:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: It's Official: Iridium Can't Pay It's Official: Iridium Can't Pay By Douglas F. Gray Iridium yesterday defaulted on an $800 million loan, as well as another $750 million guaranteed bank loan. http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5882,00.html Satellite Telco Crashing 3:00 a.m. 12.Aug.99.PDT Iridium World Communications said Wednesday it had defaulted on loans totaling more than US$1.5 billion, pushing the struggling operator of a $5 billion global satellite telecommunications network another step closer to insolvency. http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/21233.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:16:34 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Steers Clear of Broadband Reuters 3:00 a.m. 12.Aug.99.PDT Federal Communications Commission chairman William Kennard Wednesday rejected a request from state and local regulators to conduct an investigation into the nascent market for high-speed Internet services. http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/21227.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 02:17:51 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings It seems to me that I recall about a decade ago when some nut case went into a McDonalds somewhere in the southwest (Texas, I think) and shot a bunch of people. I also recall that they tore down that McDonalds and made the property into a public park. But nowadays, we just patch up the bullet holes and go on pretty much as though nothing had happened. I heard a report the other day that said that the kids will be returning to Columbine High School this fall. They have spent quite a large sum of money to repair the damage (and I think the library will remain closed) but the kids will be going back to the same school where the tragedy occurred. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Los Angeles day care center was going to reopen today or tomorrow. So I think that as a nation we have to some extent lost the ability to feel a deep sense of sorrow and outrage when these things happen. And frankly, I wonder how much our modern communications infrastructure is responsible for that. In the days before radio and TV, something like that would really only have an impact on you if it happened in your home town. If a gang of bank robbers shot up Dodge City and you lived in Chicago, it was probably pretty much irrelevant to you. And even when Al Capone was terrorizing Chicago, that was like a world away to the folks in L.A. But now, a couple of teenagers shoot up a school in Colorado and we see it live, in living color, all over the country. In many ways, it has the same impact as if it happened a mile or two away. What unfortunately happens is that after a while, people become "inoculated" to it all and begin to (on some level) accept it as a normal part of life. Worse yet, those who are so inclined see others doing it and after enough repetitions, may feel the urge to "copycat" the crime, in order to get the same attention by the mass media. The other problem is that with all our televisions and telephones and computers, many of us just don't feel the same connections to our community as people once did. It is now quite possible to live one's life without having much social interaction at all with one's neighbors (in fact some see neighbors primarily as nuisances, the people who play their stereo so loud that it interferes with your TV viewing). It wasn't that long ago that people built houses with front porches, and in the evening they might sit out on the porch and converse with neighbors who happened to be out for a stroll. Now we build houses with "security doors" and air conditioning, and lock ourselves inside with our TV's and computers and stereos and other technological toys. So now we are able to keep in close contact with our small circle of friends, no matter where they may move. With the right equipment, you can chat with them using voice and video over the Internet. But at the same time, we hardly know anyone in our own immediate neighborhoods, unless they are someone we perceive as a potential source of trouble. So someone can live in a community of thousands of people and still feel totally alone and alienated. If they have no close friends, and in addition don't like where they are working or where they go to school or the way they think the government is treating them, and are perhaps just a little mentally unbalanced to boot, watch out. And no, I'm not going to add "and can get guns" to that list because guns aren't a necessary ingredient in the mix - if anyone doubts that, think back to what happened in Oklahoma City (I think that it is really despicable that whenever something like this happens, the media immediately sees yet another opportunity to throw the gun control debate in our faces, usually with the same spokespersons saying the same things they did at the last tragedy). In addition to everything else, I also believe that if you look back at the historical records, the rise of this "brave new world" started about the time that God (specifically, the Ten Commandments and school prayer and Bible reading) was expelled from the classroom. Unfortunately, a lot of folks still don't see the connection there, but I will simply say that there is very good chance that if kids really understood that they were placed on this earth for a purpose, and not just by some cosmic accident, they would not be so inclined to do acts that are destructive of themselves and others. And more to the point, if even a relatives small percentage of people would hear (and follow) the words of Jesus and "love their neighbor as themselves", maybe some of the "neighbors" wouldn't feel so disenfranchised from the rest of society that they wanted to take revenge with an Uzi. The Bible also tells us that "as you sow, so shall you reap". If you look at history, we have often done things that have come back to bite us, even generations later. I think that for many modern people, one of their unstated goals in life has been to make themselves as independent of others as they possibly can. Oh, sure, they may choose to go out bowling on Friday nights, but they don't want to have to depend on their bowling buddies for anything important. You find more and more people who have few friends, or no real deep friendships. Unfortunately, when we isolate ourselves in that way, the people that *we might have been friends with* also suffer - and they just may not tolerate the isolation as easily was we do. None of this is offered as an excuse for the individuals who commit the reprehensible acts that have taken place. But when you ask why these things happen, I really sometimes wonder if the technology that we have created isn't partly to blame. Yes, it has its positive aspects, such as life-saving medical equipment and techniques, and certainly the educational value of computers connected to the Internet cannot be ruled out. But I sometimes wonder if the people who lived maybe 75 or 100 years ago weren't for the most part happier than we are today. Back then, I believe that people were more honest and more concerned about their neighbors and their community. The stores closed by 6:00 on Saturday evening and many more people went to church on Sunday morning. And you could actually find time to relax, to be with your family, to converse with the neighbors. If you had a small business, you didn't have to fill out several hundred pounds of paperwork just to keep Uncle Sugar in Washington happy - you could actually concentrate on running your business during the week, and providing for your family, and maybe even give back a little to your community. Sure, you could find exceptions to all of this, but for the most part I think people were in many ways better off back then. Jack ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 09:32:08 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings In Telecom Digest #299, Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In fairness to BBC, they got the news > about 30 minutes or so after it happened, when it was all still very > unclear as to the extent of the situation. Their later reports were > more detailed and accurate. The politics came first -- mass shooting = mass killing because guns always kill, right? Well guns don't always kill. Sometimes they maim, sometimes they leave only superficial wounds and memories. The proper 'first report' would be "a shooting at a community center, casualties unknown at this time". That was the truth at the time of the report. Making a 'mass killing' out of a shooting before anyone is known dead is very poor journalism. > It was the tone of voice and phrasing implying 'well here is another > one of those things they are always having over in the USA these > days' which disturbed me the most. > And the trouble is, they were right! No, they are not. Poor BBC journalism should not be supported. It is *not* always happening. Take a look at the murder rate for the good old USA. DOWN 8% in 1998. Violent crime DOWN 7%. Aggravated assault DOWN 5%. Property crimes DOWN 7%. Robbery DOWN 11%. Every category tracked by the FBI in their 1998 preliminary "Uniform Crime Report" released May 16th, 99 is DOWN. What makes the occasional rampage *news* is that they do not happen that often. Look at the space program - Apollo 13 and the Challenger. Both incidents happened at times when space travel was becoming routine. Had nothing gone wrong those would have been just another mission. Even though space flight is still a rare event, it barely gets covered. But the occasional rampage is shocking. The American public is outraged. Outraged enough that congress is beginning to reverse the impact of Ms. O'Hare and her fellow atheists. If these were just "ho hum murder spree of the month" stories there would be no action to stop the next one. > We are no longer able to speak of these things as being isolated > situations. They are happening with too much regularity; once every > month or two? Wait until it gets to the point of every week or two, > then maybe every few days. I wonder what the first few years of the > two-thousands will be like? The rampages are getting a fair amount of attention, but the murder rate is still dropping. In order to get to the point of 'every few days' the rate will have to go up. That is not the trend. > You want to talk telecom? Fine, let's keep on talking telecom. We will > just keep on talking telecom until the day comes, as it will, when it > all becomes so trivial relative to our survival as the human race that > we will wonder how we ever got sidetracked into talking about our > choice of cellular and long distance service. How about the most rugged cellular phone for use in a riot? Or cellular tracking devices to locate kidnapped people? How about putting cell technology tracers on every gun. When it is fired it sends a picture of the target and the fingerprint of the shooter? (OK - I'm getting carried away.) > I am being very sincere when I say IMO this is all becoming quite > trivial. Focus on the good. There are 273,230,029 people in the US, most of who were not a victim of gun violence. James Bellaire ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 10:34:59 -0600 From: Daryl R. Gibson Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings >> I first heard the news on the audio feed from BBC Online which is >> available at http://telecom-digest.org/news ... and after hearing the >> twenty second report, almost in a nonchalant way by the BBC announcer, >> who merely noted in a 'what else is new' tone of voice, >> "There has been another mass killing in the United States today ... >> This time it was a man who walked into a day care school for tiny >> children in Los Angeles, which is in California, on the west coast >> of the USA. The man produced a Uzi, fired several times hitting >> various children, then fled before police could capture him." > I watched a BBC news report on the day of the Atlanta shootings. > Heavy on anti-gun politics, light on facts. As much as I like "The > Beeb", it was very poor reporting, just like the above. I pause to point out here that you would get a different report from a U.S. news source than you would from the BBC, or Radio Moscow, or anywhere else in the world. As I've pointed out to my journalism students in the past, one of the elements of news coverage is proximity. A train crash in India is reported differently and with more intensity in India than it is in California. The U.S. shootings have more news value to people in the U.S. than they do to people in Great Britian ... and even though the BBC has a world service, it's still based with a British audience in mind. We, however, are here in the United States, so we still look at their coverage from an American Point of View. As an example in point, Salt Lake City's TV stations were on the air continually yesterday afternoon with tornado reporting; but did WGN in Chicago interrupt its normal programming to report it? Nope. To Chicago folks, it was just interesting video. But to those of us here in Utah, it was mesmerizing, particularly as I looked out of my office window here 50 miles to the south, and saw thunderstorms coming my way. (They actually missed us). News is news only when it impacts your life in some way. The farther away from the event you get, the less it impacts your life, and the less it becomes news. This changes as the nature of the news event changes... the more people involved, or the amount of destruction or pain it causes increases the news element, because it increases the number of people who become interested in it ... so a soccer riot in Spain that injures 65,000 people is more of a news event to people in the U.S. than is a riot that injures 5 people, and either event is of more interest to people who actually watch soccer than it is to me who ignores the sport. Daryl "As you ramble through life, brother, no matter what your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole" --Dr. Murray Banks, quoting a menu ------------------------------ From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Basic Math (was Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings) Organization: snaip.net Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 19:15:01 GMT James Bellaire wrote in message news:telecom19. 299.13@telecom-digest.org: > At 02:19 AM 8/11/99 -0400, Pat wrote: >> I first heard the news on the audio feed from BBC Online which is >> available at http://telecom-digest.org/news ... and after hearing the >> twenty second report, almost in a nonchalant way by the BBC announcer, >> who merely noted in a 'what else is new' tone of voice, >> "There has been another mass killing in the United States today ... >> This time it was a man who walked into a day care school for tiny >> children in Los Angeles, which is in California, on the west coast >> of the USA. The man produced a Uzi, fired several times hitting >> various children, then fled before police could capture him." > I watched a BBC news report on the day of the Atlanta shootings. > Heavy on anti-gun politics, light on facts. As much as I like "The > Beeb", it was very poor reporting, just like the above. > Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't a mass killing require deaths? Not if it suits your political purposes. > The most critically wounded in the current shooting is expected to > fully recover. Fortunately the BBC is wrong about this one. Well, not completely. I believe the postal worker died. Out of respect, I'll skip the obvious puns involving COD and the like. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In fairness to BBC, they got the news [Pat's comment's deleted...] > And the trouble is, they were right! It is a regular occurrence now > here in the USA; a situation that should cause all of us to be ashamed > of how rotten things have become in this country. Pat, We've got 265+ million people in this country. A one-in-ten-million sociopath will occur 26+ times, just by the numbers. It sounds like this guy was both mentally ill and a vile individual. I read the story, then moved on. On the same day that occurred, - Group of oncologists published a study with new ways to attack pancreatic cancer, which currently has a near 100% fatality rate. - NEJM publishes study showing radiotherapy of brain tissue increases survival rate in lung cancer patients. - United Way announced that donations of $3.4 billion surpassed all records, even accounting for inflation. - Dow Chemical donated four new patents to RPI, to help fund college growth. - ABC news ran a story on the surprising number of young philantrophists in Silicon Valley. - Rates of mother-to-child HIV infection fell due to better treatment. - My son had his first day of Kindergarten. PB&J was the lunch, and several excellent crayon renditions of houses, as well as self-portraits, were produced after nap time. Wallowing in self-pity (or species-pity) doesn't do anyone a bit of good. There are bad people out there. There always have been. There always will be. With the advent of multiple 24-hour news channels, you can expect hours of coverage each time one of them commits some atrocity. Here's a simple bit of advice: TURN IT OFF. I haven't watched TV news for a couple of years. Between the local paper, the WSJ, and online news sources, there's just no reason to waste my time watching detergent ads interspersed with the latest video of someone blowing their (or someone else's) brains out. My time is too valuable. Despite my CNN-free lifestyle, I manage to keep current, perhaps because I use that extra hour or so a day to learn about news that matters to *me*, not the program director at the 24-hour-nonstop-gore- news-network. Yesterday, I learned how to set up an encrypted VPN between linux servers in the time that some people sat slack-jawed in front of the boob tube. > We are no longer > able to speak of these things as being isolated situations. They are > happening with too much regularity; once every month or two? By my count, that means that perhaps 1 in 2,700,000 people will be present at an event like that in any given year. A small fraction of that number will be killed or injured. A person is 350 times more likely to hit a jackpot in the lottery, 600 times more likely to be killed in an auto accident, and 2,400 times more likely to be seriously injured in an auto accident. If you're not convinced that these events are "background noise" yet, then this should help. You're 3,600 times more likely to die of heart disease. That's for ALL ages. For middle-aged desk jockeys, that number is more like 21,000 times more likely. The numbers for cancer are similar. If everyone who read this message got off their duff and walked for an hour tonight, instead of sitting on their butts leering at some talking head yakking about the end of the world on CNBC, the resulting reduction in heart disease would offset *every* one of these small but notable tragedies. If they wore seatbelts and skipped drinking, the numbers would double. If they quit smoking, quadruple. > Wait until it gets to the point of every week or two, then maybe > every few days. At one per day, it would still end up in the "all other causes" catch-bin. If it got up to one per hour, it would begin to show up near the bottom of the "cause of death" charts. If we had one mass shooting every minute of every hour of every day, it would make it into the "top ten", leaving cancer and heart disease only 15 times as deadly. If it was only during working hours, it would have to duke it out with diabetes. That's assuming that every one of those mass shootings is a "perfect setup": Trapped, unarmed victims. > I wonder what the first few years of the two-thousands will be > like? Next year will be a lot like this year, only better. The one after it will probably be the same. People will live better, longer lives. Lots of good people will do good things. A few bad people will do bad things. As usual, the news camera crews will compete for who can get the best view of a car crashing into a group of pedestrians, while you'll have to look to the newspaper to find a picture of the space shuttle going up -- for the second time in a month. > And for those of you trying to raise kids of your own these days, > I have to wonder, given the horrible conditions in the United States, > and the 'legacy' they are inheriting as they mature, if you had to do > it over, would you? I certainly would not want to bring any children > into the world in the condition it is in today. Speak for yourself. At the orientation for my kid's school, they had to grab additional chairs -- apparently, while these used to be moms-only events, both moms and dads are coming to them more and more. The 15-year-old babysitter we get to watch our kids when we go out on an occasional Saturday knows more about Tchaikovsky than I do. The neatly-groomed high-school kids who whipped up my lunch at McDonalds today moved so fast and with such organization that my lunch was served before I could find four one-dollar bills in my pocket. Our kids are brighter than us, faster than us, and in a lot of ways, more sensitive than we were at the same age. I can only wonder what my grandkids will be like. I'm sorry, Pat. That rumbling noise isn't the Four Horsemen, it's just people's stomachs reminding them that they should have eaten a decent lunch instead of Fritos and Coke in front of the TV. > You want to talk telecom? Fine, let's keep on talking telecom. We will > just keep on talking telecom until the day comes, as it will, when it > all becomes so trivial relative to our survival as the human race that > we will wonder how we ever got sidetracked into talking about our > choice of cellular and long distance service. People have been predicting the imminent end of the world since man first grasped the concept of his own mortality. Sorry, but I suspect the world's going to be a very *different* place, but one that is better still than what we have now, when it's time for me to go. > I am being very sincere > when I say IMO this is all becoming quite trivial. The guy who flipped his car over and landed in a ditch off highway 290 last Friday didn't seem to think the cellular phone I used to call an ambulance and police with was trivial. Wy wife's grandmother, who can afford the long-distance rates to call from Cincinnati to tell us that the (newly developed) medicine she was put on after a mild stroke is helping a lot, doesn't think that 10-cents-a-minute is trivial. The cheap blood-sugar testing equipment my brother-in-law uses to keep his diabetes in check doesn't seem too trivial to him. The telecom industry that provides an enjoyable place where I earn a good income that keeps us in a nice house doesn't seem at all trivial to me. The "good old days" are a myth. Like any story, they improve with each telling. We remember "Leave it to Beaver", but forget about Klan lynchings. We remember cheap medical care, but forget that "died of natural causes" meant you died of a now-trivial heart ailment at age 66. We remember the 8-cent stamp, but forget it was the only way to communicate. We remember operator-assisted calls, but forget that it cost a day's wages for a scratchy, 3-minute call overseas that took half a day to set up. We remember cheap and friendly dentists, but forget that having teeth past age 50 was pretty rare. Amputation is a lot cheaper than microsurgery, but if I get mashed up in a car wreck, I'd rather walk out of the hospital poor, and work a second job to pay the bills. This is a pretty damn good time to be alive. Enjoy it while you can, and try to leave the world a little better than you found it -- such as by allowing people to share valuable insights into the field that has given people today abilities that our parents never dreamed of -- telecommunications. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:35:27 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings In article , Gregory Ashley wrote: > Don't let that spineless maggot wreck your day, Pat. It's just too > bad that some proud advocate of the 2nd Amendment wasn't there to > whack the miscreant. I'm actually surprised more this stuff isn't > happening considering our limp legal system. > After they finally catch the bastard some liberal moron will blame his > problem on a bad childhood or Hostess Twinkies. I can't let this mal-informed clap-trap pass unchallenged. The "Twinkie" defense was successfully used by a CONSERVATIVE who murdered two LIBERAL politicians. Specifically, former San Francisco City/County Supervisor Dan White (no relation to the football player of the same name) killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, and claimed that it was the Twinkies that made him do it, never mind that he was carrying a loaded gun, snuck into the building to evade the metal detectors, and stopped to reload between killings. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for manslaughter, even though it was unquestionably premeditated murder. (Shortly after his release from prison, White committed suicide.) The primary reason that White's sentence was so lenient is that he murdered the first openly gay supervisor in San Francisco history. Had he only murdered the mayor, his sentence would probably have been much more severe. So don't go blaming the problems with the justice system on the "liberals," or you'll end up looking like the uninformed ass you are. ------------------------------ From: Michael G. Koerner Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 00:25:42 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Gregory Ashley wrote: > Don't let that spineless maggot wreck your day, Pat. It's just too > bad that some proud advocate of the 2nd Amendment wasn't there to > whack the miscreant. I'm actually surprised more this stuff isn't > happening considering our limp legal system. > After they finally catch the bastard some liberal moron will blame his > problem on a bad childhood or Hostess Twinkies. Whatever happened to the malcontent who purposely drove his car through a southern California day-care center yard a few months ago, KILLING several children??? It was a 'below the fold' headline the first day, a couple of short 'back page' paragraphs the next day, and NOTHING since. Could the total lack of news on this case be because he used an AUTOMOBILE and *NOT* a FIREARM in his dispicable act????? Compared with the case yesterday where NONE of the children died (he did knock off a USPS guy later, though), the lack of news on the other case SMELLS and SMELLS BADLY!!! Regards, Michael G. Koerner Appleton, WI [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks to everyone who sent in a reply to my comments from earlier in the week on this topic. Obviously I cannot let the thread run too much longer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: abuse@verrine.demon.co.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons Date: 12 Aug 1999 19:35:16 GMT Organization: B13 Cabal Steve Winter wrote: > netizen@nospam.com spake thusly and wrote: >> Obviously, they have no intention of actually responding in a meaningful >> way to my inquiry (note that in their form-letter they never actually say >> they will answer my question): > If you are that concerned, why not simply call them on the phone? Excuse me whilst I roll around laughing on the floor. > They do publish their phone number. It's pretty much unlisted AFAICS. > I have had occasion to call them in the past (mundane routine business but > I don't remember the details). I found the people I spoke to were quite > competent and reasonably concerned and sympathetic with whatever it was > that I was whining about and took care of it. Yes, but now they've got the US Government on their back trying to remove their monopoly, so they're ignoring everybody. My employers have some domains registered on behalf of clients to make things easy for them. We've ended up as the admin contact for some reason. We're quite happy to change DNS records for them, no problem, but some clients want the whois data to list them, so they hassle us. The first time I tried to change the name, I figured it would be easy. Then I saw the forms. I don't think there's such a thing as a Notary Public in the UK, nor in many parts of the world. Nevertheless, one is needed to make any changes. Thus, the UK seems to be excluded from changing a domain once registered. Figuring that they weren't going to check the signature, we just forged one to keep things going smoothly. It's not as if we were up to anything dodgy. Send to client, get them to forward it to the USA. It bounced back several *months* later: "You're not a company officer." So? I'm the designated hostmaster, it's my job (amongst many things.) What's the problem? We just want rid of the domain. I suspect company policy is now to point clients at NSI's web site directly, and tell them that we'll sign anything. Otherwise it just eats up my valuable time. Usually the client makes a few phone calls and faxes, and then decides that perhaps they didn't need the whois data changing that urgently. Through that farce, we tend to stick to .co.uk and .org.uk now. Nominet do a lot better job. Perhaps they should bid to be the new Internic. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #303 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 13 16:22:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA19765; Fri, 13 Aug 1999 16:22:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 16:22:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908132022.QAA19765@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #304 TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Aug 99 16:22:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 304 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Directv Sues Satellite Watch News; Forces Site to Close (E. Cummings) Re: Two Letter State (etc) Codes (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Steve Winter) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Charles Gray) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Andrew) Help With Unique Switch Requirement (Wes Spears) Phoning Network Solutions Inc. (Bob Goudreau) Re: Any Good Way to Cut Long Distance Costs to Specific Number (Tim Smith) Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? (Art Kamlet) What to Do With a Used AMPS Cell Phone (Peter Simpson) Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC (dpsfun@hotmail.com) International Long Distance: Top Countries Called From U.S. (D. Lunceford) Suche Telefonbuch CD ... (Benny Schilling) Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop (Kevin DeMartino) Re: Last Laugh! A Very Wrong Number (Heywood Jaiblomi) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 14:42:07 -0400 From: E Cummings Subject: Directv Sues Satellite Watch News; Forces Site to Close Pat, this is an item for TELECOM Digest. This guy publishes an informative and objective newsletter http://www.oscoda.net/dmorgand/ that coveres the satellite TV industry. One topic of the many he covers is the ongoing battle between satellite TV pirates and the companies whose signals they try to receive. General Instruments sued him for this and was just awarded $300,000. (Dan runs his newsletter on a shoestring and has no such assets.) With this legal precedent even TELECOM Digest is at risk. We'll be broadcasting a live interview with Dan Morgan at 8pm ET on 7415kHz during Off The Hook. http://www.oscoda.net/dmorgand/freedom.htm To: "Bernie S." Subject: satellite watch news shut down I just got off the phone with Dan Morgan -- he lost the civil suit filed against him by Directv. They're demanding $300,000 and forbidding him from publishing, doing his radio show, or talking about their technology. This is completely insane. What's amazing is that almost nobody seems to know about this. I'm going to have him on my show this Tuesday and I think you should be on as well. This is one show that really needs to go out on shortwave too. ======================= [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I encourage readers to tune to 7415 Khz for the program, and if anyone will supply me with a .ram file of the whole thing I will be glad to see that it gets netcast, and a permanent place in the archives here. I do not know if Dan plans on continuing to publish and speak in defiance of the court order or during an appeal of the order if he plans to make one, and of course it is a very personal decision for him alone to make in any case as to how far he wishes to continue the battle. If Dan chooses to accept the imposed silence I hope he will make his complete files available to other web sites and netcasters so that his work can be continued by others. In the past dozen years or so, when a mailing list, newsgroup or similar was challenged in this way, other sites have immediatly offered to begin mirroring the banned or censored content from their own locations. I hope offers like that will come forward this time as well, ideally from outside the United States, and thus, the reach of the court; but if no one else will do it, I'll establish a directory for it here. That of course means they would have to start all over again with their litigation and attempt to silence yet another site. I wish the best of luck to Dan whichever direction he chooses to go with this, and please keep us all informed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 19:07:09 GMT Geoff Dyer wrote: > Well, for starters, the western two-thirds of Australia uses > two-letter state/territory codes, *all* three of which (WA, SA and NT) > are also used in NANPA. It would be helpful if they adopted two-letter codes for Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Canberra (Australian Capital Territory) too. Not to mention Tasmania. > Then there's the two-letter country codes used for internet domains! Unfortunately, the ITU ignored obvious conflicts between these codes and long-standing two-letter US domestic postal codes for states and territories. The most notorious conflict was il for Israel versus IL for Illinois. il.* was also used for the News hierarchy for Israel, but they got so fed up with the number of articles they got concerning Illinois that they changed it to israel.* almost four years ago. Of course, lots of news servers have neglected to rmgroup the old groups in il.*. CLLI made an effort not to have conflicting codes, but the ITU couldn't be bothered. I choose to blame the French. ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 15:25:39 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Bob Banks spake thusly and wrote: > I hope you can help me. > I'm a student and our Telecom teacher was asked why a 66 block is > called that. He did not know and told us for extra credit find out > what the 66 means. > I called AT&T and Ameritech yesterday and no one there could help me. > If you could help I would really appreciate it, I hope you don't mind > I've book marked your page; it looks like a great source of information. When you find out, ask that same person why a 110 punchdown is called a "110". "An inquiring mind is a terrible thing ..." Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:47:42 -0600 From: Charles Gray Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? This is anecdotal evidence ONLY, and I will gladly defer to a more learned opinion. I went to school for a year with AT&T in 1970 while I was in the Army. We asked the same question about the numerical nomenclature of a number of systems. There are 1ESS, 2ESS, 3ESS, 4ESS, and 5ESS electronic switching systems. Cable/coax carrier systems were numbered L1, L3, L4, L5. Crossbar systems were 1, 4A, and 5. Channel banks are D1A, D1B, D1C, D1D, D2, D3, and D4. Etc, etc. The AT&T response was that all of these things were developed and named by Bell Labs. They just started with "number 1" on whatever system they were working on. TD1 radio, TD2 radio, etc. Whenever there was a "hole" in the sequence, that meant that the labs had worked on something, but it didn't pan out for some reason (technology overcame it, or no economic business case), and they never brought to market. At any rate, when they actually introduced the equipment into the Bell system (remember when it was all one??), it kept the same number the Labs had used during its development. Thus, the terminal block with four screws that was mounted on millions of residential baseboards was a "C block". What happened to "A blocks", and "B blocks" I will never know. I can see a situation where the outside-plant guys at Bell Labs developed all kinds of "apparatus" as they call(ed) it, and they just started with "number 1" and went up from there. Whenever they invented a new kind of thing-a-majig, they just pulled out the next sequential number. This is PURE SPECULATION on my part, but it would fit the model supposedly used for numbering switching and transmission systems. Regards, Charles G. Gray, Director International Telecoms Regulatory Issues Phone (918) 828-6305 Fax (918) 828-6202 e-mail: charles_gray@sabre.com ------------------------------ From: andrew@3.1415926.org (Andrew) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 13 Aug 1999 17:01:45 GMT Organization: MaTech I heard it was because each contact is .66" apart. Andrew ------------------------------ From: Wes Spears Subject: Help With Unique Switch Requirement Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 09:38:46 -0500 Organization: Verio I am looking for something that will serve the following need. We have a number of clients who need to be able to call one number. I would then like for that call to automatically trigger a conference call to several other numbers. So if I am client Bob, I call 8675309 and then whatever device is at the end of this, calls Person A on their cell phone, person B on a land line, and Person C on a local (to the switch) line, all at the same time. It would then be nice for the device to stop the other two calls when the first person picks up. If you know of any such beast, please let me know. Thank you in advance. Wes Spears jspears@weston.com ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:44 EDT Subject: Phoning Network Solutions Inc. Peter Corlett (abuse@verrine.demon.co.uk) wrote: >> If you are that concerned, why not simply call them on the phone? >> They do publish their phone number. > It's pretty much unlisted AFAICS. 1) Point your browser to www.nsi.com. 2) Click on the "About Us" link near the top of the page. 3) Click on the "NSI Corporate Profile" link. 4) Read the following: Headquarters 505 Huntmar Park Drive Herndon, VA 20170 (703) 742-0400 www.networksolutions.com Nasdaq: NSOL Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: tzs@halcyon.com (Tim Smith) Subject: Re: Any Good Way to Cut Long Distance Costs to a Specific Number? Date: 12 Aug 1999 23:07:04 -0700 Organization: Institute of Lawsonomy Thanks to all who offered suggestions. Recap: I've got about 100 hours/month of long distance within state to a specific number, and wanted ways to cut the cost. Several people suggested carries that would do better than the 9 cents a minute USWest charges, but none of those were as cheap as I'd like (e.g., 10-20% savings ... a significant amount, but that would still leave a painfully large phone bill). The best deal seems to be USWest's "Foreign Central Office" service. With that, I can get a second phone at my end that is connected to a CO in an area that is a local call to/from the person I'm spending all that time talking with. The FCO service is billed based on distance, not time, and will cost around $100/month in my particular case. As long as we are using more than ~25 hours/month of long distance, the FCO line will be cheaper. (I'm sure there are a lot of people who could cut their costs with an FCO line. I wonder why this service isn't more widely known and used?) --Tim Smith ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? Date: 13 Aug 1999 02:09:14 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Ed Ellers wrote: > I have two Lucent/AT&T Trimline 210s, which are IMHO one of the best > single-line corded phones on the market today -- the handset has the > same shape, feel and approximate weight of the original Trimline, the > buttons are lighted (from telco battery, not an AC adapter as on the > first Trimlines) .... I thought the Trimlines were always telco powered. The Princess, big, bulky, heavy-set Princess, doorstop that it was, was plugged into the wall. Or else my memory is going? Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: Peter_Simpson@ne.3com.com (Peter Simpson) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 06:27:47 -0400 Subject: Re: What to Do With a Used AMPS Cell Phone Well, you could send them to me :-) There are loads of UHF goodies inside them (duplexers, filters, receiver chips and the like) for hams to play with. Find a local radio ham or ham club and give them a present. Let your kid take it apart or, better yet, take it apart with them, and try to name all the parts and their functions. Reprogram the microprocessor and turn it into a scanner with everything *but* cell blocked! I have a box with a couple of old TV PCBs, some cordless phones and a VCR board or two (should have taken the whole VCR, they have motors and gears!) that I use whenever I need a part that I can't find at Radio Shack. Pieces of wire and pre-connectorized cables, too. "You may be a cheap Yankee if ... you see trash day as an opportunity to re-stock" :-) Peter, KA1AXY [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For that matter, someone please send me a cell phone. From time to time, my phone walks away to go live at someone else's house, and I need to get a new one, such as is the case right now. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Markus Subject: Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 13:14:06 +0200 Organization: Ericsson AXE Research and Development, Stockholm, Sweden Hello! Well, I have been searching for the answer to the following question, but there seem to be a very limited amount of people who are knowledgable about this, in fact, I haven't found anyone yet. Anyways, here is the question: What is the difference between the three standards SDH-ATM-HDLC? Where are they preferably used? Why is ATM embedded in SDH? etc. Cheers, Markus ------------------------------ From: Doug Lunceford Subject: International Long Distance: Top Countries Called From U.S.? Date: 12 Aug 1999 23:32:25 PDT Organization: Concentric Internet Services Reply-To: Doug Does anyone have a list of the countries most often called from the U.S. by residential customers? A ranked list would be nice, but not critical. ------------------------------ From: Benny Schilling Subject: Suche Telefonbuch CD... Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:51:11 +0200 Organization: T-Online [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This arrived in the mail Friday. Will someone kindly read it to me. Whatever it is he wants, if you are knowledgeable, please respond to him. The numbers in parens were originally right-slashed escapes for the eight-bit character shown by the number. Thanks. PAT] ...die auch die Suche (374)ber die Telefonnummer unterst(374)tzt. Also einfach Nummer eingeben und dazugeh(366)rigen Teilnehmer ausfindig machen. MfG, B. Schilling. ------------------------------ From: Kevin DeMartino Subject: Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 13:15:30 -0400 Back toward the beginning of this thread, Linc Madison wrote: >>> Personally, I think we need a federal law prohibiting landlords >>> (whether commercial or residential or mixed-use) from engaging in any >>> exclusive contract for telecommunications services, period. Only the >>> end user (the person paying for the service) should have the right to >>> select the supplier. I replied with: >> There may be some justification in terms of economy of scale for >> allowing landlords to choose certain telecommunication services for >> the entire building, just like they can choose other utilities. For >> example, a landlord may want to install a satcom system to provide TV >> for the entire building....I wouldn't want to see a federal law >> prohibiting landlords from contracting for services on behalf of their >> tenants. Linc then countered with: > I didn't propose any such law. I proposed a federal law prohibiting > the landlord from entering into an EXCLUSIVE contract for services on > behalf of their tenants. OK, "exclusive" is the operative word. But wouldn't these types of contracts usually be exclusive. In many cases an exclusive contract makes sense. For example in the case of satellite TV, there may not be room on the roof for multiple antennas. It certainly would be possible in many cases to install a distribution system that would be provide tenants with a certain amount of choice with respect to both services and suppliers. However, this choice may come with a price tag. Linc also said: > I also vehemently disagree with your statement that the restrictions > should be locally imposed. I believe that they should be uniform > across the nation, which means they must be federally imposed. The > patchwork of local regulation would be a nightmare to manage, both for > the landlords and tenants and for the telecomms companies. This issue of tenant choice vs landlord property rights is more of an issue of political philosophy than a telecom issue. As a watered-down Libertarian, I favor minimal government interference in the dealings between landlords and tenants. As a practical matter, there must be some restrictions placed on landlords. I don't have any confidence that our federal government will come up with sensible regulations in this area (or in most other areas for that matter). I don't trust local governments either, but at least the damage they can do is localized. Sure we can have national standards for distributing telecom signals within buildings, but applying and enforcing these standards should be a local matter, just like the case with building codes. Kevin DeMartino Dynamics Research Corporation ------------------------------ From: heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Very Wrong Number Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 17:12:17 GMT Organization: Redundancy and more of it In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > The unfortunate problem is that whitehouse.com is a porn site. > http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5874,00.html The major difference is that we really don't know if the guy running whitehouse.com received oral sex. If you meet more than two complete arseholes in a day -- it's you! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #304 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 14 12:01:32 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA18655; Sat, 14 Aug 1999 12:01:32 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 12:01:32 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908141601.MAA18655@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #305 TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Aug 99 12:01:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 305 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SprintPCS Text Messaging Woes (Craig Milo Rogers) Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop (Leonard Erickson) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Heywood Jaiblomi) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Al Stangenberger) Re: InfoWorld and Deep Linking (J.F. Mezei) Nortel Rotary Payphone (Keelan Lightfoot) Sanford Wallace Troubles (Kris Henderson) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (Lisa Hancock) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (Steven Lichter) Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? (L. Winson) Trimlines (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) (Danny Burstein) Dial Lights (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) (Joseph Singer) FCC Getting a Net Makeover (Monty Solomon) Tennessee BellSouth Customers to Lose Free DA (Stanley Cline) Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons (netizen@nospam.com) Re: Mexican Service/Access Codes (Adam Sampson) Re: Deep Linking (Adam Sampson) Addition to News Service (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rogers@ISI.EDU (Craig Milo Rogers) Subject: SprintPCS Text Messaging Woes Date: 13 Aug 1999 20:23:20 GMT Organization: Information Sciences Institute Hello. I've been having a grand time playing with the SprintPCS text messaging service, which was recently activated in Southern California. I use it to send summaries of selected work email messages to my SprintPCS cellphone. Unfortunately, it stopped operating last night, with "messaging.sprintpcs.com" (the SprintPCS text messaging mailbox gateway) an unknown domain. A little sleuthing revealed that sprintpcs.com uses blairlake.com to provide DNS service. One of blairlake.com's listed DNS servers has not been responding at all, and the other one rejects messaging.sprintpcs.com. For a time even www.sprintpcs.com was refused, although that might have been a transient. I'm using both dig and nslookup on Linux for testing. SprintPCS.com is an "irresponsible" DNS domain, which is a short way of saying that the phone numbers and email addresses shown for the domain's responsible parties (contacts) in WhoIS are invalid. The SPrintPCS.com responsible party email addresses used SprintSpectrum. com, but that's an irresponsible domain, too. I tried sending a message to ; it was rejected, too, which is (or, at least, was) a violation of SMTP technical standards. Their CustomerCare telephone number is quite backlogged. I suppose that service will be restored soon, but in any case: does anyone have a good phone number or email address for sending technical complaints to SprintPCS? Craig Milo Rogers ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:33:38 PST Organization: Shadownet roy@endeavor.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: >> RCN has evidently negotiated a long-term contract with the landlord >> under which the landlord may not allow any other telecommunications >> carrier into the building to install cable of any type. > There is another issue here, and it's (literally) a messy one. > As the past president of a co-op board in an apartment building, I > (unfortunately) have some taste of what things look like from the > landlord side of the fence. > Cabling in a typical residential building is a nightmare. The only > places to run the wires are usually surface-mount raceway in the > hallways or exterior drops to each apartment. We supervised one > cabling project (rooftop antenna/distribution-amp system before cable > was available in our area). We used the exterior drop method. It was > a real effort to end up with an installation which was neat and clean, > unobtrusive, weathertight, didn't have workmen destroying the roof of > the building, etc. The thought of going through that several times > over for each of N competing operators who wanted to install their own > cable plants is mind-numbing. > Hard to blame a landlord for wanting a single-carrier contract. Not really. The "trick" is that done *right* there should be one set of telephone wiring, and one set of "coax". All owned by the *building owner*. They should terminate in a place where multiple vendors can connect to the internal wiring. For phone wiring, the "house" wiring should follow the industry "standard" for "new" wiring. Each apartment should have it's *own* run of 4-pair cable. This allows for both multiple phones in the same apartment, and for wire pairs getting damaged. Another alternative would be "sharing" a run of 25 pair between 6 apartments. (or more if you want to gamble. I'd not share it between more than 12). As long as you have things clearly labeled in the wiring closet that will act as the demarc, installers would only have to ID a free pair in the closet, and then attach to that pair in the apartment. No need for them to mess with anything else. All a new vendor would need to install is on or more punchdown blocks that "terminate" his trunks coming into the building (which is why you want the wiring closet to have an outside wall!). And they'd have to string wire between their blocks and the "in house" blocks to connect customers. That could be a nightmare unless you have someone keep an eye on things. Anybody know if a "patch panel" type setup would be a good idea for this sort of thing? I can think of one *big* drawback. It makes it *way* too easy for anybody with access to the wiring closet to change things. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 21:22:21 GMT Organization: Redundancy and more of it Charles Gray wrote: > The AT&T response was that all of these things were developed and > named by Bell Labs. They just started with "number 1" on whatever > system they were working on. TD1 radio, TD2 radio, etc. Whenever > there was a "hole" in the sequence, that meant that the labs had > worked on something, but it didn't pan out for some reason. I wonder if that is what happened to 1 thru 6 up, and Preparations A thru G? Incontinence Hotline, can you hold please? ------------------------------ From: forags@nature.berkeley.edu (Al Stangenberger) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 03:56:17 GMT Organization: University of California at Berkeley On Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:47:42 -0600, Charles Gray wrote: > Thus, the terminal block with four screws that was mounted on millions of > residential baseboards was a "C block". What happened to "A blocks", > and "B blocks" I will never know. I always thought that was a Western Electric 42A. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: InfoWorld and Deep Linking Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 22:21:17 -0400 > The title of the page is "Using copyrighted material from InfoWorld". I find it very interesting that a "newspaper" would not want as many links. For instance, someone finds an interesting article and posts a link to that article in a newgroup related to that article. This will attract many readers who may follow up the reading of that direct page with browsing through the site. That link attracted many who would have otherwise never gone to that site. If Infoworld has proper web design direct entry into a page should still provide some of the infoworld "flair" and "advertising"). > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If they do not agree with the way the > web was established and its purposes then they should not be on the > web. I wholeheartedly agree. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 16:49:13 -0700 Subject: Nortel Rotary Payphone From: Keelan Lightfoot I'm thinking of buying a Northern Telecom rotary payphone. All I know about it is that it's part number is QSD400A. Could anyone point me to a place where I could see a picture of this phone? I am also looking for pictures of the QSD2400A and QSD401A. Any help is grealty appreciated! Keelan Lightfoot ------------------------------ From: Kris Henderson Subject: Sanford Wallace Troubles ... Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 19:33:56 -0700 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services It seems that when I decided to use SmartBot for replying to applicants searching for jobs, I inadvertantly was placed on every spam list imaginable. The site, however, makes certain to declare that spamming will not be tolerated by Sanford Wallace. I was under the impression that there were specific uses for autoresponders, and that they were meant to do just that ... respond! But it seems as though it is just a medium for every network marketer to lock up my mail flow from Prodigy. I then have to go to another website just to retrieve my mail! I get 5000-10,000 e-mails monthly ... less than half of which actually pertain to my business. But the remove link states that to remove my name from that list, I forfeit the right to use the autoresponder. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? -And, if I ub-checked the box that says "Please include me on your mailing list", shouldn't that mean that I prefer not to receive all the junk? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Kris Henderson President - Elite Sales www.elitesales.org ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings Date: 13 Aug 1999 19:07:37 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS Society needs to take a hard and HONEST look at two things: 1) What circumstances made the mass killers so angry? What really upset the Columbine, Jonesboro, and other kids to kill their friends? Did the guy in LA believe that Jews were the root of all evil? Extreme prejudice seems to be growing in the country. Why? By "honest" I mean not to get "politically correct" and merely dismiss as ignorant bigotry the feelings of some people. There is a growing sense of frustration and anger and bitterness out there and it needs be learned what is motivating those people to be so bitter. 2) Ok, so they're angry. But what motivated them to kill? What about other more legitimate outlets for their anger? (I wonder if Columbine was actually a copycat act to get media attention for themselves. It certainly worked!) ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 14 Aug 1999 01:29:03 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings A point of order and I'm sure others from the San Fernando Valley will agree, it is not LA it is the Valley, though that is part of LA, at least until the area breaks away as it should have 30 years ago. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 00:01:33 GMT In article , kamlet@infinet.com says: > In article , Ed Ellers > wrote: >> I have two Lucent/AT&T Trimline 210s, which are IMHO one of the best >> single-line corded phones on the market today -- the handset has the >> same shape, feel and approximate weight of the original Trimline, the >> buttons are lighted (from telco battery, not an AC adapter as on the >> first Trimlines) .... > I thought the Trimlines were always telco powered. The Princess, > big, bulky, heavy-set Princess, doorstop that it was, was plugged > into the wall. The first generation Trimlines used a line transformer and an incandescent bulb to provide the dial light. Later models (From the late 70's on to 1984) used green LED's to provide the lighting from line power. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now? Date: 14 Aug 1999 02:26:05 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS > I thought the Trimlines were always telco powered. The Princess, > big, bulky, heavy-set Princess, doorstop that it was, was plugged > into the wall. The original Trimlines required AC current from a transformer, just like a Princess. For phones that had several, they would plug in a transformer in the basement and run the lamp current through the yellow/black pair. Later they were able to power the light (somewhat more softly) from the central office, eliminating the transformer needs. IIRC, when the Trimline went modular, the handset cord became the same as other modular phones; previously IIRC it was 5 conductor. ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: Trimlines (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) Date: 13 Aug 1999 17:51:44 -0400 In kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) writes: > In article , Ed Ellers > wrote: >> I have two Lucent/AT&T Trimline 210s, which are IMHO one of the best >> single-line corded phones on the market today -- the handset has the >> same shape, feel and approximate weight of the original Trimline, the >> buttons are lighted (from telco battery, not an AC adapter as on the >> first Trimlines) .... > I thought the Trimlines were always telco powered. The Princess, > big, bulky, heavy-set Princess, doorstop that it was, was plugged > into the wall. Or else my memory is going? It depends on how far back your memory starts ... the first batch of genuine AT&T/Western Electric Trimline phones (which came out in the mid/late 1960s) used the plug-in wall transformer deal, as well as some very wierd early versions of "modular plugs". I first started to see some telco-line-powered LED Trimlines, mixed in with the AC powered ones, in the NY Telephone area in 1977. Presumably this switchover was a gradual phase-in based on the local Bell's relationship with Ma herself, inventory, geography, and manufacturing requirements. danny 'take a Trimline, add some resistors and a capacitor or two...' burstein _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 19:02:43 -0700 From: Joseph Singer Subject: Dial Lights (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet)13 Aug 1999 02:09:14 -0400 wrote: >> I have two Lucent/AT&T Trimline 210s, which are IMHO one of the best >> single-line corded phones on the market today -- the handset has the >> same shape, feel and approximate weight of the original Trimline, the >> buttons are lighted (from telco battery, not an AC adapter as on the >> first Trimlines) .... > I thought the Trimlines were always telco powered. The Princess, > big, bulky, heavy-set Princess, doorstop that it was, was plugged > into the wall. In a single word no. The original Princess had the separate power supply (transformer) to power the dial/keypad light. For a brief while WECO/AT&T manufactured what I think was called the Princess "signature" phone which had LEDs that were phone line powered. As for the Trimline the Trimline (the first one with the miniature dial with the moveable finger stop) had its light powered by a separate power supply (I assume the same one that powered the Princess.) To my knowledge all the pushbutton Trimlines with the round keys on the keypad had power supply powered a power supply. When they made the "second generation" Trimline with the squared keys they were lit by phone line powered LEDs. Of course this dial in handset "Trimline" style phone is made by many many companies now (most of it really junk.) Most have the lit keypad using LEDs to light though I had another knockoff many years ago that used low voltage incandescent bulb. BTW, I believe Trimline is a trademark of AT&T. As a side note "Touch Tone" is also tradmarked but I'm not sure who has the right to use it AT&T or the ILECs. In some areas it's called "Touch Calling." It may be a generic term now for all I know! Joseph Singer Seattle, Washington USA [ICQ pgr] +1 206 405 2052 [msg] +1 206 493 0706 [FAX] Seattle, Washington USA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 00:04:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Getting a Net Makeover By Elizabeth Wasserman The Federal Communications Commission today issued a five-year restructuring proposal to Congress that seeks to bring the regulatory bureaucracy into the Internet age. The agency says it wants to be a "one-stop digital shop" for quick and easy form-filing, decision-making and automated access to information. http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5893,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 09:31:05 -0400 From: Stanley Cline Subject: Tennessee BellSouth Customers to Lose Free DA For years Tennessee customers of BellSouth have had totally free, unlimited directory assistance for numbers within TN [and the small parts of GA and NC where Tennessee rates are charged.] Not anymore ... BellSouth will now be charging 29c/call after six calls per month per line. (Waivers of the DA charges will still be available to the disabled *as well as to anyone 65 and over*.) (Most payphones in TN have been charging for DA since payphone deregulation/the "license to gouge" took effect.) (This is far better than the 85c/call after one call that [most] GA customers have to pay. It's now actually cheaper to call DA from a non-BellSouth Mobility cell phone than from a landline in Atlanta! Most Atlanta area cell carriers use third-party DA companies, though. I have found that Sprint PCS' is OK but Powertel's is unreliable.]) http://cpr.bst.bellsouth.com/pdf/tn/notice/TN1999-158.pdf Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ ------------------------------ From: netizen@nospam.com Subject: Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 07:38:54 GMT steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) wrote: > netizen@nospam.com spake thusly and wrote: >> Obviously, they have no intention of actually responding in a >> meaningful way to my inquiry (note that in their form-letter they >> never actually say they will answer my question): > If you are that concerned, why not simply call them on the phone? Why should I? They are a web-based company and I'm on the web. Plus, it's a long-distance call. It's been two weeks now. The ONLY response to my single, simple question asking them what their SPAM policy was is ANOTHER THREE idiotic non-answers, as follows: > This is an automatic reply from Network Solutions to acknowledge that > your message has been received. This acknowledgement is NOT a > confirmation that your request has been processed. > If you need to correspond with us regarding this request, please be > sure to reference the tracking number [[NIC-xxxxxxx.xxxx]] in the subject > of your message. > Regards, > Network Solutions (Same as above, repeated two more times.) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 00:24:57 +0100 From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: Mexican Service/Access Codes Reply-To: azz@gnu.org > The generic list of special codes since the 1997/98 numbering/dialing > expansion shows '060' for Emergencies and '080' for the Police. Maybe > different towns prefer one to call one rather than the other, similar to > 911 (more or less standard throughout the NANP) vs. the newer 311 used in > some parts of the US for "non-emergency" access to the police or other > government/ health services. The situation in the UK is similar; we have 999 as our "normal" emergency number (the one schoolkids get taught), but because of EU regulations, 112 also works. Which one will win will simply be a matter of time. Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 00:19:21 +0100 From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: Deep Linking Reply-To: azz@gnu.org >> I propose a file called deepLinks.txt. It says whether or not links >> are permitted into the website, and further, if linking is >> permitted, it says which sub-directories may be linked to. > In order for the "deeplink.txt" file to work, it would have to be > implemented by the web server software on the host. This is already being done, albeit by a convoluted and ineffective mechanism. Modern browsers send a Referer: (sic) header in the HTTP request which says what URL referred the browser to the URL requested. This appears to serve no purpose apart from allowing companies to profile where they are being linked from (and to implement the process below). Sites such as xoom.com are now using this to block access to their webserver (or in xoom's case, replace images with the Xoom logo) if your Referer: header doesn't say you came from their site. Fortunately, there's a way around this. Older browsers don't support Referer:, so if you block out the header, most sites won't complain. One tool that can do this is Internet Junkbuster (www.junkbusters.com), which can also trim out banner ads and cookies. What I'd prefer to see would be an option to send the URL you are requesting as the Referer: header, which would probably be enough to fool most servers. However, this is an ethical issue, not a technical one. Hypertext systems (like HTTP/HTML) are valueless unless random linking is permitted. It makes no sense to block out sites from "deep linking". Why don't the companies who are worried by "deep linking" simply put banner ads on their "deep" pages? (I don't care, IJB blocks banner ads for me anyway.) Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Addition to News Service Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 11:30:00 EDT A recent addition to the multimedia offerings available as part of http://telecom-digest.org/news includes a new feature from Cable News Network for the net called 'Videoselect' which is intended to complement their long-standing 'Audioselect' service. Where the audio service offers Headline News or the regular CNN programming on a continuous audio feed as well as 'on demand' short features in their archives, the purpose of Videoselect is to provide not only 'on demand' archives files from recent news events but to supply a short (nine or ten minute) video newscast just for the internet which is updated every thirty minutes around the clock. The version I have online at http://telecom-digest.org/news/CNNTV.html updates every thirty minutes with the three or four major stories currently in progress plus a national weather forecast. That page functions like the others in the http://telecom-digest.org/news group of pages with links to my 'best of the internet' feature stories and other online publications but instead of just an optional audio background, it also has a little viewer if you want to watch the current news presentation. Remember that the default audio in the news feature is BBC World News Online, but you can use the drop-down menu provided to change audio sources or just go direct to the one of your choice such as /CNNTV.html /AP.html NPR.html reality.html or others. Please let me know if you have any problems with the little viewer I have provided for http://telecom-digest.org/news/CNNTV.html PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #305 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Aug 15 03:30:19 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id DAA15538; Sun, 15 Aug 1999 03:30:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 03:30:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908150730.DAA15538@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #306 TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 Aug 99 03:30:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 306 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Defcon Video Highlights on Line (TELECOM Digest Editor) Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? (TELECOM Digest Editor) Early Modular (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) (Ed Ellers) Re: Basic Math (was Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings) (Colin Sutton) A Correction to Original Posting (Craig Milo Rogers) Puppet Masters: Who Controls the Net (Monty Solomon) Re: Network Solutions: Not the SPAMMERS and Who's the Moron? (John Levine) Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons (Lars Poulsen) Re: Suche Telefonbuch CD ... (Adam Sampson) Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop (Roy Smith) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Brent Boyko) Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes (Garrett Wollman) Re: Starium Promises Phone Privacy (Paul Rubin) Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls (Steven) Re: Deep Linking Proposal (steven@primacomputer.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 01:35:07 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Defcon Video Highlights on Line I was directed today to some short video highlights which were made at Defcon in Las Vegas during July 9-11 this year. One of the videos is a demonstration of Back Orifice; others deal with miscellaneous events which went on. I am sorry to report the videos are not of very good quality :( sound- or video-wise ... but I thought I would put them on display for at least a few days for interested persons. My thanks for these videos to a hack/phreak group called 'Parse' which puts on a weekly netcast video show via http://pseudo.com and I offer them to you with standard disclaimers, etc. Direct your browsers to http://telecom-digest.org/defcon-videos.html PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 13:36:28 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? The new poll question asks how your phones are answered when you are away. The possible answers are that it is always answered live by someone, that calls are forwarded to you or someone else, that you use an answering machine or voicemail, or that you do not bother, and let it ring unanswered. To participate in the current poll question, please go to http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html where you can vote and see how others have voted. Your browser needs to have java enabled in order to vote, and a cookie is passed to you to insure that you vote only one time in each poll. You are free to disgard the cookie at any time. No other name or registration required. In the last poll question, we asked what percentage of your total telecom expense each month is for directory assistance charges. 94.5 percent of the voters said they spend less than five percent on directory assistance charges. 2 percent said they spend about five percent of their telecom budget on directory assistance. 2.5 said six or seven percent was their estimate. No one in the poll spends more than seven percent on this service offered by telco. Thanks for participating in http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html PAT ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Early Modular (was: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 13:52:38 -0400 L. Winson (lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com) wrote: > IIRC, when the Trimline went modular, the handset cord became the > same as other modular phones; previously IIRC it was 5 conductor. I seem to recall that the handset cord had 4 conductors. The mounting (base)cord did have five conductors -- red, green, yellow, black and *white* -- so that the installer could configure the phone for different party line configurations without the usual hassle of opening the base and changing the wiring. (Incidentally, Western Electric did use Trimline-type modular handset cords on a limited basis on some key telephone sets, before the decision was made to go to the "mini-modular" system used today.) ------------------------------ Reply-To: Colin Sutton From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: Basic Math (was Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings) Organization: Siemens Building Technologies Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 08:59:32 +1000 Dave O'Shea wrote in message ... Thanks Dave, for saying it so well. The more time is spent on fruitful (or even harmless) interests, the less time available for destructive and malicious activities. So, whether it's drug research or exercise or telecom history or religion, encourage it. Colin Sutton ------------------------------ Subject: A Correction to Original Article Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 10:16:38 -0700 From: Craig Milo Rogers I am greatly embarassed. I made a technical blunder, and my conclusions are invalid (details below). It got out to the net before I caught it, and my retraction follows. Craig Milo Rogers with egg on his face Details: Email resolution uses special "MX" records in DNS before falling back to "A" records. The command I gave to nslookup examined only "A" records. I think I used to have a .nslookuprc file that changed nslookup's default behavior (and something similar for dig), but didn't carry that forward with me when I migrated from Solaris to Linux. I know for certain that a SpringPCS text messaging request was rejected due to DNS errors, and I know for certain that only one DNS server responded when I probed, but I don't know when SprintPCS text messaging service was resumed, and I don't know whether the interruption was a DNS server problem or a network connectivity problem. --CMR ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 14:44:41 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Puppet Masters: Who Controls the Net http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,39907,00.html By News.com staff August 6, 1999, 4 a.m. PT Is Gates pulling the Net's strings? Like the browser wars, the fight over instant messaging is part of a larger struggle for control of the Web by industry titans. And Microsoft may raise the stakes by taking on AOL with low- or no-cost Net access. http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,39911,00.html Where the Web will be won: As computing moves even further onto the Net, identifying the next key technological battlefront is more important than ever for America Online, Microsoft, and a cast of smaller hopefuls. http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,39914,00.html How AOL rose from the ashes: How did AOL go from a digital whipping post to an Internet superpower? The answer lies in a combination of marketing hubris and an obsession with the Internet novice. http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,39917,00.html Microsoft: Resistance is futile Borland's plight at the hands of the Redmond empire shows how Microsoft's perseverance can spell disaster for its competitors even when it's lagging or completely absent from a particular market. http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,39916,00.html Why open standards are a myth: The rhetoric behind the technological control over instant messaging is beginning to resemble campaign speeches on family values in an election year -- and is inspiring similar cynicism. http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,39915,00.html ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Network Solutions: not the SPAMMERS and who's the moron? Date: 14 Aug 1999 15:25:37 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [ re "spam" complaint to Network Solutions from "netizen@nospam.com" ] >>> Obviously, they have no intention of actually responding in a >>> meaningful way to my inquiry (note that in their form-letter they >>> never actually say they will answer my question): Pat, this is really pitiful. This clown is too much of a coward to use his own e-mail address, and too inept to figure out where a web site is hosted, but he sure knows how to spew venom against people who have nothing whatsoever to do with his complaint. The original complaint was about a web site called sportsmatchonline. com. A whois lookup makes it clear that it's hosted by INTERLAND.NET in Atlanta, and Network Solutions has no more connection to them than they have to any of the million other COM, ORG, and NET they've registered. I'm no fan of NSI, but there's plenty of real issues to take them to task for, not nonsense like this. If I were getting obnoxious mail like this guy were sending, particularly if it had a forged return address like he uses, and it was complaining about something I clearly didn't do, I wouldn't try to respond either. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Then too, John, I don't think the guy begins to realize how much mail goes to 'abuse' in a given day and the futility of even trying to answer it all personally especially before any investigation is conducted. Millions of netters, each one thinking they are the only one to report it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 19:21:12 -0700 From: Lars Poulsen Subject: Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons Patrick commented on a note from someone who felt ignored when complaining to Network Solutions about SPAM from one of their web-hosting customers: > Now in recent days, we are hearing that NSI is not doing a very good > job where spam is concerned, ... Realistically, if you write to the > 'abuse@' address of any site these days, you are going to get an auto- > reply. No one even tries to keep up with it on a personal basis any > longer. PAT] "No one even tries" is an unfair blanket condemnation of an entire industry. Most of the smaller service providers do an excellent job of keeping their users in line and proactively get rid of spammers. But some of the large providers make a living out of being hosts to con-artists and other spammers. Network Solutions does a fair bit of spamming of their own. Under the co-operative agreement with the US government that made them the monopoly registrar for the .COM, .NET, and .ORG domains, they have collected extensive databases of businesses with network connections, including names, mail addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses of those managing the technology end of those businesses, and they are selling CD-ROMs with extracts of this database to telemarketers at the same time that they are refuing to turn the complete database over to the government and to the non-profit group to whom the government has passed the authority to implement the new registry with multiple registrars. Over the last several years, they have performed poorly, and their customer "service" has always been a joke. I have personally had my domain turned off several times due to errors in their billing department. Last year, they billed me in November for a registration that expired in early March. I paid them, and then in March, they turned me off for non-payment, so I had to pay again. I have had no response to repeated e-mails and telephone calls to ascertain what happened to the first payment (except that it was drawn from my VISA-conencted checking account), and I finally gave up. As to the people who asked to be taken off, but can't say exactly which address to take off: My domain -- which is sort of a personal micro-ISP serving me and a couple of friends -- is similar to the domain name of a cable-TV company with an ISP operation. I am CMC.COM, they are CMC.NET, and it seems that many of their customers don't know the difference. I receive about 3 MegaBytes of e-mail PER DAY addressed to unknown accounts. I have now set up an auto-responder which replies to each of these messages with an explanation of why I don't want their mail, and asking them to remove any address ending in CMC.COM from all mailing lists under their control. Half of those responses cannot be delivered because the sending address is invalid, the user's mailbox is overflowing or the account has been terminated. When I receive the messages, it takes quite a bit of research to find the name from the SMTP envelope; the "To:" address is usually just a dummy, but the web hosting site where the auto-responder is installed does put the SMTP address in one of the "Received:" (tracing) headers in the message. Much of this junk is spam sent via a mailing list generated by picking e-mail addresses out of browsers visiting a web site, and managed by morons who cannot or will not prune their lists of useless addresses. When I set up the autoresponder, I was hoping to get all of this junk cleaned up, but I am ready to send it to the bit bucket ... the effort to clean it up is too large for the amount of good it does. Lars Poulsen - http://www.cmc.com/lars - lars@cmc.com 125 South Ontare Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93105 - +1-805-569-5277 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I said 'no one even tries' I was referring to providing a manually prepared letter to someone who writes to complain about spam. Hey, back in the middle 1980's when someone would send an article here to telecom I would personally answer and thank them for it and discuss with them when and if I was going to print it. But then I started getting 90-100 articles per day a great many of which took -- and still take today -- some time to edit, clean up and prepare for use. Personal answers most of the time are impossible. I did not mean people were not trying to work on eliminating spam, only that they, so far as I know, have mostly given up trying to answer individual user complaints about it, concentrating instead on zapping the spammers however they can. Letters to 'abuse' *do* get read and considered, I am sure. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 00:08:08 +0100 From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: Suche Telefonbuch CD... Reply-To: azz@gnu.org On Fri, Aug 13, 1999 at 04:22:05PM -0400, editor@telecom-digest.org asked someone to translate this: > Subject: Suche Telefonbuch CD... > ...die auch die Suche (374)ber die Telefonnummer > unterst(374)tzt. Also einfach Nummer eingeben und dazugeh(366)rigen > Teilnehmer ausfindig machen. > MfG, B. Schilling. In English it says: > I'm looking for a telephone book CD that also understands searching > by telephone number. So you simply put in the number and it finds > appropriate subscribers. With friendly greetings, B. Schilling." Germany's thriving telephone-CD business has recently been turned into a monopoly -- and the worst interface won, according to what I've heard. I suspect that there's probably a premium "business" version of the D-Info CD that would do reverse searching, although I don't live in Germany so it's a bit difficult to do research. Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ------------------------------ From: roy@endeavor.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop Organization: New York University School of Medicine Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 16:37:10 -0400 shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: > The "trick" is that done *right* there should be one set of > telephone wiring, and one set of "coax". All owned by the *building > owner*. They should terminate in a place where multiple vendors can > connect to the internal wiring. In our case, we even approached the cable vendor who would likely be in the area, but not for a couple more years. We asked about things like that. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that when the finally came around, they would not touch our wiring, but would install their own cable plant. Hard to blame them for thinking that way, either. Sure cuts down on finger-pointing if the end customer is getting a bad signal. ------------------------------ From: bboyko@brent.llu.edu (Brent Boyko) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 14 Aug 1999 21:09:23 GMT Organization: Loma Linda University In article , Charles Gray wrote: > Thus, the terminal block with four screws that was mounted on millions of > residential baseboards was a "C block". What happened to "A blocks", > and "B blocks" I will never know. The "A" block was in the CO, and the "B" block was on the pole outside the residence. Residential area terminal boxes are still referred to as "B boxes" by some. Brent E. Boyko Telecom Engineer Loma Linda University Medical Center bboyko@brent.llu.edu ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes Date: 14 Aug 1999 21:21:31 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Adam H. Kerman wrote: > Unfortunately, the ITU ignored obvious conflicts between these codes > and long-standing two-letter US domestic postal codes for states and > territories. The ITU has no involvement in the maintenance ISO 3166. The agency responsible for maintaining it is DIN, the German equivalent of ANSI. The selection of territories to include is by the United Nations, and it is the UN which is responsible for the three-digit 'territory code' which is usually found in conjunction with ISO 3166 tables. There are a series of three-letter 3166 codes. The inventors of the Domain Name System chose to use the two-letter codes because three-letter codes might clash with the non-country-specific domains (and indeed COM does). Unfortunately, there were still conflicts: the people in the UK wanted to use the code 'UK', and so they did, even though the official ISO 3166 two-letter code for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is 'GB'. This caused problems when the Ukraine got on-line. You will remember that, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, that country had gotten three seats in the UN by insisting that Ukraine and Byelorussia (now Belarus) were separate countries. What 'country' do you suppose got assigned the code 'UK'? (Since that time, Ukraine has been reassigned to `UA', to avoid confusion with the UK.) All this is really about ISO 3166-1. ISO 3166-2 gives standard indications for the sub-national territories of those countries which have them and have bothered to register. Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same wollman@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick ------------------------------ From: Paul Rubin Subject: Re: Starium Promises Phone Privacy Date: 14 Aug 1999 15:08:11 -0700 Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services Monty Solomon writes: > Today, the third floor of a converted sardine factory on Cannery Row > is home to a startup company developing what could become a new world > standard in privacy protection. By early 2000, Starium Inc. plans to > begin selling sub-US$100 telephone scrambling devices so powerful > that even the US government's most muscular supercomputers can't > eavesdrop on wiretapped conversations. This is cool. For those here who don't follow these things, Starium is the cost-reduced successor to the Comsec secure phones that were sold for $1000 or so apiece and shown at various cryptography and security conferences over the past couple years. I'm personally acquainted with the designer and while I haven't seen the Starium stuff, I can tell you from having played with it that the Comsec stuff was absolutely first class. In case you care, the crypto algorithms were 1024 (or maybe it was 2048) bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange and Triple-DES. The Comsecs were too expensive for me to really want some of my very own, but if Stariums are really $100 then I'll definitely get a couple. Meanwhile, I'll also plug something that I worked on: a software-only secure phone program, source code included, at http://www.lila.com/nautilus/ (make sure to include the trailing slash). It uses the sound card and modem (or Internet connection) in your PC, is half duplex (hit a key to switch between talking and listening), and generally is much less convenient than a hardware approach like Starium; but its security should be very good, and you can download it for free. It also uses DH key exchange and your choice of various symmetric ciphers including 3DES. I see just now that Starium now has some good stuff on its own page (www.starium.com). For a long time it just said something like "watch this space". Great stuff!!! ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 14:38:00 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer While the editor's statment of fact may have been a bit flowery it addressed the issue and offered an explanation as to why this petty form of extortion exits. I'm curious if anyone has looked into how this might conflict with regulations on public phones, equal access, etc. One might be able to effect a change by exploiting this kind of greed. With a sizeable percentage of the US population currently incarcerated, the phone companies might be persuaded to pursue access to this ever growing market. With many of the potential customers cut off from all other forms of communication, the US TelecoN market could be worth billions. New value added services could be offered, such as interactive translation from English to Lawyer, Online Cigarette trading, or information services announcing arrivals, departures, or the number of years you will be held before charges are to be filed. Interactive dating services for Men Seeking Men could very well be the first "Killer App" of the TelecoN industry. Steven ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Deep Linking Proposal Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 14:39:16 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer The whole concept of robots.txt, or deeplink.txt is that it doesn't require modifying servers. It is up to the browser/linker to check for the file and decide if they should not be where they are. I don't see what the debate is about though. The internet is a public forum. If you put something up expect it to be linked to. If you only want something accessible from your site then reject requests that have the wrong referer. The mechanism is already there. Otherwise its like putting your cookie into the cookie jar and then complaining when someone eats it. Steven In article , LincMad001@telecom- digest.zzn.com says: > In order for the "deeplink.txt" file to work, it would have to be > implemented by the web server software on the host. In other words, if > I have a page deep in my site that someone has linked directly to, but > I want to make visitors come in through the front door, I would > configure my "deeplink.txt" file to disallow access to anything but the > main page. If someone then clicked on an external direct link to the > deep page, my server would automatically redirect the request to the > main page. > Thus, you can put a deep link to my site anywhere you please, but it > won't work if my server software is configured to block it. > This structure would basically streamline what is already available to > web programmers by checking the referrer for each access. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #306 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Aug 15 16:22:09 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA05169; Sun, 15 Aug 1999 16:22:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 16:22:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908152022.QAA05169@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #307 TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 Aug 99 16:22:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 307 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles (Robert Horan) Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles (Tom Betz) Re: MCI Five Cents Everyday (Herb Stein) Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes (Adam H. Kerman) Re: SprintPCS Text Messaging Woes (Afshin David Youssefyeh) Re: Telco Truck Fleet Presentation (Alan Boritz) Re: What to Do With a Used AMPS Cell Phone? (jw.nyc@iname.com) Followup on Third Voice (Fred Atkinson) Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Arthur Ross) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 06:57:09 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons On Sun, 15 Aug 1999 03:30:19 -0400 (EDT), Lars Poulsen wrote: > Network Solutions does a fair bit of spamming of their own. Under > the co-operative agreement with the US government that made them > the monopoly registrar for the .COM, .NET, and .ORG domains, they > have collected extensive databases of businesses with network > connections, including names, mail addresses, telephone numbers, > fax numbers and e-mail addresses of those managing the technology > end of those businesses, and they are selling CD-ROMs with extracts > of this database to telemarketers at the same time that they are > refusing to turn the complete database over to the government and > to the non-profit group to whom the government has passed the > authority to implement the new registry with multiple registrars. The other day, I got a pair of catalogs in the mail from a company called "MISCO", which apparently is a retailer of computer equipment based in Toronto. Lots of hard drives, mice, cleaning kits, even full-blown computers available ... but I think I'd be more inclined to trust them if there were any reference whatsoever to shipping charges - I hate getting that nasty surprise when the package arrives. Anyways, point is, I got two of 'em. One was addressed to myself personally, while the other was addressed to "Martin Purvis" at the same address. Martin is a netter who lives in Australia, and I host his website for him. I also did him the favour of registering his domain name for him with NSI. When I filled in his contact information, I included his Australian address, but my address also shows up when you look up his domain name. The only possible way that I could have gotten onto the mailing list which produced these catalogs in my mailbox is that somebody had access to NSI's database. And frankly, I'm absolutely appalled by this turn of events. They are, or were, a freakin' monopoly - aren't there supposed to be safeguards to prevent officially-sanctioned monopolies (not including Microsoft) from abusing such monopoly positions? When it comes time to register new domains, or renew my existing ones, I plan on using anybody but NSI. This is crap, man. (BTW, if anyone is looking for domain registration on the cheap, I suggest you check out http://nic.nu - $25/year. I've got no connection to 'em other than as a satisfied customer, as you can see by my return email address.) From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU The sky already fell. Now what? --Steven Wright ------------------------------ From: Robert Horan Subject: Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 15:30:37 +0200 Kris Henderson wrote: > It seems that when I decided to use SmartBot for replying to > applicants searching for jobs, I inadvertantly was placed on every > spam list imaginable. The site, however, makes certain to declare > that spamming will not be tolerated by Sanford Wallace. My first question is, don't you know who Sanford Wallace is? Taken from this URL, http://www.annonline.com/interviews/970522/biography.html "Wallace originally began in the bulk e-mail business under the name of Promo Enterprises (promo-ent.com). Not long thereafter he started business under the corporate identity of Cyber Promotions, which he has operated under ever since. Recently he started a sister bulk e-mailing company, Cyberout Email Services, an autoresponder service, and an internet service provider, ISPam." > I was under the impression that there were specific uses for > autoresponders, and that they were meant to do just that ... respond! > But it seems as though it is just a medium for every network marketer > to lock up my mail flow from Prodigy. I then have to go to another > website just to retrieve my mail! I get 5000-10,000 e-mails monthly > ... less than half of which actually pertain to my business. But the > remove link states that to remove my name from that list, I forfeit > the right to use the autoresponder. Autoresponders have their place in e-communication, but you are using a "service" from a man renowned to abuse the Net. By clicking on "remove your name from the list", it is possible that you will be removed from *his* list. Maybe, maybe not. But that link will definitely not remove you from all the *other* lists. The damage has already been done. > Does anyone have any suggestions for me? -And, if I ub-checked the > box that says "Please include me on your mailing list", shouldn't that > mean that I prefer not to receive all the junk? Any advice would be > greatly appreciated. If you have the ability to filter your mail as it arrives on the server, or even through your email client, that is the easiest solution, if the SPAM is easily separatable. In most cases, though, it's not. My advice, get rid of this address. Open a new address at an email provider that will allow you to have an autoresponder attached to your email address, BUT also will allow you to filter on the server, and already has spam filters in place. If this spammed email address is linked to your ISP, contact the ISP and ask for a new address. If you put your email address on web pages, put something into your email address that will require human effort to remove it, thus thwarting (for now) the spambots: for example: robert.horan@removethistomailme.cyberdude.com . This will produce a nondelivery report to the spammer, but will only arrive into your email box when someone *purposely* removes the junk in the address. Just be sure to include an explanation in your signature for your correspondents that need an explanation. A good book to read on this subject is the "pig" book, _Stopping_Spam_ from O'Reilly Press. Hope this helps, Robert Horan robert.horan@removethistomailme.cyberdude.com ------------------------------ From: tbetz@panix.com (Tom Betz) Subject: Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles Date: 15 Aug 1999 11:02:18 -0400 Organization: Society for the Elimination of Junk Unsolicited Bulk Email Reply-To: tbetz@pobox.com Quoth Kris Henderson in : > Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Remember Rule #1 -- Spammers Lie. My advice? Don't trust thieves like Sanford Wallace. I always wanted to be someone,| Tom Betz, Generalist but now I think I should have | Want to send me email? FIRST, READ THIS PAGE: been a wee bit more specific. | | YO! MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS HEAVILY SPAM-ARMORED! ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: MCI Five Cents Everyday Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 16:16:31 GMT When I recover from the time and expense of their frame relay problems culminating in its complete domestic shutdown Saturday (see http://www.mci.com) I MAY consider trusting them with my telephone service. Yeah, right :-) In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > No. 2 long-distance carrier angles for AT&T's dominant 60% market share > NEW YORK (CNNfn) - MCI WorldCom Inc. announced Monday it will cut > long-distance rates to as low as 5 cents a minute during off-peak > hours, a move likely to intensify price-jockeying in the intensely > competitive market. > In a shot across the bow of AT&T Corp., the nation's top > long-distance carrier, No. 2 MCI said weekday calls between 7 p.m. and > 7 a.m. and all weekend calls will fall to 5 cents per minute. The > service, to be called "MCI Five Cents Everyday," carries a fee of > $1.95 a month and covers state-to-state calls for 108 hours per week. > Jackson, Miss.-based MCI WorldCom (WCOM) also will offer > peak-hour service for 10 cents per minute, for a monthly service > charge of $4.95. Callers sticking to the off-peak deal "Five Cents > Everyday" plan will have to pay 25 cents per minute for peak-hour > long-distance calls. > The move, the first by MCI in the residential, long-distance > market in two years, signals the company is serious about increasing > its share of that business segment. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: MCI/Worldcom's outage was in its eighth day as of Friday afternoon. See the CNET display boxes for detailed reports on this at http://telecom-digest.org/news (although by Monday other stories may have taken over the CNET space in our e-news area). I guess a lot of corporate datacom managers are feeling very annoyed by it at this point. Quite a few have had little or no service for the past week; a few others have limped along at half-speed. As to be expected, MCI/Worldcom is in complete denial about the whole thing. They admit there 'might be some network congestion'. When they were asked point blank by CNET how many times last week they had to rebuild their virtual network, at first they claimed they did not do that; then they were shown evidence to the contrary and finally admitted they had 'tried two or three times' to correct what was wrong. The customer service reps have been told to deny there are any problems if questioned by users, and instead of answering any questions about the network raised by users to if possible turn the discussion around and ask the users if they understand the procedures to login, etc, making it appear that the user is at fault. Some lawyers are already preparing litigation on behalf of their corporate clients, asking for their money back plus more money to cover the damages incurred during the last week in places like Chicago where the opening of one of the financial trading centers has been delayed indefinitly because of MCI/Worldcom's problems. So now they want to take over your home telephone service as well? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 09:50:49 -0500 Organization: EnterAct L.L.C. Turbo-Elite News Server > Adam H. Kerman wrote: >> Unfortunately, the ITU ignored obvious conflicts between these >> codes and long-standing two-letter US domestic postal codes for states >> and territories. The most notorious conflict was il for Israel versus >> IL for Illinois. il.* was also used for the News hierarchy for Israel, >> but they got so fed up with the number of articles they got concerning >> Illinois that they changed it to israel.* almost four years ago. Of >> course, lots of news servers have neglected to rmgroup the old groups >> in il.*. > Tell that to the Californians who are tired of seeing Canadian political > discussions showing up in CA.POLITICS Heh. At least the Canadians are posting to real newsgroups. In the case of il.*, Illinoisans and Israelis aren't. But I'll admit that would affect more people. ------------------------------ From: Afshin David Youssefyeh Subject: Re: SprintPCS Text Messaging Woes Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 02:09:21 -0700 Try contacting Marquette Nelson assistant to regional vp Rod Egdorf at 310-228-2311. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 08:32:22 Subject: Re: Telco Truck Fleet Presentation On Sun, 8 Aug 1999 07:18:25, Joseph Olshefski wrote: > Hi, my name is Jay Olshefski and I am the Area Operation Manager > currently supervising the Fleet Service Operations in the New England > for the Bell Atlantic Corporation. I will be giving a presentation at > the end of this year to 140+ mechanics and managers who maintenance the > 7,000+ vehicles in New England region. I would like to do a presentation > titled "An Illustrated History of the Telephone Line Truck" and any > pictures, web sites or information would be greatly appreciated. The folks from 2600 Magazine bring one every year to the Trenton Computer Festival. It has a bell logo, and usually it's in better physical shape than the real thing. ------------------------------ From: jw.nyc@NoSpam.iname.com (j w) Subject: Re: What to Do With a Used AMPS Cell Phone? Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 12:58:23 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Sun, 8 Aug 1999 10:57:06 EDT, Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) wrote: >> query about what to do with used AMPS cell phone << How about give it to a worthy cause? In New York City SprintPCS is sponsoring a program called "Cab Watch" where they are giving 911 only phones to cab drivers. There was an article in Sunday 15 "The City" section of the {New York Times}. I think you can just drop it off at a Sprint PCS store. jw ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 09:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Fred Atkinson Organization: Personal Copy Subject: Followup on Third Voice I was just checking out the 'Third Voice' site. Was curious to see what was becoming of them. They only appear to have beta clients for 'Internet Explorer' but not for Netscape or anything for the MacIntosh. In this day and time, I would think that not supporting the other browsers with your service would be an invitation to go out of business. I hope that is the case with these folks. I can't say I approve of giving just anyone the right to post anything on anyone else's Web site. Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Apparently not that many netizens have become that enthusiastic about their 'service'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 12:48:52 -0500 From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 In article TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > To participate in the current poll question, please go to > http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html where you can vote and > see how others have voted. Your browser needs to have java > enabled in order to vote, and a cookie is passed to you to > insure that you vote only one time in each poll. You are free > to disgard the cookie at any time. No other name or registration required. Arghhh. Several recent versions of Lynx have accepted cookies. So what's with the Java? I haven't had PPP for a few weeks; my modem finked out in a storm. I'm back on a 14.4 internal in a 386 with an amber monitor. The Pentium workstation (even that's several years old!) is what I'd normally use; I should get around to getting another modem. I run the X version of Netscape, missing lots of bells and whistles. I always hit a site with Lynx first. It's so damn much faster. Unless I know I'll need to look at the pretty pictures I avoid launching Netscape. There are days when I don't even run X! And there are days when I run X for nothing more than simultaneous xterms. All right; I do admit to enabling color on Lynx when using it from the console. I'm in my mid 30s. Randy Suess calls me a luddite. I'm just happier when I do text processing on the 386 with the amber monitor. In the mid-80's, I figured out to insert typesetting codes with PC-Write! Today, I have trouble pointing and clicking to make a highlighted passage boldface. It takes longer to find the mouse and clear space on the desk. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Since you mention Randy Suess, I will tell about him to readers here who may not know of his role in the history of networking. Randy started the very first computer BBS in the world, in Chicago, in 1977. It was called "Ward and Randy's BBS" and the Ward-person named therein was Ward Christianson who about the same time developed an important protocol for file transfers between computers. Is Ward and Randy's BBS still operating? It was at the last time I happened to be at Randy's home, which was a number of years ago on the northwest side of Chicago. The computer doing the BBS was sitting there on the work bench right next to the computer handling Chinet. I think the first half dozen or so BBSs were all in Chicago; in addition to Ward and Randy, a guy in my neighborhood had an Apple BBS; a guy on the southwest side was running a BBS on a Tandy Model 1 computer. By about 1980, there were BBSs running in other cities as well on a limited basis, but there were no interconnections between them. For awhile I managed a BBS for the Chicago Public Library on a volunteer basis; we used People's Message System software written by a guy named Bill Blue, and I had my own Apple ][+ BBS for about three years at the same time in the early 1980's. The first interconnection between BBSs came around 1982 or so when the FIDOnet people got their thing going, and I believe -- am not certain -- that Randy Suess was the first FIDO site in Chicago with his Chinet service, which today is probably the oldest ISP around anywhere. So anyway, go to http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html and participate in this week's poll question on how your phones get answered when you are not there to answer them personally. Then if you feel like it after you vote, stop in at http://telecom-digest.org/defcon-videos.html and look at some of the events in Las Vegas in July. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 10:58:41 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) wrote: > Charles Gray wrote: >> The AT&T response was that all of these things were developed and >> named by Bell Labs. They just started with "number 1" on whatever >> system they were working on. TD1 radio, TD2 radio, etc. Whenever >> there was a "hole" in the sequence, that meant that the labs had >> worked on something, but it didn't pan out for some reason. > I wonder if that is what happened to 1 thru 6 up, and Preparations A > thru G? Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. I can't personally attest to the veracity of this, but if it isn't true, it should be! -- Dr. Arthur Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Phone: 602-371-9708 Fax : 602-336-7074 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #307 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 16 12:23:29 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA09283; Mon, 16 Aug 1999 12:23:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 12:23:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908161623.MAA09283@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #308 TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Aug 99 12:23:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 308 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #195, August 16, 1999 (Angus TeleManagement) An Institutional Form For IANA Rather Than ICANN (Ronda Hauben) MCI Frame Outage (Tom Alewine) GPS Time Roll-Over (John Eichler) MCI WorldCom Works To Finish Data Network Repairs (Monty Solomon) Internic Selling Mailing Lists (was Re: Network Solutions) (Danny Burstein) Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons (Dave Garland) Advice on Telephone Cabling Needed? (Alan Wong) eBay Spoof (Joey Lindstrom) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 11:38:48 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #195, August 16, 1999 ************************************************************ * * * TELECOM UPDATE * * Angus TeleManagement's Weekly Telecom Newsbulletin * * http://www.angustel.ca * * Number 195: August 16, 1999 * * * * Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by * * generous financial support from: * * * * AT&T Canada ............... http://www.attcanada.com/ * * Bell Canada ............... http://www.bell.ca/ * * Lucent Technologies ....... http://www.lucent.ca/ * * MetroNet Communications ... http://www.metronet.ca/ * * Sprint Canada ............. http://www.sprintcanada.ca/ * * Telus Communications....... http://www.telus.com/ * * TigerTel Services ......... http://www.citydial.com/ * * * ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Sirois to Focus Full-Time on Teleglobe ** Call-Net Fiber Connects 24 Cities ** Spectrum Auction Applications Closed ** Lucent Buys Integrator, Router-Maker ** Iridium Files for Bankruptcy Protection ** CTI to Sell Bell Nexxia Services ** AT&T, Videotron Want DS-3 Reports to Be Confidential ** Digital PCS to Reach Newfoundland ** Telus Tops One Million Wireless Subscribers ** Ottawa and Washington at Odds Over Satellite ** Review of IXC Line-Side Termination Fees ** BC Tel Restructures Centrex Rates ** Rural Schools Get Satellite Link to Internet ** Hydro, O.N.Tel Join for North Bay Network ** Com Dev Cutting Work Force ** Telus Adopts Internet Call Director ** Executive Appointments Excel Communications Inmarsat ** Financial Reports Clearnet Microcell ** Correction: Internet Kiosks ** Telecom Seminars in Your Office ============================================================ SIROIS TO FOCUS FULL-TIME ON TELEGLOBE: Charles Sirois says he will step down for six months as Chairman of Microcell, TIW, and Coscient Group in order to focus his attention on Teleglobe Inc, of which he is Chairman and CEO. On his announcement, Teleglobe's share price, which had fallen 40% since July, rebounded 9%. (See Telecom Update #193) CALL-NET FIBER CONNECTS 24 CITIES: Call-Net Enterprises has activated three SONET fiber rings in Central and Western Canada, completing a 24-city network reaching from Quebec City to Vancouver. ** Call-Net subsidiary Sprint Canada has begun preselling local service to customers in Toronto and will begin connecting them this fall. SPECTRUM AUCTION APPLICATIONS CLOSED: August 6 was the deadline for applications to participate in this fall's auction of wireless spectrum in the 24/38 GHz band (see Telecom Update #185). Industry Canada will publish a list of qualified bidders in late August. Call-Net has already announced that it has applied. LUCENT BUYS INTEGRATOR, ROUTER-MAKER: Lucent Technologies is acquiring International Network Services, an eight-year-old network systems integrator based in Sunnyvale, California, in return for stock valued at US$3.7 Billion. INS's 2,200 employees will become part of Lucent's NetCare division. ** Lucent has also purchased Xedia Corporation, a Massachusetts-based developer of Internet access routers for wide area networks, for stock valued at US$246 million. IRIDIUM FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION: Iridium World Communications, which operates a satellite phone network, has defaulted on loans totaling US$1.5 Billion and filed for bankruptcy protection. (See Telecom Update #193) CTI TO SELL BELL NEXXIA SERVICES: Bell Nexxia says it has formed a "strategic business partnership" with Combined Telecom Inc, a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier based in Toronto. CTI will offer Bell Nexxia services to its customers. Nexxia says this is "the first of many such partnerships" it will form. AT&T, VIDEOTRON WANT DS-3 REPORTS TO BE CONFIDENTIAL: In May, the CRTC ordered IX carriers to report by August 10 (and semi-annually thereafter) all routes on which they offer DS-3 links, since the Commission intends to deregulate competitively served routes. AT&T and Videotron have submitted the information, but ask that all such reports be kept confidential. The CRTC requests comments by August 23. http://www.crtc.gc.ca:80/eng/proc_rep/telecom/1999/8662/v2-01.htm DIGITAL PCS TO REACH NEWFOUNDLAND: NewTel, an Aliant subsidiary, says it will bring digital wireless service to the St. John's region in Newfoundland by year end. TELUS TOPS ONE MILLION WIRELESS SUBSCRIBERS: At the end of June, BCT.Telus had 1.02 million wireless phone subscribers in Alberta and British Columbia, a 15.1% increase from last year. Monthly subscriber turnover ("churn") stayed level at 1.3%; average monthly revenue per subscriber fell to $59 from $71. (See Telecom Update #193) OTTAWA AND WASHINGTON AT ODDS OVER SATELLITE: Despite receiving an interim technology license, the Canadian Space Agency continues to look for a European company to take over work on the $305 Million Radarsat-2 satellite from U.S.-based Orbital Sciences, and it may use a European company for the launch in 2002. The project has been delayed by new U.S. export controls on defense-related technology. REVIEW OF IXC LINE-SIDE TERMINATION FEES: On June 2, Call-Net asked the CRTC to reverse Telecom Order 99-340, which rules that incumbent telcos can charge long distance competitors rates for line-side connections different than those retail customers pay (see Telecom Update #187). The Commission says it will examine this question separately from any wider review of interconnection charges, and requests comments by September 3. http://www.crtc.gc.ca:80/eng/proc_rep/telecom/1999/8662/c25-02.htm BC TEL RESTRUCTURES CENTREX RATES: CRTC Telecom Order 99-790 approves an application by BC Tel to make several changes in Regional Centrex rates and contract terms, including restructuring rates from rate groups to rate bands and reducing the number of volume bands. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/internet/1999/8045/04/o99-0790.htm RURAL SCHOOLS GET SATELLITE LINK TO INTERNET: When school opens, 20 schools in rural Ontario and Newfoundland will receive Internet content by satellite. Telesat, Canarie, Rebel.com, and International Datacasting have joined to build the new system. ** Twenty satellite earth stations are being built to bring Internet access to remote BC schools with funding from Industry Canada's Community Access Program. HYDRO, O.N.TEL JOIN FOR NORTH BAY NETWORK: O.N.Tel, a division of Ontario Northland Transportation, is building a 20-km fiber network for North Bay Hydro, which will operate the network and lease capacity to customers. COM DEV CUTTING WORK FORCE: Com Dev International, which makes wireless and satellite equipment, says it will lay off 200 of its 1,300 employees and close a U.S. equipment plant. Losses for the quarter ended July 30 are three times higher than anticipated. TELUS ADOPTS INTERNET CALL DIRECTOR: Telus customers in most of Alberta can now use InfoInterActive's Internet Call Director (also marketed as Internet Call Manager), which notifies Internet users when there is a call waiting on the line. (See Telecom Update #132) EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENTS: ** Excel Communications: Teleglobe's Dallas-based subsidiary has appointed Cynthia Worthman (formerly with KMC Telecom Holdings) as CFO and Malcolm Aylett (formerly with Mary Kay) as COO, International Operations. ** Inmarsat: Michael Storey is leaving MCI WorldCom to become President and CEO of Toronto-based Inmarsat, which provides mobile satellite services. He replaces Warren Grace. FINANCIAL REPORTS: The following results are for the second quarter. (See Telecom Update #191) ** Clearnet: Revenue was $79.9 Million, 42% more than last year. Losses before interest, taxes, and amortization decreased 23% to $52 Million. Total losses were $154 Million. ** Microcell: Revenue almost doubled from last year to $62 Million. Losses before depreciation and amortization were $34.8 Million, down 46% from last year. Total losses were $98 Million. CORRECTION -- INTERNET KIOSKS: Users of Bell Canada Internet kiosks being installed at Toronto's Pearson Airport pay $2.50 for the first five minutes, not $2.50 a minute, as incorrectly reported in Telecom Update #194. Extra minutes cost 30 cents. TELECOM SEMINARS IN YOUR OFFICE: Participants have lauded Angus Dortmans' private seminars as "enlightening," "meaningful," "well-organized," and "fun." Workshops are available on many topics of telecom management, including: ** Fundamentals of Successful End-User Telecom Management ** Recent Telecom Regulatory Decisions and Key Industry Trends ** How to Develop and Present Telecom Business Cases to Senior Management ** Getting More for Less: How to Improve Telecom Supplier Relations ** Cutting Costs Without Cutting Service For further information on Angus Dortmans seminars, go to http://www.angustel.ca/angdort/adseminar.html. To discuss your workshop needs, call Henry Dortmans at 1-800-263-4415, ext 300. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca/update/up.html 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should contain only the two words: subscribe update To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should say only: unsubscribe update [Your e-mail address] =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER: All contents copyright 1999 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 225. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: rh120@columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: An Institutional Form For IANA Rather Than ICANN Date: 16 Aug 1999 14:05:19 GMT Organization: Columbia University Reply-To: rh120@columbia.edu What institutional form was needed for IANA was a real question that ICANN's creation didn't solve but only complicated. There is a need to have a serious discussion and *not* allow something so important as the IETF protocol process, the IP system, the DNS and root server system to be put into an inappropriate organizational form that cannot reponsibly be administered or controlled. A change as serious as what is being projected with regard to ICANN's creation needs a broad and serious online discussion. That hasn't happened yet and it is important both to understand why it hasn't happened and to figure out how to have it begin. The Internet is too important to let such a substantial change happen without broad ranging and serious discussion. The Internet has been built on the basis of people taking on to figure out the important issues and make their contribution. The U.S. Dept of Commerce has tried to stop this from happening. And the U.S. press tries to pass the significant change being made off as a conflict between NSI and ICANN. But the continued scaling and future of the Internet is involved and the issues concern all to whom the Internet is important. See in Telepolis: What Institutional Form is Needed to Replace ICANN? URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/5183/1.html See also proposal originally submitted to the NTIA to create a solution to the problem rather than ICANN http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt Ronda Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook also in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6 ------------------------------ From: alewine@austin.rr.com (Tom Alewine) Subject: MCI Frame Outage Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:44:15 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I'm still looking for detailed information as to the cause of the major MCI outage this last week. I understand they are using (upgrading) to Ascend/Cascade platform for their frame network and that they have been quoted in the press saying that the software caused the outage. Anyone have any information as to the validity of this or any other detailed information of this problem. I'm wondering how this might affect a similar Ascend configuration as a potential buyer. Thanks, Tom ------------------------------ From: John Eichler Subject: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:08:44 -0500 Pat, I just heard about this and thought some of your readers might be interested, especially if they were to be traveling this coming weekend. "GPS System Time will roll over at midnight 21-22 August 1999, 132 days before the Year 2000. On 22 August 1999, unless repaired, many GPS receivers will claim that it is 6 January 1980, 23 August will become 7 January, and so on. Accuracy of navigation may also be severely affected. Although it appears that GPS broadcasts do contain sufficient data to ensure that navigation need not be affected by rollover in 1999, it is not proven that the firmware in all receivers will handle the rollovers in stride; some receivers may claim wrong locations in addition to incorrect dates. ..." I got the above from the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center at the following URL: http://www.navcen.uscg.mil/gps/geninfo/y2K/gpsweek.htm John Eichler ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 21:32:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: MCI WorldCom Works To Finish Data Network Repairs WASHINGTON (Reuters) - MCI WorldCom sought Sunday to complete repairs to a high speed data network that has experienced problems for ten days, idling the Chicago Board of Trade's electronic trading system and disrupting service to thousands of businesses. The long distance phone company said it took a frame relay network platform out of service Saturday for 24 hours in an effort to restore stability to the system. Work on the platform, which disrupted service for some Internet customers, was due to be completed Sunday. http://news.lycos.com/stories/Technology/19990815RTTECH-TELECOMS-MCIWORLDCOM.asp ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: Internic Selling Mailing Lists (was Re: Network Solutions) Date: 15 Aug 1999 20:26:31 -0400 [Internic is the common name used for Network Solutions, Inc., the orignal and still primary maintainer of the 'com, org, net, edu, gov, (and) mil' domain registrations.) In Joey Lindstrom writes: > The other day, I got a pair of catalogs in the mail from a company > called "MISCO", which apparently is a retailer of computer equipment > based in Toronto. [snip] > Anyways, point is, I got two of 'em. One was addressed to myself > personally, while the other was addressed to "Martin Purvis" at the > same address. Martin is a netter who lives in Australia, and I host > his website for him. I also did him the favour of registering his > domain name for him with NSI. When I filled in his contact > information, I included his Australian address, but my address also > shows up when you look up his domain name. > The only possible way that I could have gotten onto the mailing list > which produced these catalogs in my mailbox is that somebody had access > to NSI's database. And frankly, I'm absolutely appalled by this turn > of events. They are, or were, a freakin' monopoly - aren't there > supposed to be safeguards to prevent officially-sanctioned monopolies I can most assuredly confirm getting both paper-mail (US Postal Service) and getting e-mail based on my Internic registration. The way I can tell, btw, is that I add in unique middle names/initials or other individual variations to my name when registering. (I also do the same when subscribing to magazines, or when putting my name on anything else likely to get mailing list-ified. It actually gets quite interesting to see who sells what to whom ...) The former tend to be catalogs of computer goods. The latter tend to be web hosting offers and other spam. The question though, is whether these folk are purchasing lists from Internic, or whether they're getting them on their own. Keep in mind that Internic's database is publically accessable, and there _have_ been _numerous_ cases of folk setting up automated scripts that basically query Internic for every possible name. (i.e. they'll do a "whois aaaaa", get the response, then do "whois aaaab", etc.). Some of these have gotten public attention because the huge volume of requests they generated amounted to a de-facto 'denial of service' attack. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: dave.garland@wizinfo.com (Dave Garland) Date: 16 Aug 99 01:13:44 -0600 Subject: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons Organization: Wizard Information Joey Lindstrom wrote: > The only possible way that I could have gotten onto the > mailing list which produced these catalogs in my mailbox is > that somebody had access to NSI's database. Sure. Which is to say, anyone who's capable of doing a WHOIS command. I occasionally get junkmail (e.g. AmEx credit card offers) addressed to Wayne Stenson, who is the (ISP) technical contact for wizinfo.com in the NSI database, a name that is nowhere else associated with that address. (I haven't seen a MISCO catalog addressed to him, though.) As long as WHOIS is publicly accessible, how can one tell whether NSI is selling mailing lists, or not? Dave dave.garland@wizinfo.com ------------------------------ From: sammy@skip-the-spam.newsguy.com (Alan Wong) Subject: Advice on Telephone Cabling Needed? Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 01:55:42 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Hello, I'm currently revonovating my house and would like to "centralize" my telephone. Basically, instead of the daisy chaining that I have now I would like to have it come out of some centralized distribution box. I know the basics, and I belive the solution to me needs is a 110 distribution block. However, if I'm correct it's not as simple as puncing in the telephone wire and for each run, just punch them in the coressonding section because the unit is not bridge. Aside from this, that's all I know on this topic but would like to use this solution. What would and I need in order to do this correctly and what steps are needed.....electrican told me over the phone you need to jumper the unit, terminate the block, etc ... it seemed really complex. Any and ALL info on this topic is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Alan please remove the "skip-the-spam" from my email address ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 18:58:34 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: eBay Spoof Given the eBay conversations recently, you might wanna grab yourself a chuckle and visit: http://www.wtfman.com/mcd/dick2.htm From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU Mr. Jones, has it ever occurred to you, the world being what it is, that women sometimes prefer not to appear too bright? -- Ellie, "Starman Jones" (Robert Heinlein) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #308 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 16 13:28:20 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA12637; Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:28:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:28:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908161728.NAA12637@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #309 TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Aug 99 13:28:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 309 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (domiller@ualr.edu) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Michael David Jones) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Roy Smith) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (John R Levine) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (satch@concentric.net) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Art Kamlet) Re: Any Good Way to Cut Long Distance Costs to Specific Number? (T Kitzky) Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons (John R. Levine) Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles (Tim Smith) Re: Telco Truck Fleet Presentation (satch@concentric.net) Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes (Tony Toews) Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes (Bob Goudreau) Re: Starium Promises Phone Privacy (John Nagle) Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop (Dan Lanciani) Another Long Time BBS in Operation (Steven Lichter) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: domiller@ualr.edu Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 15 Aug 99 16:44:05 CST Organization: University of Arkansas at Little Rock In article , Arthur Ross writes: > heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) wrote: > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the > creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. I can't claim to have seen "A", but I have written programs in "B" on a Honeywell 6060 (and later DPS 8/44) running GCOS in the late 70's. Dale - domiller@ualr.edu - http://www.aristotle.net/~domiller/ ------------------------------ From: jonesm2@rpi.edu (Michael David Jones) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 15 Aug 1999 19:07:24 -0400 Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA Arthur Ross writes: > heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) wrote: >> Charles Gray wrote: >>> The AT&T response was that all of these things were developed and >>> named by Bell Labs. They just started with "number 1" on whatever >>> system they were working on. TD1 radio, TD2 radio, etc. Whenever >>> there was a "hole" in the sequence, that meant that the labs had >>> worked on something, but it didn't pan out for some reason. >> I wonder if that is what happened to 1 thru 6 up, and Preparations A >> thru G? > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the > creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. > I can't personally attest to the veracity of this, but if it isn't > true, it should be! Perhaps. :-) "C" is the conceptual (if not literal) offspring of "BCPL". One can only presume the Bcpl->C linkage, though it seems entirely within the grasp of people who would make UNIX a pun on Multics. Mike Jones | jonesm2@rpi.edu Wash a pig as much as you like, it'll go right back into the mud puddle. - Russian proverb ------------------------------ From: roy@endeavor.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Organization: New York University School of Medicine Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 20:44:28 -0400 Arthur Ross wrote: > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. The predecessor to C was indeed B, and the predecessor to B was BCPL (never was sure what the acronym stood for). This caused rampant speculation about whether the successor to C would be D or P. Personally, I was blown away when it turned out to be C++. Never heard of a language called A. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 15 Aug 1999 21:03:37 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the > creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. Nope. C was based on a language called B, which was a simplified version of a popular 1960s language from England called BCPL, Basic Computer Programming Language or something like that. There was no language A. I gather that Dennis wasn't sure whether he'd call a followon language D or P. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? From: satch@concentric.net (Satch) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 02:00:33 GMT Organization: SBC Internet Services a.ross@ieee.org (Arthur Ross) wrote in : > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the > creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. The story goes like this: the first incarnation of the language we know today as "C" started out as the "B" language -- for Bell. This was the language created to create the Unix operating system on a PDP-7 computer that was found, literally, in a closet at Bell Labs. Some of the constructs of expermental languages such as an Algol derivitive that I saw used at University of Illinois in 1970 were incorporated in the language. One such extension was the "implied subject" so useful for state change, as in compressing the statement i := i + 1; to i := * + 1; This makes more sense when you realize that "i" could in fact be a complex access term or even (in Algol 68) a function reference that returns an indirect reference to an instance of a variable. Remember, too, that the original B language was a "high level assembler" for the PDP 7 codeset, which is how the auto-increment and auto-decrement operators came into being. Like all good first efforts, there were significant flaws in the B language. Just like the darling of the 60s, PL/I, there were some knotty problems with parsing the language unambigiously. Many of those parsing problems stemed from those interesting special operators =+, =-, =*, and so forth -- did the programmer REALLY mean the implied subject, or did he just mistype? The C language (a post-increment of B, of course) fixed the problems. Because the language changed so dramatically, the nice skunk-works people thought it advisable to change the name of the language to ensure people didn't get confused. This, I think, was a good move. During the several decades that followed, and more importantly during the ANSI process of standardization, the language came out surprisingly intact. The only major changes were in the definition and specification of strong typing, a cleanup of the parameter definition syntax (which, frankly, was a much-needed improvement, IMHO), and the invention of function prototypes. As for the library, the less said the better. _____ _/satch\_______________________________ |Computationally addicted since 1970. | |Advertisement on request. | |_______________________________________| ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 15 Aug 1999 17:16:43 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Arthur Ross wrote: > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the > creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. The way I heard it, there was no A. B was named for one of their wives. C, as you said, followed B. Bjorn told us that C++ was originally and for many months ++C but he was overruled, and so ++C became C++. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: tkitzky@nospam-hotmail.com (Tony Kitzky) Subject: Re: Any Good Way to Cut Long Distance Costs to a Specific Number? Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 14:26:20 -0600 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. In article , tzs@halcyon.com says: > I'm spending a fair amount of time on the phone with a friend (about > 100 hours a month). It's long distance (one end is in Seattle, WA, > and the other is in Silverdale, WA, if that is relevant) (206 and 360 > area codes) (USWest and Sprint as the local phone companies). > What's the best way to minimize costs in a situation like this? I > don't care about any other long distance numbers -- only that one. I > already know about voice over IP, so no need to bring that up. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think Sprint as one example has a > program which allows calls to a certain number to be priced at a good > rate. I believe the program is called 'Friends and Family'. PAT] www.aplio.com You might give VoIP another try. Aplio makes stand-alone boxes that connect to your ISP and then establish a call over the internet ... completely independent of your PC. I use one (on each end) to make calls to Canada. The voice quality can be compared to digital cellular. The devices are a bit pricey... about $200 each. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1999 21:05:16 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Network Solutions: SPAMMERS and Corporate Morons Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The only possible way that I could have gotten onto the mailing list > which produced these catalogs in my mailbox is that somebody had access > to NSI's database. Everyone does, via NSI's WHOIS server, and lots of companies go scraping new entries from it. I get plenty of postal junk mail from Verio offering various overpriced web services whenever I register a new domain. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: tzs@halcyon.com (Tim Smith) Subject: Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles Date: 15 Aug 1999 18:24:51 -0700 Organization: Institute of Lawsonomy Robert Horan wrote: > My first question is, don't you know who Sanford Wallace is? > Taken from URL, http://www.annonline.com/interviews/970522/biography.html That information is very misleading. Yes, Sanford Wallace a few years ago was one of the biggest spammers around. He's apparently had a change of heart, and now is very anti-spam. This turnaround has been accepted as genuine by most of the regular anti-spam posters on net.admin.net-abuse.email. --Tim Smith ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Telco Truck Fleet Presentation From: satch@concentric.net (Satch) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 02:03:09 GMT Organization: SBC Internet Services aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) wrote in : > On Sun, 8 Aug 1999 07:18:25, Joseph Olshefski > wrote: >> Hi, my name is Jay Olshefski and I am the Area Operation Manager >> currently supervising the Fleet Service Operations in the New England >> for the Bell Atlantic Corporation. I will be giving a presentation at >> the end of this year to 140+ mechanics and managers who maintenance >> the 7,000+ vehicles in New England region. I would like to do a >> presentation titled "An Illustrated History of the Telephone Line >> Truck" and any pictures, web sites or information would be greatly >> appreciated. > The folks from 2600 Magazine bring one every year to the Trenton > Computer Festival. It has a bell logo, and usually it's in better > physical shape than the real thing. Another suggestion: get Dodge to provide some stuff for your presentation. If memory serves, the telephone company originally had Dodge design what has become the mini-van. Another fallout of Ma Bell ... _____ _/satch\_______________________________ |Computationally addicted since 1970. | |Advertisement on request. | |_______________________________________| ------------------------------ From: ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes Organization: Me, organized? Not a chance. Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 02:33:12 GMT Adam H. Kerman wrote: >> Tell that to the Californians who are tired of seeing Canadian political >> discussions showing up in CA.POLITICS And maybe the US should've put us. in front of all their newsgroups. And, btw, I think can. should've been put in the front of the ab. (Alberta), bc. (British Columbia) and other Canadian newsgroups. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm VolStar http://www.volstar.com Manage hundreds or thousands of volunteers for special events. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:04:14 EDT From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes Adam H. Kerman wrote: >> Then there's the two-letter country codes used for internet domains! > Unfortunately, the ITU ignored obvious conflicts between these codes > and long-standing two-letter US domestic postal codes for states and > territories. The most notorious conflict was il for Israel versus IL > for Illinois. I think your Illinois-centric view is showing :-). By far the most obvious conflict between US postal state abbreviations and two-letter internet top-level domains is CA, which stands for both California and for Canada. The two CAs far outweigh Illinois and Israel, respectively, in the number of internet hosts they contain (and probably in most other metrics of world importance as well). > CLLI made an effort not to have conflicting codes, but the ITU > couldn't be bothered. I choose to blame the French. Your blame seems unreasonably placed. For starters, it's not obvious that the ITU even had any role in the growth of the de-facto Internet top-level domain namespace, or for the choice of the ISO-3166 list of two-letter country abbreviations for this purpose (with a tiny number of exceptions, notably "uk" instead of "gb"). If you must blame somebody, it should probably be the late Jon Postel, who wrote the following in RFC 1591 ("Domain Name System Structure and Delegation") over five years ago: The IANA is not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country. The selection of the ISO 3166 list as a basis for country code top-level domain names was made with the knowledge that ISO has a procedure for determining which entities should be and should not be on that list. (Source: http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc/files/rfc1591.txt) Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Starium Promises Phone Privacy Date: 16 Aug 1999 04:46:12 GMT Organization: Netcom Paul Rubin writes: > Monty Solomon writes: >> Today, the third floor of a converted sardine factory on Cannery Row >> is home to a startup company developing what could become a new world >> standard in privacy protection. By early 2000, Starium Inc. plans to >> begin selling sub-US$100 telephone scrambling devices so powerful >> that even the US government's most muscular supercomputers can't >> eavesdrop on wiretapped conversations. > This is cool. For those here who don't follow these things, Starium > is the cost-reduced successor to the Comsec secure phones that were > sold for $1000 or so apiece and shown at various cryptography and > security conferences over the past couple years. You need an open reference implementation available that will interoperate with this thing before you can trust it. That reference implementation needs to be looked at hard, by qualified people. Otherwise, you don't know what it's really doing. > Meanwhile, I'll also plug something that I worked on: a software-only > secure phone program, source code included, at > http://www.lila.com/nautilus/ (make sure to include the trailing slash). A software-only secure phone program for Internet voice calls is Speak Freely, from "www.fourmilab.ch". The Swiss government encourages the use of encryption, and there are no export controls on crypto there. Full source code is available. I have nothing to do with this, although I do know the developer. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: Dan Lanciani Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 00:47:13 EDT Subject: Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop kelly.breit@netalliance.net (Kelly Breit) wrote: > Sorry to throw water on your fire, but we ran into the same problem. > We purchased Apple Macintosh PowerBook G3's and Motorola StarTac dual > band phones for three of our staff with the assurance that they would > work fine with three different PC Card modems (TDK, Farallon & ???) > that had been announced and were to be released about three months > after we purchased the laptops and phones. After getting our hands on > each of the PC Card modems, cables and Macintosh software we found out > the hard way that they are NOT compatible. I've read stories like this several times and I'm puzzled about why one would ever expect such a configuration to work in the first place. Digital cellular uses compression on the voice channel to squeeze more calls into the same spectrum. (That's why carriers like digital, in spite of what they may say about improving quality. :() Even if the phone had an audio port compatible with the modem, transfer speed over such a compressed connection would be unacceptable. (And it seems that phone manufacturers don't usually support such a port so you can't even _try_ to make a "normal" modem connection. Even Motorola's RJ11 interface, when used with dual-mode phones, requires that you force the phone to analog-only mode. Or so the instructions claim.) Typically, the only useful way to have a "modem" connection over digital cellular is to use an interface that isn't a modem at all but rather a serial translator that knows how to talk directly to the phone's digital bus. Some digital phones even include this functionality and have what is essentially an RS232 serial port. The catch in either case is that you have no choice but to use the carrier's modem pool to complete your call. This is another reason that carriers like digital cellular: they can prevent you from making data calls unless you specifically pay for the privilege. Moreover, from the rates I've read, they usually make you pay a monthly fee for this service. This makes it highly unattractive to use your normally-voice digital phone for occasional data conversations. > As an ISP we really wanted to see this solution work, as the laptop > and phone combination is extremely popular with the dealers and > consultants in our marketplace. Unfortunately no one was willing to > revert to analog phone service just to establish a cellular modem > connection. I've deliberately avoided moving to digital just so I could maintain the flexibility to make occasional data calls. Ironic, isn't it? I expect that the carrier will keep increasing analog rates in an effort to drive us to digital. :( > Furthermore, no one was willing to carry two phones, one analog, one > digital. I'd be perfectly happy to carry two phones (again noting the irony of needing an analog phone for data service), but I don't want to pay two bills. Even better would be a phone and an integrated cellular phone+modem PCMCIA card. But again this would require two monthly service fees (or at the very least a "companion" fee on the first account to have the two on the same number -- and in this area that fee is greater than the cost of a second independent phone!). Actually, I think that one of the reasons such cellular PCMCIA cards haven't really caught on is this insistence on charging monthly fees per device rather than per number. Unfortunately, this model is now enshrined in federal legislation in the name of fraud prevention. Imagine if Carterphone had never happened and you had to pay monthly for each instrument (phone, modem, etc.) on your hard-wired line. Hmm, we may be headed for that situation since SPIDs allow at least the *number* of ISDN devices per line to be restricted/billed and possibly inhibit the dynamic substitution of devices if parameter profiles are different. Ah, progress. Dan Lanciani ddl@harvard.edu ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 15 Aug 1999 20:59:57 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Another Long Time BBS in Operation In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > BBS was sitting there on the work bench right next to the computer > handling Chinet. I think the first half dozen or so BBSs were all in > Chicago; in addition to Ward and Randy, a guy in my neighborhood had > an Apple BBS; a guy on the southwest side was running a BBS on a > Tandy Model 1 computer. > By about 1980, there were BBSs running in other cities as well on a > limited basis, but there were no interconnections between them. For > awhile I managed a BBS for the Chicago Public Library on a volunteer > basis; we used People's Message System software written by a guy named > Bill Blue, and I had my own Apple ][+ BBS for about three years at the > same time in the early 1980's. The first interconnection between BBSs > came around 1982 or so when the FIDOnet people got their thing going, > and I believe -- am not certain -- that Randy Suess was the first FIDO > site in Chicago with his Chinet service, which today is probably the > oldest ISP around anywhere. My BBS is still up and has been online since February 1987 and though it does not get a lot of calls these days it remains online for all to use and play the games, plus support GBBS which is the program it runs under, and it still is running on its 1987 Apple II which it started on, but I do have several IIgs's for support plus Macs that I'm forced to use to communicate to the world since there is no PPP support for them, just text and that is getting to be hard to find. If you wish to reply, please do so at: applelite1@aol.com, I don't get mail at the posting address and my other real E-mail address is not used for posting and has not been for 5 years so I guess the fresh new addresses these spamming services use include that one, must consider one that is 5 years old NEW. My signature says it all!!!! Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I was discussing the earliest days of BBS networking yesterday, one I forgot to mention was Ripco, and another was Karl Denninger, both of Chicago. I do not really know what Karl is up to these days, but I do know that Ripco, which started out as a small BBS with a reputation in the early 1980's of being mostly a phreak board has been one of the major ISPs in Chicago for a number of years. Almost all of the localized, Chicago area ISPs had their beginning as a BBS going back ten to fifteen years ago. Also worth a memory was a small BBS operation in California named Portal, which about 1987 was the first, or one of the first private companies to hook up to what had previously been an all EDUcational and MILitary/GOVernment internet. Portal's entry into the net was a source of much controversy at the time; many were the debates in Usenet at the time centering on the topic, 'Are we going to begin allowing just anyone at all to get net access who wants it?', and many folks strongly resisted making the net 'open' to general users. I wonder what has happened to Portal? Are they still around and in business? For five or six years in the 1987-93 period, several other sites like Portal began gaining entry to the net; they were known for the most part as 'public access Unix sites' and a directory of them was available on the net showing people how/where to go in order to sign up and get on line. By 1993 there were quite a few such public access Unix sites, and we began gradually referring to them as ISPs instead. But Portal was really one of the Pioneers in this net where public access was concerned with direct connectivity as opposed, for example, to UUCP access for mail and news. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #309 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 16 15:22:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA17948; Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:22:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:22:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908161922.PAA17948@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #310 TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Aug 99 15:22:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 310 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson An Audio Bookmark For This Site (TELECOM Digest Editor) How You Answer Your Phone (TELECOM Digest Editor) My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (wolfdog1@pacbell.net) Cost Effective New York/London Synchronous Bandwidth (Ed M) Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background (Marek Zielinski) VF-PCM TEST SET P2001 SIEMENS Manuals Wanted (Joseph Goldburg) Re: Directv Sues Satellite Watch News; Forces Site to Close (Darren Ingram) Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls (John Nagle) GTE Service in Oklahoma (Jimbo Borders) Phone Fee for School Internet Service Too Popular to Overturn (M Solomon) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Daniel Ganek) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:23:07 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: An Audio Bookmark For This Site Over the weekend I worked on something you might like, then again, maybe you won't like it. I have developed an internet-only 'news radio' service which I am offering for your consideration, if you like all-day, 24 hour audio news feeds. This is similar to the internet service offered by Cable News Network called 'audioselect' (and more recently, 'videoselect') both of which are available to web sites which want to distribute their feeds. CNN places advertising in their feeds, but the one I am recommending now is totally advertising free. If sites wish to do so, they can place their own advertising in the feed at selected intervals, but I have chosen to omit that part of it, leaving silence in that part. This continuous audio news feed places Associated Press headlines at 0 and 30 minutes of the hour; then there are weather, sports and business stories at regular intervals throughout the hour otherwise. At 29 and 59 minutes, there is a one minute period of silence in the feed so that sites wishing to do so can insert their own messages. I decided for now that 'silence is golden' and have left it blank. The audio is otherwise generic, no reference as to producer of the service. When occassionally a reference on a public service message is made to the producer of the message, it is given as 'this station' rather than a specific name for the station. References are to 'your news' and 'your weather' and 'your business report', etc. Time of day announcements are included in the feed every few minutes in the form of 'it is X minutes past the hour' with no reference to the actual hour itself. Overall, a rather professional production and useful service for the net, if I do say so myself. How to get it: http://telecom-digest.org/news/radio.html ... this will open a *tiny* (one inch by one inch) window which you can place wherever you want on your desktop; or you can minimize it to the task bar if desired. Use the controls in the tiny window to turn the feed on or off, or temporarily silence it. As part of it, a hyperlink brings you back to telecom-digest.org on request, however you can leave it in the background and surf elsewhere as desired. You can also bookmark http://telecom-digest.org/radio.html if you wish and automatically turn the audio news service on automatically, and click on the link to open the site itself if you want. So if you like listening to news radio occassionally, I would appreciate you checking out the one I now offer. Once you have first opened the page with the audio feed and bookmarked it, you should be able in the future to simply click on your bookmark to turn on the TELECOM Digest radio news service. Thanks, and please provide some feedback to me on this. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:24:33 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: How You Answer Your Phone This week's poll question asks how you handle phone calls that come in when you are away from the phone. Please participate at http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html PAT ------------------------------ From: bugsy Reply-To: wolfdog1@pacbell.net Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services Subject: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 00:27:17 -0700 OK, telecom experts can you please help me out here? I truly believe this is a telcom problem. I'm a Pacific Bell customer. I have two lines coming into my home; one for personal use and the other for business. I have a computer with a modem but the computer is turned off when not in use. I don't have a cordless phone and I don't have a fax machine. I have a security alarm that is monitored. I have cable tv that is somehow linked to my phone line. My phones are wired to the wall. I have gotten three 911 calls reported by the police department. They said that they get the call and then it hangs up. They try calling back and if no answer, they dispatch a car. Well, the first time this happened, nobody was home. The second time it happened, I was home and nobody was using the phone. I didn't answer the police callback because it was around 6:00pm when most solicitors call. Well, the police don't leave messages on your answering machine so they dispatch a car. I had to explain to the police that I've gotten two false calls report to my address, etc; they recommended that I call PacBell. I called them to check out the circuit and they said it was ok. Well, I called PacBell the next day and they tested the circuit again and said there might be a problem with the circuit. They sent a person out to check it and the exterior wiring was ok. Four days later it happend again. I called PacBell and they said that they want to check the wiring inside the house. I said ok, let's eliminate every possiblity and schedule an appointment. I fail to see how the wiring in the house would trigger a 911 call but what the heck. I also mentioned that once in a while the line just goes dead. This is for every phone in the house. I talked to their customer service to find out whether or not a 911 call was placed from my residence but they told me that it was confidential and could not release the information. When the wire leaves my house and goes under the ground, who knows where it goes, how many switches, trunks, etc; anyone have any ideas? Is there a way that a line can get crossed or some type of 'cross-talk' is occurring on the wire? Could there be a bad board somewhere? I know what is going to happen when the check my internal wiring, 'everything looks ok'. Well, what are my options for solving this intermittent problem? I have three concerns: 1) If someone is calling 911 and they are really in trouble, they are not getting thru and something bad can happen. 2) If it keeps up, the police may not respond a quickly in a real 911 call from my house because, 'its that house again that gets the false alarms'. 3) It must be bugging the heck out of the police and I'm afraid that someday they will kick down my door. Please e-mail me at: wolfdog1@pacbell.net ------------------------------ From: Ed M Subject: Cost Effective New York/London Synchronous Bandwidth Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:38:44 -0400 Organization: UUNET A New York based telecomm company has offered to resell us a very competitively priced E1 (32 DSO's, total of 2 megabits) between their POP at 60 Hudson Street in NYC to Telehouse London. Since we can get fairly cost effective local loops into both of these locations we would like to link our New York and London offices together this way. The problem is that they can only buy wholesale bandwidth in increments of E1. We currently only need 256kbps (4 DS0's) and can't swing the cost of a full E1. They could cross connect DS0's to other company's local loops. Please contact me if your company is interested in teaming up on this. Note: this is not a commercial advertisement as we have no affiliation with this reseller and we wouldn't directly profit from entering into such an arrangement other than getting access to a very cost effective London/New York synchronous pipe (this is NOT frame relay, NOT a VPN.) ------------------------------ From: Marek Zielinski Subject: Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:36:11 -0400 Steve Hayes wrote: > Anyway, it turns out that, even at local rates and after BT get their > cut and Energis have covered their costs, there is enough left over to > pay for the operation of Freeserve as well. Says something about our > local call charges. That is very interesting. Does anybody have an idea where to find the local rates (in $/min, or local currency/min) for European countries? in the US it is usually a flat fee - either zero, or more (in New York 10.7 cents for connection at max rate), 25 cents in Canada. I guess such rates are not easily available. If not, perhaps we could assemble a quick list from your responses? Thanks, Marek Zielinski ------------------------------ From: joseph@omnitel.com.au (Joseph Goldburg) Subject: VF-PCM TEST SET P2001 SIEMENS Manuals Wanted Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 09:51:13 GMT Organization: AT&T EasyLink Services, Australia (news.att.net.au) Hi all, VF-PCM TEST SET P2001 SIEMENS Manuals Wanted Any pointers to where I might find the operators manuals in English would be appreciated. Regards, Joseph ------------------------------ From: Darren P. Ingram Subject: Re: Directv Sues Satellite Watch News; Forces Site to Close Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 09:17:21 +0100 > http://www.oscoda.net/dmorgand/freedom.htm The trouble is that this guy's web site tends to make him look like a case-less geek who has just got a new paintbox - what with the stupid graphics and slogans. A more 'reserved' advocacy site would have made more sense. Fighting through the silly graphics and emotions makes the story less credible. I make no comment on the actual claims made, merely on the presentation of it. Just a few $0.02's from a grumpy Brit. Darren Ingram [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Regardless of how well or how poorly one feels the site was put together, the fact remains that when a large corporation is able to force a small web site to shut down based on what the corporation does not like about it, we have some real problems here. In the past few months now we have seen two such incidents: AOL putting a site off line when it decided it needed the network address the site was using, and now this guy with his newsletter and audio presentation forced to shut it down when Directv felt its security was threatened by things he was saying and printing in his newsletter. Whose site gets to go off line next? Have I mentioned recently that the net is undergoing some radical changes that do not bode well at all for small web sites and private netizens who like to surf? Stay tuned. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls Date: 16 Aug 1999 04:35:25 GMT Organization: Netcom steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) writes: > With many of the potential customers cut off from all other forms of > communication, the US TelecoN market could be worth billions. It is. Go to "www.corrections.com" and check out all the services offering telecom services to prisons. This is a very profitable industry. Systems for prisons now include such features as digital recording of all calls with elaborate indexing systems, including word recognition, phone number logging, and calling pattern recognition. John Nagle [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Many state governments freely admit that they have greatly enriched their own coffers as a result of kickbacks from 'the corrections industry' for things like phone service. Either it does not occur to them or they are not interested in finding out that there are some ethics involved here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jimbo Borders Subject: GTE Service in Oklahoma Date: 15 Aug 1999 23:01:04 -0500 Organization: Newscene Public Access Usenet News Service I was at a local computer flea market yesterday and ran into someone that I used to work with at GTE. He said that GTE was selling out of Oklahoma. Is this news to anyone, or just another GTE rumor? ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Phone Fee For School Internet Service Too Popular to Overturn Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:24:39 -0400 By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM WASHINGTON -- Two years ago, when the Government imposed a new fee on long-distance telephone companies to raise money for Internet connections at schools and libraries, the reaction from some quarters was ferocious. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/08/biztech/articles/15rate.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When referencing a {New York Times} link I have been told we are supposed to advise readers that registra- tion at the site is required. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Daniel Ganek Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:04:21 -0400 Organization: Radionics, Inc. domiller@ualr.edu wrote: > In article , Arthur Ross > writes: >> heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) wrote: >> Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how >> the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the >> ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the >> creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. > I can't claim to have seen "A", but I have written programs in "B" on a > Honeywell 6060 (and later DPS 8/44) running GCOS in the late 70's. I believe "B" came out of Cambridge in the 50's; maybe "A" did too. /dan ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #310 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 17 00:19:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA11088; Tue, 17 Aug 1999 00:19:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 00:19:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908170419.AAA11088@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #311 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Aug 99 00:19:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 311 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (jupiter) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Bill Levant) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Scott Wilkerson) Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma (Joel B. Levin) Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma (Steve Uhrig) Re: Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC (Kevin DeMartino) Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles ... (Sanford Wallace) More BBS Memories (David B. Horvath) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Roy Smith) Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background (Withheld Adrian) Finding Hidden Conduit (Gary D. Shapiro) Phone Systems: Lucent or Intertel? (Alejandro Levins) GPS Time Roll-Over (David Perrussel) Re: Help With Unique Switch Requirement (Steven P. Bills) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jupiter@mastnet.net (Jupiter) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:39:52 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: jupiter@mastnet.net Do you have a phone with speed-dial buttons on it, with one of those buttons programmed to dial 911? Maybe it's got a short. Do you have a cat? Maybe the cat is stepping on your phone and pressing speed-dial buttons. bugsy wrote: > I have gotten three 911 calls reported by the police department. > They said that they get the call and then it hangs up. Greg jupiter@mastnet.net http://www.mastnet.net/~jupiter ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:25:06 EDT Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls Well. A few guesses. (And I admit it, that's all they are). 1) Your alarm system is doing it. You say the alarm is "monitored". By whom ? How ? I have friends with an alarm system that -- once a day, at approximately the same time -- seizes their line and calls in to the alarm company to say "hi". At that time, all the other phones in the house go dead. Is it possible that your alarm system is programmed (wrongly, I'd bet) to call 911? 2) In some places, your phone can be configured to call a specified number if it's left off the hook until the dial tone times out. This is intended as a protective measure for the elderly and infirm, who need only knock the phone off the hook to call for help. Is your line perhaps so configured (from a previous owner), which gets activated (perhaps) when the modem doesn't release the line after you shut down your computer? Do you have cats who knock phones off the hook? 3) It's possible, I guess, that PAC Bell's ANI is screwed up, and that someone else's line is sending your number. Unlikely, I'd say. Keep me in mind even if these are all hogwash ... I'm dying to know the answer. Bill ------------------------------ From: w9vhe@earthlink.net (Scott Wilkerson) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:32:19 GMT Organization: not in this lifetime If your answering machine is on, perhaps the tone of your voice is approximately the same tone as 911 being dialed. If someone gets your answering machine, then does a hookflash that does a three-way call, it could cause this to happen. Had it happen in one of our offices once. On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 00:27:17 -0700, bugsy wrote: > I have gotten three 911 calls reported by the police department. > They said that they get the call and then it hangs up. They try > calling back and if no answer, they dispatch a car. ------------------------------ From: levinjb@gte.net (Joel B Levin) Subject: Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma Organization: On the desert Reply-To: levinjb@gte.net Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:52:31 GMT In , Jimbo Borders wrote: > I was at a local computer flea market yesterday and ran into someone > that I used to work with at GTE. He said that GTE was selling out of > Oklahoma. Is this news to anyone, or just another GTE rumor? GTE has sold off a number of its local exchanges. For instance, they recently announced the sale of a number of exchanges in Missouri. The press release which describes that action also goes into some of the other facilities GTE has sold and the reasons behind it; see for instance. http://www.gte.com/AboutGTE/NewsCenter/News/Releases/RepoMissouri.html and other releases available on that web site. They did not sell everything they had in Missouri. I don't know if selling off their Oklahoma facilities is part of their planning, but in light of the above it's not impossible. /JBL ------------------------------ From: Steve Uhrig Subject: Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 18:30:41 -0400 Organization: bright.net Ohio GTE is selling off several state operations that they do not consider profitable. Sorry I don't have the list anymore. I believe there are 12 or 13 entire state operations for sale and several exchanges in other states. Jimbo Borders wrote: > I was at a local computer flea market yesterday and ran into someone > that I used to work with at GTE. He said that GTE was selling out of > Oklahoma. Is this news to anyone, or just another GTE rumor? ------------------------------ From: Kevin DeMartino Subject: Re: Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 17:55:45 -0400 In V19 #304 Marcus asked: > What is the difference between the three standards SDH-ATM-HDLC? Where > are they preferably used? Why is ATM embedded in SDH? etc. The Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) is a set of standardized data rates that are multiples of 155 Mb/s (approximately). The SDH rates are three times the Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) rates. Associated with each SDH rate is a Synchronous Transport Module (STM) frame structure. STM frames have durations of 125 microseconds, just like the T1 and T3 frames, and the frames associated with the narrowband ISDN (N-ISDN) basic rate interface (BRI) and primary rate interface (PRI). Multiple T1/T3/BRI/PRI signals can be multiplexed within an SDH/STM frame. The physical layer (layer 1) standards for broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) are based on the SDH rates and the STM frame structures. Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) can be viewed as a layer 2 (data link layer) protocol, even though it has some features normally associated with layer 3 (network layer). ATM has been adopted as the layer 2 standard for B-ISDN with the intent that ATM cells would carried within SDH/STM physical layer frames. However, ATM can also operate over other physical layer protocols. High Level Data Link Control (HDLC) refers to a family of layer 2 protocols that includes the X.25 layer 2 protocol, the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), the Frame Relay protocol, and the N-ISDN layer 2 protocol. On wide area networks, IP packets usually are carried within some type of HDLC frame. For example, an IP packet (layer 3) can be carried within a PPP frame (layer 2), which in turn can be carried within an N-ISDN BRI frame (layer 1). As I understand it, part of the ISDN grand plan was to move from HDLC over BRI/PRI to ATM over SDH/SONET. ATM can carry IP packets as well as voice and video. However, some people are pushing IP over SDH/SONET as an alternative, which probably really means IP over some HDLC variant over SDH/SONET. Kevin DeMartino Dynamics Research Corporation ------------------------------ From: lwrules2@my-deja.com (Sanford Wallace) Subject: Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles ... Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 00:03:54 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. > Does anyone have any suggestions for me? -And, if I un-checked the > box that says "Please include me on your mailing list", shouldn't that > mean that I prefer not to receive all the junk? Any advice would be > greatly appreciated. You couldn't have unchecked that box, because the box doesn't exist. You are clearly told at signup that your free use of our autoresponder system entitles us to send you commercial emails. It's not spam. There are paid autoresponders out there but our service is ad subsidized, as per our sales materials. -Sanford Wallace CEO SmartBot.NET, Inc. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mr. Wallace, I want to thank you for taking the time to make a personal response to my correspondent. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:05:08 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: More BBS Memories > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I was discussing the earliest days > of BBS networking yesterday, one I forgot to mention was Ripco, and > another was Karl Denninger, both of Chicago. I do not really know what > Karl is up to these days, but I do know that Ripco, which started out > as a small BBS with a reputation in the early 1980's of being mostly > a phreak board has been one of the major ISPs in Chicago for a number > of years. Almost all of the localized, Chicago area ISPs had their > beginning as a BBS going back ten to fifteen years ago. Ahhh back in the old days with the hack/phreak (it was hard to draw a line back then) BBS'. Anyone remember 8BBS in the 408 (SoCal) area code? It had the distinction as the largest (physical structure) personally operated BBS. It was run on a PDP-8. Of course, this was back in 1980/81 (and probably before that) when 300 baud modems were "great" and 1200 baud modems were beyond the reach of all but the big companies. For some reason, there were a lot of fraudulent calls (i.e., using stolen SPC aka Sprint phone card codes and Watts extenders) made to that modem. It drove Bell Security nuts -- a common tactic with fraudulent calls was for BellSec to call the phone and ask whoever answered: "who were you on the phone with ?" and use that information to track the caller. If the callee was reluctant to provide the information they were threatened with the bill (a lame threat at best). Of course, a modem would answer and the BBS operator was not very helpful with knowing who was on the phone when. A group of hackers/phreaks/crooks out of the Philadelphia Area (primarily the Drexel University campus) "found" a 1200 baud modem (True-Mother Bell 212A). They liked 8BBS so much that they sent it out to the Sysop. That really improved things! Eventually the Drexel group got caught (I won't go into all the activities -- I have a nice pile of newspaper clippings and 8BBS printouts). Someone mentioned the modem being in California. The Sysop got visited and his boss informed. He worked for Digital Equipment Corp (aka DEC aka D|i|g|i|t|a|l) who did not take kindly to his external activies (and probably wondered where the PDP-8 came from). Too bad because it *was* a fun place to hang out and exchange "information". Of course, I can say "I knew him when" -- Kevin Mitnik and a few others. David B. Horvath, CCP dhorvath@cobs.com Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor (also: dhorvath@arcnow.com, dhorvath@dca.net, davidh@decus.ca, and many other places) ------------------------------ From: roy@endeavor.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Organization: NYU School of Medicine, Educational Computing Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:33:29 -0400 [This is getting a bit far afield from telecom, but hopefully your readers will indulge a bit of historical rambling.] satch@concentric.net (Satch) wrote: > Just like the darling of the 60s, PL/I, there were some > knotty problems with parsing the language unambigiously. Many of > those parsing problems stemmed from those interesting special operators > =+, =-, =*, and so forth -- did the programmer REALLY mean the implied > subject, or did he just mistype? > The C language (a post-increment of B, of course) fixed the problems. Actually, early C compiliers had the same problems. I'm not sure exactly when the change was made, but on the v6 complier, either "i =- 1" or "i -= 1" was legal syntax, with the same meaning. The former, of course, being ambigious. The early (i.e. v6) compilers didn't have longs. The first complier I saw which supported longs was the PWB compiler. I remember bootstrapping the PWB compiler onto a v6 machine in several stages. The PWB compiler wouldn't compile under the v6 compiler because it contained long constants. Turns out the code to support long variables didn't require long support in the host compiler, but the code to support long constants did. So we commented out the offending parts, compiled that, and used the intermediate compiler to compile the original (I'm reasonably sure the source tape we got was legit, and if not, I assume the statute of limitations has run out by now!) There was also some stuff in the PWB compiler for language syntax which never made it into the finished language (long before the ANSI standardization). There was commented-out code to parse (and generate code for) /\ as a two-operand "max" function, and \/ as "min". The v6 complier also didn't allow structure assignments (or passing structures as function arguments or returning them as function results), and I also remember some funkyness with cross referencing pointers. For example: struct foo {struct bar *barp}; struct bar {struct foo *foop}; wasn't legal in the early compliers, since bar hadn't yet been defined when it was used. You used to have to kludge it with char pointers. Roy Smith New York University School of Medicine ------------------------------ From: 141@wilkinsonsmith.com (Withheld Adrian) Subject: Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 19:54:40 GMT Organization: www.wilkinsonsmith.com Limited Reply-To: 141@wilkinsonsmith.com On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:36:11 -0400, Marek Zielinski wrote: > Steve Hayes wrote: >> Anyway, it turns out that, even at local rates and after BT get their >> cut and Energis have covered their costs, there is enough left over to >> pay for the operation of Freeserve as well. Says something about our >> local call charges. > That is very interesting. Does anybody have an idea where to find the > local rates (in $/min, or local currency/min) for European countries? > in the US it is usually a flat fee - either zero, or more (in New York > 10.7 cents for connection at max rate), 25 cents in Canada. > I guess such rates are not easily available. If not, perhaps we could > assemble a quick list from your responses? You could start in the UK at bt.com and work back from that. BT's rates are shown before discount but the discounts available are published for all to see. The other carriers all try to better BT by between 20 and 40% less than the gross price -- in practice this can make them marginally cheaper at best. ------------------------------ From: Gary D. Shapiro Subject: Finding Hidden Conduit Organization: Zuuma Graphics Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:15:14 GMT O great sages of TELECOM Digest: I have a vacant 3/4" PVC conduit in the wall leading up to the attic, but there is no opening in the wall for it (yet). Is there a standard technique for locating it so I don't make extra cuts in the drywall? Here's what I've come up with so far: a) Make exact measurements in the attic of where the conduit is relative to, say, the corner of the room. This is difficult given the small clearances in that part of the attic, and assumes the conduit is perfectly vertical. b) dangle a tiny speaker by its wires into the conduit and feed a sound to it. c) dangle a magnet. d) arthroscopic surgery tools (don't have any). Your comments or other ideas are welcome. garyes iname com Remove the "NO" that follows the "@" sign for email replies. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:00:16 -0700 From: Alejandro Levins Subject: Phone Systems: Lucent or Intertel? Patrick: I couldn't find what I was looking for on your Web site, but I am hoping you can point me in the right direction. I am about to buy a new phone system for my business. It is a big ticket decision for me. I am looking for a forum to hear from customers of Lucent and Intertel about the quality of their phones and, more importantly, their service. Any ideas where I can look for that? Thanks in advance, Alejandro Levins Founder SF Interactive [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Perhaps readers will respond to you with their suggestions and recommendations. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Perrussel Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:47:50 -0400 Reply-To: David Perrussel Subject: GPS Time Roll-Over > "GPS System Time will roll over at midnight 21-22 August 1999, 132 > days before the Year 2000. On 22 August 1999, unless repaired, many > GPS receivers will claim that it is 6 January 1980, 23 August will > become 7 January, and so on. Accuracy of navigation may also be > severely affected. Although it appears that GPS broadcasts do contain > sufficient data to ensure that navigation need not be affected by > rollover in 1999, it is not proven that the firmware in all receivers > will handle the rollovers in stride; some receivers may claim wrong > locations in addition to incorrect dates. ..." This is true -- and not all GPS receivers are ready for the epoch rollover. The problem lies in the data field for the GPS Week number. The information is in a 8-bit field in the GPS data stream. With 8 bits, the data range is from 0 to 1023. The week ending this week is -- you guesed it -- 1023! Next week is 1024 -- and will be transmitted as if it were week ZERO! Where I work we use Datum brand GPS receivers, made from 1992 through 1997. We discovered the rollover problem over two years ago. Datum acknoledged the problem and issued firmware upgrades for all their receivers (at a premium cost I may add!) Datum's fix is to count the number of leap seconds issued since GPS satellites were put into service. From 7 January 1980 (day one as far as GPS receivers are concerned), there have been 13 leap seconds issued. The system is set so if there are more than 12 leap seconds issued (the amount when the new firmware was written), the GPS receiver thinks it is in the first epoch (0 to 1023). 12 or more and it will know it is in the second epoch (1024 to 2047). We tested these receivers at a facility with a GPS constellation simulator (a machine designed to test a receiver so it thinks it is receiving data from GPS satellites). The firmware upgrade worked as expected. Without the upgrade - the GPS receivers displayed invalid time (using high-ASCII and Greek symbols!) and issued invalid IRIG time code! This roll over is only first of "Year 2000" style rollovers. I know our system is safe but how about all the other commercial and military GPS systems? If a large number of older GPS receivers fail, it will be a wake up call for all those people who think we are immune to the Y2K bug! Dave Perussel Webmaster - Telephone World http://members.xoom.com/phworld ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:09:39 -0800 Subject: Re: Help With Unique Switch Requirement From: Steven P Bills What you are looking for is a Nortel switch feature called preset conference. I believe there is also external equipment that will do this, manufactured by WECO. Many aircraft crash nets are based on this feature. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #311 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 17 13:46:23 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA04571; Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:46:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:46:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908171746.NAA04571@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #312 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Aug 99 13:46:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 312 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson LEC Ownership/Merging/Swapping/etc (Re: GTE Service in OK) (Mark Cuccia) Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma (Steven Lichter) Re: Starium Promises Phone Privacy (Paul Rubin) Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop (Paul Rubin) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (John David Galt) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (J.F. Mezei) Cisco Voice Over IP (DTM37) How the C Language Got its Bame (Bob Goudreau) Re: Telco Recordings Tie Up Answering Machines (Bill Newkirk) *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? (Larry Rachman) Invisible Web Surfing With 'Privada' (Monty Solomon) Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles ... (Al Iverson) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Fred Goldstein) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Bill Newkirk) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:54:26 -0500 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: LEC Ownership/Merging/Swapping/etc. (Re: GTE Service in OK) A few years back, when GTE and Contel (Continental Telephone) merged, several service areas previously handled by _BOTH_ Contel _AND_ GTE were spun-off. A good number of them were taken over by Alltel and also Citizens' Telecom/Utilities. Some spin-offs to other independent groups at that time also included all GTE or Contel service areas in entire states. GTE is probably spinning-off several smaller/rural (read nprofitable) service areas more recently because of the possible merger of GTE with Bell Atlantic. But some of GTE's sell-offs of exchange areas might be to comply with the FCC/DOJ/FTC/etc. with its merger with Contel and possible merger with Bell Atlantic. I think that this time, GTE is trying to (if it hasn't already) sold off all of their local exchange areas in Alaska. Some of the exchanges might previously have been Contel exchange areas and others might have been GTE prior to the GTE-Contel merger. Both GTE and Contel did have some local exchange areas in Alaska. However, GTE never did any toll in Alaska. Just about all of the "traditional/DDD" toll within Alaska has always been the domain of Alascom (back in the 1970's was part of RCA, in the 1980's and early 90's was part of PTI, now is part of AT&T) or PTI itself - and prior to the 1970's the toll network in Alaska was run by the U.S.Military. Incidently, when PTI (Pacific Telecom Inc), not to be confused with Pacific (Bell) Telesis (which is now merged with Southwestern Bell Corporation), was taken over by another independent group owner Century Telephone (about two years ago), it wasn't long before the now larger CenturyTel sold off the Alaska operations previously run by PTI back to former executives of PTI. I don't think that GTE is going to spin-off its Hawaiian Telephone Company operations. The Mutual Telephone Company in Hawaii had telephone service for most if not all of Hawaii when GT&E took them over in the mid-1960's. Except for wireless and now competitive LECs, as well as the capability to make inTRA-LATA/State toll calls via "other" carriers, GTE is still the "traditional" telco for _ALL_ of Hawaii. At the time GTE took over Mutual Telephone in Hawaii, they also sold off their operations in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company. I don't know for sure, but I'd suspect that GT&E sold PLDT when it took over Mutual Telephone in hawaii to comply with, or to "appease" some of the various US Federal Government (alphabet soup) regulatory agencies. GTE still has ownership in other areas outside of the continental US. Through their "Anglo-Canadian" subsidiary, they have held about 50% of both B.C.Tel (Stentor member LEC) in British Columbia (Canada) and QuebecTel (Stentor _ASSOCIATE_ member LEC) in the eastern parts of Quebec. With the merger of Telus (Alberta) and BCTel, temporarily known as BCTel.Telus or BC.Telus - to be known just as "Telus", GTE will have about 25% of the combined operation. I know that there are some various legal/stock aspects of GTE's position in the new "Telus" such as how much is ownership stock vs. how much is _voting_ stock. I don't have the specifics at hand. Also, there are various Canadian federal laws regulating how much a non-Canadian entity can hold of a Canadian operation. And, GTE also still owns Codetel in the Dominican Republic. I mentioned Contel (Continental Telephone) earlier in this post. Contel _USED_ to have operations in the non-US NANP-Caribbean. Begininning in the late 1960's, they invested in some Cable & Wireless telcos or regions down there, including Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, and part of the Bahamas. In the early 1970's, the socialist governments in Grenada and Trinidad & Tobago "kicked out" Contel. Contel still had part ownership in the other three areas. By the early to mid 1980's, Contel had sold out its Caribbean operations. However, some of Contel's areas in the Caribbean were more advanced in switching technology than other areas. Jamaica was beginning to use Crossbar switching and had many of its numbering/dialing formats more in line with the rest of the NANP than did other parts of the NANP-Caribbean. So too did GTE-Codetel in the Dominican Republic. And, Contel's part of the Bahamas was on Grand Bahama Island and some other nearby islands of the Bahamas. Again, Contel's Grand Bahama Island Telephone Company exchanges were using crossbar and had more standard NANP dialing/numbering than did the other islands of the Bahamas run by (C&W's and the Bahama government's) Batelco. Also, I remember reading that the independent group-owner Contel used to have operations in Canada, at least back in the 1960's or 70's. I had never seen any telephone directories or Bell System network routing/billing documents indicating Contel exchange areas in Canada, which would most likely have been in Ontario or Quebec. But the routing/billing documents indicating the local telco areas/names were from 1981-onwards. Recently, I learned that Telebec (an entity owned by BCE, Bell Canada Enterprises Inc, the holding company of Bell Canada in Quebec/Ontario, and also holding parts of other provincial/ regional telcos in eastern and northern Canada) - Telebec purchased the operations of several exchange areas in Quebec, from Contel, circa 1980. In the 1970's and 80's, Telebec (or other names that parts of it used to go by) bought out many small independent (non Bell Canada) exchange areas scattered all over Quebec. In most cases Bell Canada was not to directly purchase-and-run these formerly "independent" exchange areas which were selling-out, so instead these were actually taken over by "Bell" through Telebec. Basically, the "independent" telcos have for DECADES been buying up each other, selling off exchange areas, merging with each other, changing their names, etc. The "Bell" companies for the most part had stopped their take-overs or trading of exchange areas with the independents back around WW-I or the 1920's, except under certain conditions, such as to "streamline" geographic areas of operation as being all a monopoly independent or all a monopoly Bell. However, more recently, some Bells are selling off exchange areas in rural areas to independents (US West for instance), but also many Bells are now entering independent exchange areas as CLECs - or sometimes just installing "Bell" payphones (in many cases these "Bell" payphones in "traditionally independent" exchange areas are _NOT_ central office switch controlled payphones but are rather "COCOT-like" in their interface with the rest of the network) - since the payphone market has become even more de-regulated - or is it really more regulated? :) The telephone industry and network has ALWAYS been in an evolutionary situation, but these days, some things are happening that never would have been thought of twenty years ago, as well as "expected" changes happening at an even faster, more maddening pace. MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You speak of toll in Alaska being run by the Air Force prior to 1970, which reminded me of how in the 1960's when I had occassion to call directory assistance for Alaska (is it 907?) that you could ask for listings in a particular town but you could also ask directory assistance for 'Air Force information' and you would be connected directory to a military locator service for the several air force facilities in the state. That particular DA bureau also handled a couple places that were technically in British Columbia but exactly on the boundary line and dialable as either 604 or 907. There surely were some odd arrangements in those days. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 17 Aug 1999 04:07:28 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma In article , Jimbo wrote: > I was at a local computer flea market yesterday and ran into someone > that I used to work with at GTE. He said that GTE was selling out of > Oklahoma. Is this news to anyone, or just another GTE rumor? GTE is selling a lot of little exchanges that are in or near other LECs which might have an interest in them, they have sold or are selling in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Arizona, parts of California, a lot in the Mid west and the north East. This has been going on since they bought out Contel. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? ------------------------------ From: Paul Rubin Subject: Re: Starium Promises Phone Privacy Date: 16 Aug 1999 22:20:09 -0700 Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes: >> This is cool. For those here who don't follow these things, Starium >> is the cost-reduced successor to the Comsec secure phones that were >> sold for $1000 or so apiece and shown at various cryptography and >> security conferences over the past couple years. > You need an open reference implementation available that will > interoperate with this thing before you can trust it. That reference > implementation needs to be looked at hard, by qualified people. > Otherwise, you don't know what it's really doing. The protocols for the Comsec device were published a while back. I don't know if Starium is compatible. However, an interoperating reference implementation won't be of any help if you don't know whether to trust the hardware implementation. The hardware implementation might be selecting keys with only a few bits of entropy, or doing any number of other evil things. Because of Starium's cipherpunk provenance and because of the long discussions I've had with the designer, I trust Starium to generally be doing things right (ymmv). However, without either independent certification (such as FIPS 140-1) or personally inspecting the actual source code that runs in the actual hardware, there's no assurance beyond the designer's say-so that their device doesn't have awful implementation flaws, even if you know their intentions and their protocols are good. >> Meanwhile, I'll also plug something that I worked on: a software-only >> secure phone program, source code included, at >> http://www.lila.com/nautilus/ (make sure to include the trailing slash). > A software-only secure phone program for Internet voice calls is > Speak Freely, from "www.fourmilab.ch". The Swiss government > encourages the use of encryption, and there are no export controls on > crypto there. Full source code is available. I have nothing to do > with this, although I do know the developer. Nautilus also works over the internet. I've heard of Speak Freely and it also might be ok, but I haven't looked at it or tried it. ------------------------------ From: Paul Rubin Subject: Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop Date: 16 Aug 1999 22:21:26 -0700 Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services Dan Lanciani writes: >> We purchased Apple Macintosh PowerBook G3's and Motorola StarTac dual >> band phones for three of our staff with the assurance that they would >> work fine with three different PC Card modems (TDK, Farallon & ???)... > I've read stories like this several times and I'm puzzled about why > one would ever expect such a configuration to work in the first > place ... Even Motorola's RJ11 interface, when used with dual-mode > phones, requires that you force the phone to analog-only mode. Or > so the instructions claim.) The instructions for my dual mode Startac 7790 say to switch the phone to analog mode when you use a modem. ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 03:12:50 GMT > I also mentioned that once in a while the line just goes dead. I can think of two possible causes that would cover this and the 911 calls. 1) A prankster is plugging into your demarc (Network Interface box). 2) Damage to the drop from the pole into your home. (Where I grew up there were squirrels that liked to chew on the cable.) If this is so, I would expect both problems (especially the disconnect) to occur more often when it's raining. John David Galt ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 02:03:21 -0400 Bill Levant wrote: > 3) It's possible, I guess, that PAC Bell's ANI is screwed up, and that > someone else's line is sending your number. Unlikely, I'd say. Happened to me once a few year ago in Bell Canada (Quebec) territory. I was alone in house. Police rings bell and tells me someone in the house has dialed 911. I said no, I was alone, and I didn't dial it. They explained that they had to search the house. (Never though about asking for search warrant). They didn't find anything. (Not much of a search though). I pressed "redial" on all phones and none put me in 911. The cops did say that if there is a cordless phone, it could be pranksters who go around neighbourhoods with a phone and constantly dial 911 hoping they get dial-tone from a compatible phone nearby. ------------------------------ From: dtm37@aol.com (DTM37) Date: 17 Aug 1999 03:45:18 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Cisco Voice Over IP Cisco just announced the purchase of Calista (see www.calista.com) which will allow owners of Lucent, Nortel, Mitel, Siemens & Ericsson legacy PBX systems to use their embedded handsets with the Cisco Selsius Voice over IP system. For further information contact CCSC at 847-934-0580 or visit www.ccscnet.com. ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 16:31 EDT Subject: How the C Language Got Its Name During the past few days, the Digest has been flooded with a number of stories about the origin of the programming language known as "C". Unfortunately, although some articles have correctly traced the language's parentage, there has also been a lot of misinformed speculation or outright errors. To set the record straight, I refer everyone to the Introduction section of *the* canonical reference work about C, Kernighan and Ritchie's _The_C_Programming_Language_ (ISBN 0-13-110362-8): Many of the important ideas of C stem from the language BCPL, developed by Martin Richards. The influence of BCPL on C proceeded indirectly through the language B, which was written by Ken Thompson in 1970 for the first UNIX system on the DEC PDP-7. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Telco Recordings Tie Up Answering Machines Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:38:47 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Put on a longer outbound message such that the far end will hang up and the line will have time to supervise before you start recording. LGRL of Texas wrote: > Phone answering machines are designed to not record silence, dial > tones or the off hook warning. For many years, Southwestern Bell, when > a caller hangs up on an answering machine, sends 20 seconds of dial > tone, which is about the length of the outgoing message. THEN sneds a > phony ringing signal which "answers" with a recording "If you'd like > to make a call, please hang up and try again" ... all of which is > RECORDED by answering machines. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 09:28:20 PDT From: Larry Rachman <_lr_@yahoo.com> Subject: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? I'm looking for a way to remotely access several serial devices via the internet. What I want to do is be able to telnet to a remotely-located 'device' of some kind, pass through some sort of password protection, and then select which of several serial output to talk through. This 'device' should be able to support multiple telnet sessions, one to each serial port (a total of four, for the moment, but I'd like room to grow). Any thoughts as to how to do this, for a guy who's strong on telecom and weak on Unix? I'd rather spend a few dollars for a off-the-shelf solution than spend weeks trying to cobble a custom application together. Replies by email; I'll summarize to the group if Pat's so-inclined. Larry Rachman _lr_@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 06:38:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Invisible Web Surfing With 'Privada' By Martin Stone, Newsbytes SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 16 Aug 1999, 3:29 PM CST A small San Jose-based software company rolled out a free service today designed to keep Web-surfers from getting their toes bitten by collectors of private Internet information. Privada Inc. believes its Web Incognito system will soar once consumers become fully aware of how vulnerable they are to invasions of privacy on the Net. http://newsbytes.com/pubNews/99/134908.html ------------------------------ From: radparker@radparker.com (Al Iverson) Subject: Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles ... Organization: See sig before replying Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 02:16:21 -0500 In article , lwrules2@my-deja.com (Sanford Wallace) wrote: >> Does anyone have any suggestions for me? -And, if I un-checked the >> box that says "Please include me on your mailing list", shouldn't that >> mean that I prefer not to receive all the junk? Any advice would be >> greatly appreciated. > You couldn't have unchecked that box, because the box doesn't exist. > You are clearly told at signup that your free use of our autoresponder > system entitles us to send you commercial emails. It's not spam. > There are paid autoresponders out there but our service is ad > subsidized, as per our sales materials. > -Sanford Wallace > CEO > SmartBot.NET, Inc. FYI, just quick follow up, I'm a rabid anti-spammer myself. See http://relays.radparker.com for more information about the blacklist I run. Having dealt with Sanford in the long dead past (and cursing him), and having dealt with Sanford now, I can say for certain that he's not a spammer any more. I'm not apologizing for his past behavior. I just feel it necessary to point out that he's not doing anything dirty, sneaky, or unethical with SmartBot/SmartBotPro. Al Iverson -- Web: http://al.radparker.com/ -- Home: Minneapolis, USA Visit the Radparker Relay Spam Stopper at http://relays.radparker.com. STOP! Include SWANKY99 in email replies or they may be tagged as spam. Send me no unsolicited advertising, as I will always return it to you. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have to wonder how often Sanford Wallace gets spammed at his personal email address. I bet he gets a lot of it, the same as everyone else, and much of it from people he taught how to do it in years past. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 22:52:06 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Arthur Ross writes, > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the > creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. Close, but not the way I heard it (probably read it someplace years ago). Once upon a time (early 1960s) there were three computer languages that counted. COBOL was used for business, FORTRAN for math and science, and ALGOL introduced structured programming. While ALGOL didn't get huge usage per se, many languages were derived from it. One of them was BCPL. (I was at BBN in the late 1970s when this was widely used; I think TENEX/TOPS-20 was sourced in it.) BCPL was somewhat structured and totally untyped, such that you could divide a float by a string without warning. (Compare it to, say, Pascal, another ALGOL derivative that was very strongly typed, such that you couldn't divide a float by an integer without conversion.) Unix Version 1 was written in 1969 for an 18-bit DEC mini (PDP-7 or 9 or such) in the language "B", which was itself derived from BCPL (not "A", which might have been too easiliy confused with APL, which stood for "A Programming Language"). Shortly thereafter, "C" was created as the successor to B. Alas, rather than call it "D", the sequel was named "C++". ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:58:13 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com The ones we had in the old engineering building (new place has 66 blocks ... go figure), were called that because that was the model of the panel. Steve Winter wrote in message ... > Bob Banks spake thusly and wrote: >> I hope you can help me. >> I'm a student and our Telecom teacher was asked why a 66 block is >> called that. He did not know and told us for extra credit find out >> what the 66 means. >> I called AT&T and Ameritech yesterday and no one there could help me. >> If you could help I would really appreciate it, I hope you don't mind >> I've book marked your page; it looks like a great source of information. > When you find out, ask that same person why a 110 punchdown is called > a "110". "An inquiring mind is a terrible thing ..." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #312 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 17 16:52:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA13158; Tue, 17 Aug 1999 16:52:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 16:52:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908172052.QAA13158@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #313 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Aug 99 16:52:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 313 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Automated Web Page FAXing (Followup) (Robert G. Schaffrath) Re: Phone Fee For School Internet Service Too Popular to Overturn (Colbert) Re: Phone Fee For School Internet Service Too Popular to Overturn (J Nagle) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Pete Weiss) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Gerry Wheeler) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Ben Bass) Re: MCI Frame Outage (The Old Bear) Re: Finding Hidden Conduit (David Koltermann) Re: Finding Hidden Conduit (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (David Charles) Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop (Eric Morson) Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma (David Ashbaugh) Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes (Robert Shaw) Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background (Spyros Bartsocas) Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) (Bill Newkirk) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert G. Schaffrath Subject: Automated Web Page FAXing (Followup) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:11:36 -0400 Organization: Totally Disorganized Hello, Back in early June I had posted a request for information on how to automate the FAXing of an arbitrary URL via an E-Mail request. I received several responses with some suggestions but essentially telling me that no such product exists and that I might want to 'roll my own'. In the course of working on the project that required this capability, I was told that AT&T Easylink has a service available which can FAX an HTML document. It cannot accept a URL and render it for you but, apparently, can take HTML 3.0 standard documents, format them and send them to a given phone number. It also understands GIF and JPEG images. Well, due to responsiveness issues (human) with AT&T Easylink and people being on vacation, I never did get an answer as to how to do this. We wound up trying to solve plain text connectivity issues. They may still have a viable option if someone wanted to investigate it but I never went any further. During the time I was trying to work out the details with AT&T, I had mentioned to the project manager that I thought I could design a Visual Basic program to do what we wanted. I was told that I should not bother since there was no money in the budget to cover this (I am a consultant) and that I should focus on the AT&T solution. So I decided, for my own education, to try writing such an application. Turns out that it is possible and I wanted to share some of the details of what I did: The client I am working for uses Microsoft Outlook 97 connected to Exchange. This allowed me to use an Inbox monitoring tool from Microsoft which is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q173/9/15.asp. This tool calls my Visual Basic program when a new message arrives in the Inbox. When my program is started, it receives a MAPI message ID from the Inbox monitoring tool. It retrieves the message and parses out the required information such as the URL and FAX phone number as well as some other cover page information. If the message does not have this information, it is ignored. and the program waits for another message. If the message has the required information, it establishes a link to the Internet Explorer object (SHDocVw.InternetExplorer) and tells Internet Explorer to navigate to the requested URL. When Internet Explorer finishes rendering the document, it fires an event called 'DocumentComplete'. At this point, I needed a FAXing solution that would allow me to send this rendered web page to the FAX number provided in the E-Mail message. A search of http://www.deja.com turned up two possibilities; TAPI or Symantec's WinFAX PRO 9.0. Choosing the easier route, I found that WinFAX PRO 9.0 has an unsupported SDK available for download from the Symantec web site. Digging through it I found that they have a library which is available to Visual Basic programmers. So after studying the documentation, I found that I could pass all of the information required to send the FAX to WinFAX PRO and then tell Internet Explorer to print the web page to the WinFAX printer device. The only two problems I came up with are; 1) the WinFAX printer device must be the default printer for the system on which the program is running. It is not possible to pass arguments to the Internet Explorer object telling it to print to a specific device 2) the WinFAX SDK documentation has errors and omissions. It is not officially supported but there is a disussion group on the Symantec web site for asking questions. One problem I was having was that the FAX software was dying before the FAX was being sent. It turned out to be a race condition with my program shutting down and the rendering of the FAX image that required me to add some synchronization code and a 'suicide timer' to prevent the program from possibly hanging. Unfortunately this was not documented and I only figured it out because something in the documentation did not make any sense to me and I decided to experiment. So the net result was that when the AT&T FAX option went boom, I suddenly had a solution to the problem. There still isn't any money to pay me for the program outright so I have wound up renting it on a month-by-month basis for the same cost as AT&T Easylink was going charge for access. The project this program was designed for is now being rolled out in four test markets. If it is successful, you may eventually see an ad somewhere for this 1-877 information service. That's my baby (including the FAX option) ... P.S. One side benefit of the project: I was able to add my own undocumented ANI readback routine to the menu. I punch in a three digit code and I get my phone number read back to me using my voice. Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX +1.516.759.4314 mailto:rschaffrath@acm.org http://www.schaffrath.net ------------------------------ From: Jeff Colbert Subject: Re: Phone Fee For School Internet Service Too Popular to Overturn Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 15:47:26 GMT I guess that I am too much of a curmudgeon, but when ever there is a link to a {New York Times} article, I won't do it. Sure it might be great information, but anything that puts a roadblock up when they don't have to is not worth my effort. I wonder how many other folks avoid it as well? Jeff > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When referencing a {New York Times} > link I have been told we are supposed to advise readers that registra- > tion at the site is required. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Quite a few folks avoid links to NYT for the same reason you mention which is the same reason I avoid them. There simply are too many other news sources which do not try to get personal data on netizens. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Phone Fee For School Internet Service Too Popular to Overturn Date: 17 Aug 1999 17:46:56 GMT Organization: Netcom > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When referencing a {New York Times} > link I have been told we are supposed to advise readers that registra- > tion at the site is required. PAT] Yes. Also be very careful about signing the {New York Times} registration agreement, which has an indemnification clause. People accessing that site from work should obtain clearance from their company attornies before binding the company. John Nagle [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the reasons I started the http://telecom-digest.org/news section at this site was because I felt there was a need to make available in one central location various sources of news (written, audio and video) where netizens are invited to participate 'just as you are' without privacy- invading questions, legal agreements, etc. If you have not visited http://telecom-digest.org/news or one of its components yet, you might be surprised at how many sources are covered there. In addition to the optional audio programs offered specifically to the net as online audio from Associated Press, BBC World News, National Public Radio, Cable News Network (both audio and video), CNET and others, users get a choice of a 'quick news summary' covering a half-dozen major events or a much more detailed collection of about one hundred feature stories each day from a dozen online publications. In addition, on the main 'front page' of the news section, you may click on direct links to several other news and feature services including csmonitor.com, 'Atlantic Unbound' which is the internet edition of {Atlantic Monthly}, the CNET feature stories of the day, an interesting little publication called 'Earth Alert' which comes to us from discovery.com, the current issue of 'CNET Shopper' which is a comparative-pricing buyer's guide to computer-related stuff, 'This Day in History', 'Todays Astronomy Picture', 'Todays Comic Cartoon', the local weather in your community and/or a national weather news summary, a 'TV Guide'-like listing of the current day's audio/video netcasts presented by Real Guide ... what else am I overlooking here? You can listen only, listen while you read, or read in silence; your choice. If you want a continuous news feed throughout the day while surfing elsewhere, then consider either http://telecom-digest.org/news/CNN.html or the newly established http://telecom-digest.org/news/radio.html. This latter one collapses into a tiny box on your screen and stays out of the way, but allows you to return to this site at any time with a click. If all that above, offered free and without privacy invasion (although some of the participants in the syndicate do place unobtrusive ads on their pages) is of no interest to you, then feel free to go visit the {New York Times} and register with them instead. PAT] ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:35:58 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems Are there any off-prem extensions? Is the E-911 system correct (don't have any idea how one could verify that except somebody at the PSAP doing a GREP)? /Pete Weiss Penn State ------------------------------ From: gwheeler@vmguys.com (Gerry Wheeler) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:24:04 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) wrote: > Well. A few guesses. (And I admit it, that's all they are). > 1) Your alarm system is doing it. > 2) In some places, your phone can be configured to call a specified > number if it's left off the hook > 3) PAC Bell's ANI is screwed up I prefer the explanation about the cat. My in-laws have a speed dial set for my number, which is 591-1xxx (x's are there to protect the innocent). If you press the speed dial button while onhook, there is not sufficient time to get dial tone before it starts dialing, so the first digit is missed. And the next three digits are ... So, when the cat would step on the phone while walking around the counter, guess who would show up at the door. Gerry Wheeler [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Bad Kitty!! Is there a way to either put the phone where the cat is unlikely to get near it or leave it where it is but do something to discourage the cat from being around it? PAT] ------------------------------ From: bbass@bluemoon.net (Ben Bass) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:42:49 GMT > I also mentioned that once in a while the line just goes dead. This is > for every phone in the house. This could be the answer. Are you sure your alarm system only dials the monitoring station? Could it also be programmed (or malfunctioning) to dial 911? Alarm systems are supposed to be wired ahead of any other phone equipment on the line. When the alarm needs to dial, it siezes the phone line and excludes (disconnects) anything else on the line. This might be the dead line you speak of. You might want to have your alarm checked. Ben Bass, N2YDM ben@broadcast.net ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: MCI Frame Outage Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:29:48 -0400 Organization: The Arctos Group - http://www.arctos.com/arctos In telecom-digest, Tom Alewine wrote: > I'm still looking for detailed information as to the cause of the > major MCI outage this last week. I understand they are using > (upgrading) to Ascend/Cascade platform for their frame network and > that they have been quoted in the press saying that the software > caused the outage. Anyone have any information as to the validity of > this or any other detailed information of this problem. I'm wondering > how this might affect a similar Ascend configuration as a potential > buyer. As reported by Bloomberg: MCI WorldCom to Lose Revenue, Maybe Customers, From Breakdown ------------------------------------------------------------- Clinton, Mississippi: MCI WorldCom Inc. said it will lose revenue because of a 10-day breakdown of its high-speed data network caused by software from Lucent Technologies Inc. "We will see a very slight downtick in revenue," said Bernard Ebbers, chief executive of MCI Worldcom, the No. 2 U.S. long-distance phone company. "Lucent has acknowledged full responsibility" for the outage, he said. He declined to say what compensation MCI WorldCom may seek. Ebbers said his company will give the Chicago Board of Trade, America Online Inc. and some 3,000 other corporate customers up to 20 free days of service to compensate for the failure. The network, a nationwide system of software and phone lines, is used by companies, municipalities and organizations to transmit data and e-mail and provide Internet access. The network began to fail Aug. 5, when MCI WorldCom added new Lucent software. Many of its corporate customers had network outages over the next nine days, and the CBOT Friday had to suspend electronic trading. The exchange said it is considering legal action and may switch to another data network company. It will be interesting to read about all this in the trade journals ... it must have been one hell of a squirrelly problem to have continued for so many days. ------------------------------ From: kol@netcom.ca (David Koltermann) Subject: Re: Finding Hidden Conduit Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 07:06:31 GMT Organization: Netcom Canada As long as you can dangle things down the conduit from the attic end, why not drop a wire pair as far down the conduit as it will go with a tone generator applying an audio signal on the pair (pair is left open, not shorted). Then hunt for the audio tone signal along the wall using an inductive probe. The tone generator and the inductive probe are standard tools of cable installers, and really invaluable in situations like this. It might be a little difficult to determine exactly where the end point is. The inductive probe will pick up the signal all along the wire pair. However, typically all outlets (phone, power, cable tv) are placed at the same height off the floor. Try poking into the drywall at that height (if this makes sense in your situation). > O great sages of TELECOM Digest: > I have a vacant 3/4" PVC conduit in the wall leading up to the attic, > but there is no opening in the wall for it (yet). > Is there a standard technique for locating it so I don't make extra > cuts in the drywall? Here's what I've come up with so far: ------------------------------ From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics, Inc. Subject: Re: Finding Hidden Conduit Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:35:00 -0500 Gary D. Shapiro wrote: > I have a vacant 3/4" PVC conduit in the wall leading up to the attic, > but there is no opening in the wall for it (yet). > Is there a standard technique for locating it so I don't make extra > cuts in the drywall? Here's what I've come up with so far: Put a piece of cable onto your fish tape, and push it all the way until it hits the end. Then hook a toner onto the free end of the cable. Go into the room and find the cable with the toner... If the conduit enters the _back_ of the box, you might even be able to punch the fishtape right through the drywall -- couldn't get much more accurate than that! If you're installing the conduit yourself (into an existing wall), drive a long nail through the end, push the conduit into position, then "peck" through the drywall with the nail. Or cut the hole for the box, drop a string (or push a fishtape) down, and _pull_ the conduit up. Gordon S. Hlavenka www.crashelex.com nospam@crashelex.com Grammar and spelling flames welcome. Yes, that's really my email address. Don't change it. ------------------------------ From: d_c_h@my-deja.com (David Charles) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:17:10 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) wrote: >> Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how >> the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the >> ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. C was the >> creation of Bell Labs folks - Kernighan & Ritchie - circa late 60's. > Nope. C was based on a language called B, which was a simplified > version of a popular 1960s language from England called BCPL, Basic > Computer Programming Language or something like that. There was no > language A. > I gather that Dennis wasn't sure whether he'd call a followon language > D or P. As I understand it the sequence was: CPL -> BCPL -> B -> C -> C++ CPL stood for Combined Programming Language. This was developed in the early 1960s (I think it was at the University of London). I believe that the intention was that it would be suitable for most applications - scientific, business and systems (unlike FORTRAN and COBOL which were intended for distinct uses). Apparently it was rather unwieldy and was little used. I have never encountered CPL in practice or seen any examples of CPL programs. BCPL was Basic Combined Programming Language and was a considerably simplified version of CPL developed at the University of Cambridge in the late 1960s. By contrast it was a very simple language and had a number of unusual features. I do not think that it was used widely but it was still one of the main languages used at Cambridge in the late 1980s (in 1988 there was a BCPL compiler but no official C compiler on the main MVS system there). Some of the features of BCPL that differ significantly from C are: BCPL is very weakly typed -- variables do not have a type and are all the same length (32 bits on the compiler I used). Different operators are used for floating point arithmetic from those used for integer arithmetic to avoid ambiguity. The handling of arrays (known as vectors in BCPL) differs significantly from most other languages, this is closely linked to the handling of pointers. There is a single vector holding all global items. In order to define a global variable it is necessary to assign a name to a specific element of this global vector (taking care to avoid those used by the library). The calling and linking conventions are unusual. In order to use library functions a file "LIBHDR" is loaded at compile time which assigns the names of library functions to items in the global vector. The compiler will generate indirect calls to these items. At link or run time (I am not sure which) these items are filled with the addresses of the library routines to be used. In addition there are many lexical and syntactical differences even where the semantics are similar. As well as its influence on C, BCPL had a significant influence on computers made by Acorn (including the BBC micro) in the 1980s. These would have been the first computers used by many people in the UK at that time and were very widely used in schools. The versions of BASIC supplied by Acorn often had BCPL features (e.g. BCPL vectors were supported instead of or as well as normal BASIC arrays) and for some time BCPL and Forth were the only compilers available for some Acorn machines. David Charles ------------------------------ From: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric Morson) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 09:38:11 -0400 Subject: Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop Thanks for all your replies! In response to Dan Lanciani's posting, I know you cannot do the data connection in digital mode. The StarTac is analog as well ... My question was why, even in analog mode, will the phone not connect and work? Eric B. Morson Co-Webmaster AreaCode-Info.com EMail: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 9:08:49 -0500 From: David Ashbaugh Reply-To: Subject: Re: GTE Service in Oklahoma Jimbo Borders wrote: > I was at a local computer flea market yesterday and ran into someone > that I used to work with at GTE. He said that GTE was selling out of > Oklahoma. Is this news to anyone, or just another GTE rumor? IRVING, TX (Nov. 5, 1998) -- More than 200 prospective bidders will be mailed a letter this week in which GTE identifies 13 states where it is willing to trade or sell local telephone properties. This is part of a previously announced initiative in which bidders will have the opportunity to purchase or trade for up to 1.6 million of GTE's domestic switched access lines. The properties include all exchanges in the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, and some of the exchanges in California, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin. "From a strategic business standpoint, we believe marketing these properties for sale or trade is the right thing to do," said John Appel, president-GTE Network Services (GTENS). "However, this is not a 'fire sale.' If interested purchasers cannot meet all of our requirements, then we'll retain the properties, the valuable customer base, and the employees who serve them." David Ashbaugh GTE Federal Access Pricing david.ashbaugh@telops.gte.com MCMXCIX - One year before [the year before] the new millenium. ------------------------------ From: Robert Shaw Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:33:50 +0200 Garrett Wollman wrote: > In article , Adam H. Kerman > wrote: >> Unfortunately, the ITU ignored obvious conflicts between these codes >> and long-standing two-letter US domestic postal codes for states and >> territories. > The ITU has no involvement in the maintenance ISO 3166. The agency > responsible for maintaining it is DIN, the German equivalent of ANSI. > The selection of territories to include is by the United Nations, and > it is the UN which is responsible for the three-digit 'territory code' > which is usually found in conjunction with ISO 3166 tables. Sorry this is not correct. The ISO 3166 Standard ("Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions") is maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (MA). The ITU is a member of the MA. The Secretariat of the MA is at DIN. DIN is also one of 10 members of the MA - see http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/. The MA maintains both the 2 (Alpha-2) and 3 (Alpha-3) letter and numeric codes. See http://www.itu.int/net/cctlds/ to better understand the relationship between Internet top level domains and the ISO 3166 standard. Robert Shaw ITU Internet Strategy and Policy Advisor International Telecommunication Union Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland ------------------------------ From: Spyros Bartsocas Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 18:05:46 +0300 Subject: Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background Marek Zielinksi wrote: > Does anybody have an idea where to find the > local rates (in $/min, or local currency/min) for European countries? > in the US it is usually a flat fee - either zero, or more (in New York > 10.7 cents for connection at max rate), 25 cents in Canada. > I guess such rates are not easily available. If not, perhaps we could > assemble a quick list from your responses? In Greece the local rates are: [TEL Ed Note: Sorry, some things here were in a character script I was unable to reproduce; as sendmail likes to say, 'no eight bit characters to seven bit sites please ... especially not when sent out in a two-bit newsletter' PAT] 1 Unit=6 GRD (about 306 GRD/USD) Most ISPs have implemented national access numbers (special area code 965) that carry reduced rates. The above information was taken from http://www.ote-shop.gr/price.htm Spyros Bartsocas ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:26:21 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com This business of lots of ads is why sometimes I think of the web as 'Prodigy Perfected' ... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I never really followed prodigy.com that much; do they have a lot of offensive ads and privacy invasions on that site also? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #313 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 18 13:06:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA22134; Wed, 18 Aug 1999 13:06:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 13:06:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908181706.NAA22134@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #314 TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Aug 99 13:06:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 314 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Mark Brader) Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes (Col. G.L. Sicherman) Re: Finding Hidden Conduit (Tony Harminc) Re: Finding Hidden Conduit (Julian Thomas) Re: How the C Language Got Its Name (John R. Levine) Why Do C'ers See C (was 66 Blocks) (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Re: How the C Language Got Its Name (Adam Sampson) Mexico Termination Agreements (Leo McCulloch) ATT vs Intertel (Don Ammann) MCI WorldCom Issues Its Own Brand of Apology (Monty Solomon) Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? (Steven Botnick) Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? (John Nagle) FCC, Excite@Home Take Cable Fight to Court (Monty Solomon) WTD: VF-PCM TEST SET P2011 SIEMENS Manuals (Joseph Goldburg) Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings (Martin McCormick) Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls (Dana Paxson) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Joey Lindstrom) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Daniel Ganek) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Greg Andrews) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Dennis Ritchie) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 17 Aug 1999 15:36:40 -0400 Organization: - Roy Smith writes: > The predecessor to C was indeed B, and the predecessor to B was BCPL > (never was sure what the acronym stood for). This caused rampant > speculation about whether the successor to C would be D or P. Personally, > I was blown away when it turned out to be C++. Right. And the final step backwards is that BCPL was itself a simpli- fication of a never-implemented language called CPL. > Never heard of a language called A. Indeed there wasn't one. However, in the late 1970s when I was at the University of Waterloo, Canada, someone there developed a language (I don't remember what it was for) *from* C and called it ... "Eh". And Eh was in turn followed by "Zed". Mark Brader |"On a word boundary, Luke, don't just hack at it... Toronto | The bytesaber is the ceremonial weapon of the Red-Eye msbrader@interlog.com| Knight. It is used to trim offensive lines of code. | Handwaving won't get you anywhere. Attune yourself | with the Source." -- Tarr / Hastings / Raymond My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ From: sicherman@lucent.com (Col. G.L. Sicherman) Subject: Re: Two-Letter State (etc) Codes Date: 17 Aug 1999 19:21:03 GMT Organization: Save the Dodoes Foundation In , mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane. edu wrote: > I know I saw the "unique" two-letter codes for various Caribbean > Islands, but sometimes, they used a more "obvious" 'CI' for the Cayman > Islands as well as the TELCO "official" but less obvious 'CQ'. . . . I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the Mexican two-letter state codes: AGUASCALIENTES AS MORELOS MS BAJA CALIFORNIA BC NAYARIT NT BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR BS NUEVO LEON NL CAMPECHE CC OAXACA OC CHIAPAS CS PUEBLA PL CHIHUAHUA CH QUERETARO QT COAHUILA CL QUINTANA ROO QR COLIMA CM SAN LUIS POTOSI SP DISTRITO FEDERAL DF SINALOA SL DURANGO DG SONORA SR GUANAJUATO GT TABASCO TC GUERRERO GR TAMAULIPAS TS HIDALGO HG TLAXCALA TL JALISCO JC VERACRUZ VZ MEXICO MC YUCATAN YN MICHOACAN MN ZACATECAS ZS I see two conflicts with the U.S. and two with Canada. Also the name "Quintana Roo" sounds like a conflict with Australia.... Col. G. L. Sicherman work: sicherman@lucent.com home: colonel@mail.monmouth.com ------------------------------ From: tzha0@ibm.net (Tony Harminc) Subject: Re: Finding Hidden Conduit Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 19:41:59 GMT On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:15:14 GMT Gary D. Shapiro wrote: > I have a vacant 3/4" PVC conduit in the wall leading up to the attic, > but there is no opening in the wall for it (yet). > Is there a standard technique for locating it so I don't make extra > cuts in the drywall? You might be able to use a stud sensor to find the thing, but I doubt it. Probably what you need to do is dangle/fish a wire into it (it sounds as though you have access to only one end). If you have an electrician's fish tape, that is the best. Then you need a signal generator and a matching receiver. These can be bought at some significant cost, but for one-shot home use, you can fake it. You need a doorbell buzzer or bell - the traditional kind with a moving armature and a small gap that sparks as the bell rings. If the one you have won't run on a DC power source, it's no good for this purpose (though you don't have to run it on DC). Muffle/remove the bell to avoid driving yourself and others nuts. Connect the accessible end of the fish tape (or wire you fished down the conduit) to one terminal of the bell/buzzer, and set it buzzing. Now you need a portable AM radio. Set it between stations, and as you wave it around near the buzzer or the attached wire you'll hear a rushing/screeching/buzzing noise -- congratulations: you are now running your very own spark gap transmitter. Use the radio to search for the conduit in the wall. Do it quickly and then turn the buzzer off; your neighbours' radios are probably buzzing too. Tony H. ------------------------------ From: jt5555@epix.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: Finding Hidden Conduit Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 22:50:12 GMT In , on 08/16/99 at 09:15 PM, Gary D. Shapiro said: > c) dangle a magnet. With a compass, probably the best bet (altho measurement should also be part of the plan). Julian Thomas: jt 5555 at epix dot net http://home.epix.net/~jt remove numerics for email Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! In toto . . . does NOT mean "Dorothy's dog ate it!" ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 1999 16:01:47 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: How the C Language Got Its Name Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Many of the important ideas of C stem from the language > BCPL, developed by Martin Richards. The influence of > BCPL on C proceeded indirectly through the language B, > which was written by Ken Thompson in 1970 for the first > UNIX system on the DEC PDP-7. Right. For more details, see Ritchie's paper on the history of C: http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html It confirms that B was probably named after BCPL but possibly after Thompson's wife Bonnie. C came after B. By the way, what does this have to do with telephony? John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Scot E. Wilcoxon Organization: self Subject: Re: Why Do C'ers See C (was 66 Blocks) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 19:56:51 -0500 Perhaps those who wish to see the history behind the C language would prefer to simply see the view given by Ritchie himself at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html He has a related paper on the evolution of Unix at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 22:51:46 +0100 From: Adam Sampson Subject: Re: How the C Language Got its Name Reply-To: azz@gnu.org > Can't stifle myself any longer ... heard, long ago, that this *is* how > the "C" programming language came to be, i.e. earlier attempts at the > ultimate programming language "A" and "B" didn't work out. [...] > I can't personally attest to the veracity of this, but if it isn't > true, it should be! It's not quite true. C was developed from a similar language called B, which itself was a simplified version of an earlier language called BCPL. It is a matter of debate (even among C's authors) whether it was called C because it was the next letter in the alphabet, or because it was the next letter of BCPL. This is why C++ is called C++, of course; ++ is the increment operator in C, so the author used this to avoid having to call it either "D" or "P". (Although "C++" would evaluate to "C" in a C expression, so perhaps "++C" would have been a better name.) You can find the whole sordid story on the homepage of Dennis Ritchie (the R in K&R) at . Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ------------------------------ From: Leo McCulloch Subject: Mexico Termination Agreements Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:19:27 -0500 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Telemex is now technically capable to start closing the door on international grey traffic. We can provide up to the minute "legal" traffic with some "back-haul" at very competitive rates. All contracts COFETEL permitted, without the threat of termination by Telemex. It's cheaper to do it right than be caught. Some minimums apply. Regards, Lic. Leo Arthur McCulloch Jr. McCulloch & Associates, Attorneys at Law, Dallas, Texas, is an international law firm specializing in the creation of strategic joint ventures, investments, financing and commercial transactions in Mexico exclusively. We have offices in Mexico, D.F.; Acapulco; Reynosa; and Morelia. Professional Profiles and information upon request. We may be reached at e-mail lamcculloch@worldnet.att.net, tel 817-329- 7445, fax 817-421-5439. ------------------------------ From: Don Ammann Subject: ATT vs Intertel Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 14:02:49 -0400 Read your post and thought I would drop you a line. I have had both switches sized to about 100 stations, both in the last year. The main difference is the user interface, ATT's is screen based using word commands and Intertel is windows based point and click, which I think is much easier to use. The Intertel is about half the size but requires two PC's one for the switch and one for voice mail ( this was my configs) the phone sets and functions were very close to the same when it comes down to it. The real difference was the support people, ATT's guys were hard to get to work well with my other vendors ( It must be their problem) were Intertel's techs worked and played well with others. The price of the Intertel was about 20% less than the Lucent. The Lucent was leased and is gone and I will be getting my second Intertel in October. Well that it for me, hope I helped a bit. Best Regards, don.ammann@mail.ccur.com ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: MCI WorldCom Issues Its Own Brand of Apology Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 14:21:33 -0400 Anyone wondering how chief execs get to be chief execs should look no further than MCI WorldCom's CEO Bernard Ebbers. http://www.thestandard.com/articles/mediagrok_display/0,1185,5945,00.html ------------------------------ From: Steven Botnick Subject: Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 14:00:43 -0400 Organization: Epoch Internet I'm not exactly sure what you want to do and what they have available, but you can try Lantronix. ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? Date: 18 Aug 1999 16:08:05 GMT Organization: Netcom Larry Rachman <_lr_@yahoo.com> writes: > I'm looking for a way to remotely access several serial devices via > the internet. What I want to do is be able to telnet to a > remotely-located 'device' of some kind, pass through some sort of > password protection, and then select which of several serial output to > talk through. This 'device' should be able to support multiple telnet > sessions, one to each serial port (a total of four, for the moment, > but I'd like room to grow). > Any thoughts as to how to do this, for a guy who's strong on telecom > and weak on Unix? I'd rather spend a few dollars for a off-the-shelf > solution than spend weeks trying to cobble a custom application > together. If you're thinking of using this to remote-control anything non-trivial, stronger security than a plaintext password is indicated. That connection should be encrypted. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 06:46:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC, Excite@Home Take Cable Fight to Court By Corey Grice Staff Writer, CNET News.com August 16, 1999, 10:40 p.m. PT SAN FRANCISCO--Opposition to "open access" cable regulations is mounting as the Federal Communications Commission and Excite@Home today filed court documents asking federal judges to overturn an earlier ruling that could help open cable networks to competitors. http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,40570,00.html ------------------------------ From: joseph@omnitel.com.au (Joseph Goldburg) Subject: WTD: VF-PCM TEST SET P2011 SIEMENS Manuals Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 09:56:26 GMT Organization: AT&T EasyLink Services, Australia (news.att.net.au) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is a second request. PAT] Hi all, VF-PCM TEST SET P2011 SIEMENS Manuals wanted. Any pointers to where I might find the operators manuals in English would be appreciated. Regards, Joseph ------------------------------ From: wb5agz@dc.cis.okstate.edu (Martin McCormick) Subject: Re: The Los Angeles Day Care Shootings Date: 17 Aug 1999 20:56:11 GMT Organization: Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma It is telecommunications that brings the true horror of these crimes of depravity to each of us. There always have been deranged people who believed that their religious or political convictions provided a rationale for spreading terror, pain, and suffering to innocents, but modern communications have allowed us to see and hear the events as they happened or within minutes of their occurrence. It makes human grief and suffering almost seem next door even if it is half way around the world. If anything positive is to come of this immediacy, it is the realization that in humanity looks and sounds the same whether it is a pompous ass who has gouged and cheated his way to the top of the food chain in his country and now wants to practice ethnic cleansing or a man who nobody ever heard of before who decides he has the right to practice his own version of ethnic cleansing or racial purity. Maybe it is somebody who was getting even for real or imagined slights or perhaps, just somebody who wanted somebody else's wallet. The loss, sadness and tears are all the same with the only difference being sheer numbers of people involved. What if CNN had been there to cover the Trail of Tears in the 1830's, the US Civil War, or the forced removal of Japanese/Americans during the hysteria at the beginning of World War II? It is impossible to answer these questions, but surely, telecommunications and their e ubiquity will send the message that the world is always watching and listening and the chances of getting away with gross in humanity are getting slimmer by the day. This same immediacy and the raw nature of news as it happens is also the sort of thing that unbalanced people love. Accounts of shootings and other crimes serve as cook books to those who want to temporarily seize the stage, so to speak, and gain notoriety for their cause or just to have their name on the air and in print for a time. This is not a technical problem, but technology makes it easier for all of us to be there, to hear the 911 tape, see the film or tape from the security camera, or to get some other vicarious experience. No country on Earth is free of shameful episodes in its history. At best, e ubiquitous telecommunications will make us all more aware of our duty to make the world a better place. At worst, they will harden us to the point where we will become like the witnesses one sometimes reads about who see a person being stabbed or otherwise savaged and who do nothing but watch and listen. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:50:03 -0400 From: Dana Paxson Reply-To: dwpaxson@acm.org Organization: Dana Paxson Studio Subject: Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls Pat, You might mention to your readers the book "The Celling Of America", edited by Daniel Burton-Rose, published by Common Courage Press. It's subtitled "An Inside Look At The U.S. Prison Industry." Disheartening, and important. Thanks, as always, for the Digest. Dana W. Paxson dwpaxson@acm.org 716 224-9356 Reality boggles everything. That's why we've got denial. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 05:11:43 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 16:52:04 -0400 (EDT), Gerry Wheeler wrote: > I prefer the explanation about the cat. My in-laws have a speed dial > set for my number, which is 591-1xxx (x's are there to protect the > innocent). If you press the speed dial button while onhook, there is > not sufficient time to get dial tone before it starts dialing, so the > first digit is missed. And the next three digits are ... So, when the > cat would step on the phone while walking around the counter, guess > who would show up at the door. I don't bother with any speed-dialing yet I still got bitten by this. My parents recently moved to Airdrie, Alberta, and when Telus ran out of numbers beginning with 948, they assigned a new prefix. 912. Anyways, one of my old phones has a slightly-wonky keypad, and sometimes when you press a button it activates, deactivates, and activates again very rapidly. Once, I inadvertently called 911 by mistake because the "1" key registered twice instead of once. On a second occasion, the "2" key didn't register at all and the following digit was, you guessed it, a "1" (ie: 912-1xxx) Once you dial 911, they seize your line and won't let it go until they're satisfied with the response. The first time, they were very good about it - I explained exactly what happened, the operator chuckled and said no problem. The next time, I got this jerkoff who wouldn't believe my explanation. He then froze out my line so that I couldn't call my mother (or anybody), and sent a squad car with two police officers to my door. And as someone else here mentioned (sorry, I missed your name), they wouldn't leave until they'd had a look around inside, including all the bedrooms. My room-mate was sleeping and they shone a flashlight right in his face -- needless to say, we weren't impressed. I wonder about the legality of this (under Canadian law). Is a warrant actually required (ie: can I legally refuse entry?) or does this amount to probable cause, thus no warrant is needed? From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU I took a course in speed reading. Then I got Reader's Digest on microfilm. By the time I got the machine set up, I was done. --Steven Wright [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the USA at least, one exception to the requirement that a search warrant be obtained to enter your premises is when the police officer, acting in good faith, believes that a crime is presently going on and that the delay required to obtain a warrant would allow the crime to have completed and evidence of same to have been destroyed. A 911 call abnormally terminated could suggest that an intruder in your home caught you attempting to call police and cut your wire or took the phone from you. A person who comes to the door and informs police that 'the call was in error and there is nothing wrong here' may in fact be an intruder who has just broken into your house, caught you calling the police on him, cut the phone wire and tied you up. Usually the lack of a search warrant only affects the evidence found, if any. If no warrant, then any evidence there cannot be used. If you go to court and complain that police entered without a warrant, based on a situation that you created and caused to happen, i.e. the Bad Kitty jumped on the telephone buttons, the judge is going to ask you what harm was done as a result. No harm was done, and it was your fault that any of it happened to start with. The judge may say he is sorry your roomate got awakened. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Daniel Ganek Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 10:16:53 -0400 Organization: Radionics, Inc. J.F. Mezei wrote: > Bill Levant wrote: >> 3) It's possible, I guess, that PAC Bell's ANI is screwed up, and that >> someone else's line is sending your number. Unlikely, I'd say. > Happened to me once a few year ago in Bell Canada (Quebec) territory. > I was alone in house. Police rings bell and tells me someone in the > house has dialed 911. I said no, I was alone, and I didn't dial > it. They explained that they had to search the house. (Never though > about asking for search warrant). They didn't find anything. (Not much > of a search though). If someone were holding you hostage would you want the police to get a search warrant first? Happened to me once at a Post Office. I was buying stamps and three officers walk in with shotguns poised. Said the silent alarm went off and asked if they could search the premises. /dan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The thing with a warrant is police cannot just show up on a 'fishing expedition' and decide to look around. If they force their way in and do so anyway, they are wasting their time because the court will not admit anything they found as 'evidence' as a result. If they have reason to believe a crime is in progress that is a different situation. Of course they may claim you 'invited' them to come in or 'allowed' them to come in of your own free will. Then all bets are off, since an officer who is invited to be somewhere is perfectly free like anyone else to observe the place where he is, and file a complaint about something he saw there. Be careful who you 'invite' into your home! (LOL) It is assumed if you are being held hostage that you would willingly 'invite' the police to enter and inspect things. You can always tell them you want the Bad Kitty arrested and taken to the local animal shelter. (LOL) PAT] ------------------------------ From: gerg@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: 17 Aug 1999 23:13:23 GMT Organization: WGASA.ORG: wolfdog1@pacbell.net writes: > OK, telecom experts can you please help me out here? > I truly believe this is a telcom problem. I'm a Pacific Bell customer. > I have two lines coming into my home; one for personal use and the other > for business. I have a computer with a modem but the computer is turned > off when not in use. I don't have a cordless phone and I don't have a > fax machine. I have a security alarm that is monitored. I have cable > tv that is somehow linked to my phone line. Somehow linked to your phone line? Sounds like it's time to find out *exactly* how. There was a story in my local paper (silicon valley, California) about an apartment dweller who started receiving strange long distance charges on his phone bill. The phone company tested everything and there were no crossed lines, no malfunctioning telephone or fax machines, computers were shut off, and there were no exposed junction boxes where someone could be clipping onto his phone line and making calls. Still the calls persisted. Finally, late one night, the man was going to the bathroom when he heard the faint sound of a dial tone and pulse dialing. He noticed a red LED in his living room was flickering in sync with the pulse dialing noises. What was the box? It was the phone attachment for his new digital cable TV box. The cable box required a connection to a phone line, but there wasn't a phone jack near the TV. So the installers plugged in a couple of little boxes that sent the phone signals through his 120 VAC power wiring. One box plugged into an outlet near the TV, another near the phone jack. He wasn't the only person in the apartment building with digital (or pay- per-view) cable boxes that used the little telephone-to-power adapter boxes. His box was probably receiving garbled transmissions from other boxes in the building, and dialing garbled telephone numbers. When he replaced the little boxes with a real phone cord, the mysterious phone calls stopped. Perhaps you should investigate the connection between your cable tv and your phone line for similar problems. ::::::::::::::::::: Greg Andrews gerg@netcom.com ::::::::::::::::::: Fortune Cookie: Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ------------------------------ From: Dennis Ritchie Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 07:10:17 +0100 Organization: Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies Reply-To: dmr@bell-labs.com Roy Smith wrote (correctly): > The predecessor to C was indeed B, and the predecessor to B was BCPL > (never was sure what the acronym stood for). This caused rampant > speculation about whether the successor to C would be D or P. Personally, > I was blown away when it turned out to be C++. Not sure what this thread has to do with telecom really, unless I think about where I've worked throughout my career. If you care, check out http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/~dmr/chist.html but the name-succession is attributable more to our own inventiveness or lack thereof than to Bell System nameology. > Never heard of a language called A. Various folk at U Waterloo (Ontario) developed B successors named Eh and Zed. Clever, I think. Dennis ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #314 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 18 14:20:34 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA24876; Wed, 18 Aug 1999 14:20:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 14:20:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908181820.OAA24876@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #315 TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Aug 99 14:20:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 315 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (John Willkie) Help Needed: Is Phone Being Bugged? (Randy Fine) Re: Finding Hidden Conduit (Tom Thiel) Re: Finding Hidden Conduit (Daniel Ganek) Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop (Jason Lindquist) Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? (Peter Corlett) Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? (Satch) Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? (Derek Balling) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Dave Moore) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Leonard Erickson) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls (Aunt Lilybet) Regulatory Requirements for LEC TCSI Response? (Heidi S. Whitaker) Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background (Peter Corlett) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (llambda@gmx.net) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Willkie Subject: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 19:37:31 PDT Dear Pat, I am a Sprint PCS customer and have been for the better part of a year. On several occaisons, I have neglected to be timely in paying my bill and had the service suspended. Each time this happened, I would spend several hours (each way) traveling on transit to the nearest San Diego county Sprint PCS office. Upon paying the bill (in cash) the service would be immediately restored. Last Friday (Aug 13) I repeated the process. When I got there, I was informed that they were charging me $3.00 for the privilege of receiving my payment. If I did not want to pay the three bucks, I could use their "free" drop box, in which case I would not walk out with a receipt. By a notice, this "feature" went into effect on August 12, 1999, on orders of "Kansas City." The clerk explained that the manager was usually pretty good about emptying out the box every twenty-four hours. I have never heard of an organization, particularly one with at least partially regulated rates, charging for accepting cash, let alone having the gall to call acceptance of funds a customer service. As it was, I did not pay enough that day to reactivate the service. Several days later I made sufficient payment to reactivate the service and was charged another $3.00 for the acceptance of my payment. I was told by the clerk at the second office (much closer to home) that my phone would be working in about four hours. When I mentioned that previously the phone had always worked before I left the office after paying cash, he told me that they had a new system that would only activate the phone within four hours. "So the new system takes longer to activate the phone?" He said that it was not his decision to do things that way. Before I left the service area about an hour later, I checked and the phone still would not connect me to the dialed number, redirecting me to Sprint PCS customer service. I've been pretty busy (talking on the phone, among other activities) for the past couple of days, but I plan to pursue this matter with federal and state authorities and to review applicable sections of federal and state statutory and case law. My gut feeling is that what Sprint PCS is doing with the fee is unlawful and is a material change in the terms of my service agreement. I told the clerk that I believe it to be a surrogate "reconnect fee." John Willkie Fax: +1 707 885-1635 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 22:02:42 EDT From: Randy Fine Subject: HELP NEEDED: Is Phone Being Bugged? I work in a government office in a complex of buildings served by a quasi governmental telephone company with its own switching equipment, and tens of thousands of instruments and subscibers. Yesterday, my boss was on the phone (digital multi line) when he heard a shadow conversation. This would normally not be unnerving except that he recognized the voices of the shadow conversation as those of employees in another office of which he is also the head administrator. Both agencies deal with extremely confidential and controversial information. The phone systems in these offices are not connected in any way other than the ability to dial five digits to call them, as you would do to call any other of thousands of phones in this system. The offices are buildings away from each other. The odds of this being coincidental have to be millions to one. What can we do to determine if his phone or the phone in the other agency is being bugged. What would any other reasonable explanation be? Any suggestions or advice in this manner would be extremely appreciated. Randy Fine comppart@mail.albany.net ------------------------------ From: tthiel@slonet.org (Tom Thiel) Subject: Re: Finding Hidden Conduit Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 04:52:20 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:35:00 -0500, Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote: > Put a piece of cable onto your fish tape, and push it all the way until > it hits the end. Then hook a toner onto the free end of the cable. Go > into the room and find the cable with the toner...[actually, tracer] For a louder and easier to locate tone signal, attach one of your toner leads to Ground, and the other to ONE conductor of the cable. Tone can be heard through drywall muck easier. Also, since you described the conduit as PVC, you can just send your metal fishtape down and clip the toner lead to IT. Set the switch to cont. first, to make sure the tape is not touching simething grounded, and if it is, back the tape up a bit until the cont. lite goes out. Then set to tone and go looking. Tom Thiel tthiel@slonet.org "Remember, it don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi" - Peter Schickele (PDQ Bach) ------------------------------ From: Daniel Ganek Subject: Re: Finding Hidden Conduit Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 10:10:07 -0400 Organization: Radionics, Inc. Gary D. Shapiro wrote: > O great sages of TELECOM Digest: > I have a vacant 3/4" PVC conduit in the wall leading up to the attic, > but there is no opening in the wall for it (yet). > Is there a standard technique for locating it so I don't make extra > cuts in the drywall? Here's what I've come up with so far: > a) Make exact measurements in the attic of where the conduit is > relative to, say, the corner of the room. This is difficult given the > small clearances in that part of the attic, and assumes the conduit is > perfectly vertical. > b) dangle a tiny speaker by its wires into the conduit and feed a sound > to it. > c) dangle a magnet. > d) arthroscopic surgery tools (don't have any). > Your comments or other ideas are welcome. > garyes iname com > Remove the "NO" that follows the "@" sign for email replies. First, find the studs in the wall -- you don't want to end up on the wrong side of a stud when searching. 1) Using an acoustic (ultrasonic?) stud finder look between the studs for an anomoly. May not work if the conduit is not close to the drywall. 2) Poke small holes in the wall with a wire such as a coat hanger. These can be easily patched. 3) A modification to (2). Poke a hole in the wall with a coat hanger and then bend the hanger into an "L" shape with about 3" leg. Stick it into the hole and twist. This will let you search a 6" wide space. In theory :-) you'd only have to punch three holes /dan ------------------------------ From: linky+antimeat@see.figure1.net (Jason Lindquist) Subject: Re: Connecting a Digital StarTac To a Laptop Date: 18 Aug 1999 05:37:54 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Paul Rubin writes: > Dan Lanciani writes: >> I've read stories like this several times and I'm puzzled about why >> one would ever expect such a configuration to work in the first >> place ... Even Motorola's RJ11 interface, when used with dual-mode >> phones, requires that you force the phone to analog-only mode. Or >> so the instructions claim.) > The instructions for my dual mode Startac 7790 say to switch the phone > to analog mode when you use a modem. The voice coders used in the digital cellular systems are specifically designed to compress speech. Modem carriers have substantially different signal characteristics from human speech, so they're trashed by the vocoders. (Music's pretty different too. Have you ever noticed how badly hold music sounds over a digital cell phone?) Since these are digital systems, it doesn't take a great stretch of logic to transmit your computer's data, instead of vocoded speech, over that air channel. Both CDMA and GSM technologies provide for this. I'm pretty sure this is ubiquitous amongst GSM carriers in Europe, though I don't know how widely it's deployed in North America. As for CDMA, both Airtouch Cellular and SprintPCS have announced they'll be offering data services Real Soon Now. Other carriers will probably follow suit. Once that's done, all you'll need is a special serial cable to connect your phone (assuming it has data-capable firmware) to your notebook (or PDA, :-) ) and sign up for service. Jason Lindquist <*> "Mostly though, I think it gave us hope, That there can always be a new beginning. Even for people like us." -- Gen. Susan Ivanova, B5, "Sleeping In Light" ------------------------------ From: abuse@verrine.demon.co.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? Date: 17 Aug 1999 21:18:24 GMT Organization: B13 Cabal Larry Rachman <_lr_@yahoo.com> wrote: > [...] What I want to do is be able to telnet to a remotely-located > 'device' of some kind, pass through some sort of password protection, and > then select which of several serial output to talk through. How about a Linux box with a copy of Kermit or Minicom on it? You'd then just telnet into the box from outside, and run the program from the shell. If you want it to be a bit more advanced, make Kermit or Minicom your shell, then it will be run automatically upon login. If you have a potentially expensive device attached, like a modem, then I'd recommend the use of ssh rather than telnet to avoid packet sniffers getting your login details and giving you a bad day. I actually use such an arrangement to bulk-SMS colleagues at work if I'm at home. I'll dial into my ISP and ssh to the server box. I then run a special program which dials the respective mobile phone companies and sends the messages directly. This way, the company pays the majority of the cost instead of me having to pick up the tab. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: *Incoming* Connection to Serial Devices via Internet? From: satch@concentric.net (Satch) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 00:19:49 GMT Organization: SBC Internet Services _lr_@yahoo.com (Larry Rachman) wrote in : > I'm looking for a way to remotely access several serial devices via > the internet. What I want to do is be able to telnet to a > remotely-located 'device' of some kind, pass through some sort of > password protection, and then select which of several serial output to > talk through. This 'device' should be able to support multiple telnet > sessions, one to each serial port (a total of four, for the moment, > but I'd like room to grow). > Any thoughts as to how to do this, for a guy who's strong on telecom > and weak on Unix? I'd rather spend a few dollars for a off-the-shelf > solution than spend weeks trying to cobble a custom application > together. No special programming of Linux would be required: you just define a shell script as the "shell" that checks for port in use (so that two people don't try to use the same port at the same time) and then use any number of available programs to bridge a TCP/IP link to the serial port. My choice, available in the standard Slackware distributions, would be the netpipes() suite. The faucet() utility should do the trick. Step by step: 1) Create a script that performs a semaphore check on the desired serial port. It's easiest if you have a script per port, so that each script would check a lock file before allowing access. Note that rlogin(8) would have already authenticated the user. (But watch out for crackers that try to expliot some of the known problems with rlogin.) 2) The script would then launch faucet() to perform the bridge. 3) The connection can be broken by the remote user disconnecting. _____ _/satch\_______________________________ |Computationally addicted since 1970. | |Advertisement on request. | |_______________________________________| ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 17:25:16 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: *Incoming* Connections to Serial Devices via Internet > I'm looking for a way to remotely access several serial devices via > the internet. What I want to do is be able to telnet to a > remotely-located 'device' of some kind, pass through some sort of > password protection, and then select which of several serial output to > talk through. This 'device' should be able to support multiple telnet > sessions, one to each serial port (a total of four, for the moment, > but I'd like room to grow). > Any thoughts as to how to do this, for a guy who's strong on telecom > and weak on Unix? I'd rather spend a few dollars for a off-the-shelf > solution than spend weeks trying to cobble a custom application > together. Most terminal servers (multiple serial to ethernet) allow you to, instead of having many serial connections (e.g., modems) dialing in to connect to ether, to allow you to do something like : # telnet term_svr.mycompany.com 5001 Connected to term_svr.mycompany.com port 5001 # telnet term_svr.mycompany.com 5002 Connected to term_svr.mycompany.com port 5002 etc. This works great for serial consoles on headless machines in data centers. You can have a rack of twenty servers, with one terminal server's serial ports allowing an admin to remotely connect to any of the consoles (but obviously a particular console can only be accessed by one person at a time). HTH, D ------------------------------ From: moore-cain@erols.com (Dave Moore) Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 23:22:11 GMT On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:47:50 -0400, David Perrussel wrote: > The problem lies in the data field for the GPS Week number. The > information is in a 8-bit field in the GPS data stream. With 8 bits, > the data range is from 0 to 1023. It's a 10-bit field. PGP key available from "http://users.erols.com/moore-cain/" Dave Moore ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 08:25:29 PST Organization: Shadownet David Perrussel writes: > This is true -- and not all GPS receivers are ready for the epoch > rollover. > The problem lies in the data field for the GPS Week number. The > information is in a 8-bit field in the GPS data stream. With 8 bits, > the data range is from 0 to 1023. The week ending this week is -- you > guesed it -- 1023! Next week is 1024 -- and will be transmitted as if > it were week ZERO! Actually it's *ten* bits. 8-bits only hold 0-255. :-) > Where I work we use Datum brand GPS receivers, made from 1992 through > 1997. We discovered the rollover problem over two years ago. Datum > acknoledged the problem and issued firmware upgrades for all their > receivers (at a premium cost I may add!) > Datum's fix is to count the number of leap seconds issued since GPS > satellites were put into service. From 7 January 1980 (day one as far > as GPS receivers are concerned), there have been 13 leap seconds > issued. The system is set so if there are more than 12 leap seconds > issued (the amount when the new firmware was written), the GPS > receiver thinks it is in the first epoch (0 to 1023). 12 or more and > it will know it is in the second epoch (1024 to 2047). And what will they do when the *next* rollover occurs (2047 by your figures above)? Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: Aunt Lilybet Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 16:11:35 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , J.F. Mezei wrote: > Bill Levant wrote: >> 3) It's possible, I guess, that PAC Bell's ANI is screwed up, and that >> someone else's line is sending your number. Unlikely, I'd say. > Happened to me once a few year ago in Bell Canada (Quebec) territory. > I was alone in house. Police rings bell and tells me someone in the > house has dialed 911. I said no, I was alone, and I didn't dial > it. They explained that they had to search the house. (Never though > about asking for search warrant). They didn't find anything. (Not much > of a search though). > I pressed "redial" on all phones and none put me in 911. The cops did > say that if there is a cordless phone, it could be pranksters who go > around neighbourhoods with a phone and constantly dial 911 hoping they > get dial-tone from a compatible phone nearby. It is also possible that a cordless phone dails 911 when the battery dies. I supervise a 911 center and we get this all the time people leave their phones off the charge. This was told to me by a telephone company official. Not all cordless phones have this feature and I was not given a list of the ones that do dial out. This was suppose to be some type of safety feature for the elderly. "When in Danger or in Doubt, Run in Circles, Scream and Shout."RAH's TCWWTW ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 18:59:39 -0500 From: Heidi S. Whitaker Subject: Regulatory Requirements for LEC TCSI Response? Pat - It's been a long time since I've routinely read the Digest. Thanks for having the answers when I need them. I am hoping that someone out there can speed up my research. Is there a regulatory requirement for the LEC's to respond to a TCSI (particularly a PIC request) by an IXC within a specific period of time? I would think the FCC has some sort of metric on this process. Many thanks in advance - Heidi Whitaker ------------------------------ From: abuse@verrine.demon.co.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: Free ISPs in UK - Background Date: 17 Aug 1999 21:28:09 GMT Organization: B13 Cabal Marek Zielinski wrote: > That is very interesting. Does anybody have an idea where to find the > local rates (in $/min, or local currency/min) for European countries? in > the US it is usually a flat fee - either zero, or more (in New York 10.7 > cents for connection at max rate), 25 cents in Canada. British Telecom is obliged by law to publish their tariff, which they do on their web site, and advertise in their literature. The headline rate is 4p/min in the daytime (8am to 6pm Monday to Friday), 1.5p/min in the evening (6pm to 8am Monday to Friday), and 1p/min on weekends. There's a minimum charge of 5p per call. These include VAT at 17.5%, but exclude any discount schemes. Heavy users generally optimize their discounts to get the full 35% discount. Taken 31=$1.60, we get per-minute rates of approximately 3.5, 1.3 and .88 cents/min in the daytime/evening/weekend respectively, the min charge is 4.4c. I'm curious what the typical charges in contintental Europe are, and whether they are cheaper or more expensive than the UK. The Netherlands are of particular interest to me. ------------------------------ From: llambda@gmx.net Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 05:28:06 +0200 Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration In TELECOM Digest V19 #313: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Quite a few folks avoid links to NYT > for the same reason you mention which is the same reason I avoid them. > There simply are too many other news sources which do not try to get > personal data on netizens. PAT] I have noticed that someone has been registering at web sites with a user name of "cypherpunks" and a password of either "writecode" or "cypherpunks". This interferes with the proper purpose of the web: targetted advertising. Like the web's version of "foo was here", this vandalism pops up in all manner of unlikely places. Even the NYT site has a user "cypherpunks" with password "cypherpunks". I urge your readers to verify for themselves just how widespread this practice is. Where will it end? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have noticed myself that it is quite common for users at sites which require registration or other personal data to simply put down whatever they think of at the time to fill in the blanks. A lot of what they fill in is total nonsense, and I think the reason for this is to demonstrate to the site that not only are they refusing to participate on the site's terms, but they are going to mess up the statistical/demographic reporting however they can as well. I cannot encourage people to go to a site and deliberatly give false information to gain access, but what I can do is suggest that in recent times, sites that want to snoop like that are no longer needed by netizens. You can for example use http://telecom-digest.org/news and get all sorts of audio, video and textual presentations of the news for the day at no charge, and with no obligation at all, which is how the net used to be structured totally. One could quite literally spend several hours at http://telecom-digest.org/news each day and not read it all. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #315 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 18 18:24:07 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA06689; Wed, 18 Aug 1999 18:24:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 18:24:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908182224.SAA06689@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #316 TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Aug 99 18:24:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 316 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Escrow Service Protects Buyers and Sellers on Net (TELECOM Digest Editor) Credit Cards Now Accepted Here (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls (Daniel Ganek) Re: More BBS Memories (Matt Ackeret) Re: More BBS Memories (Javier Henderson) Re: MCI Frame Outage (Adam Gaffin) AC 500 - Follow Me Service (M.D. Parker) Re: Phone Fee For School Internet Service Too Popular (Derek Balling) Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles ... (Jim Rusling) Re: US West In Court Over ISDN Net Service Speeds (Tim Smith) Re: Crazy Proposals For 310 Area Code (Robert Lee Harris) Re: Telco Recordings Tie Up Answering Machines (Tom Thiel) Connecticut Overlays To Be Finalized In September (Eric Morson) LA Shootings: 1999 v. 1968 (Lisa Hancock) Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers From Canada (navage@interlog) NANP Administration (Arthur Ross) Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU (Gerald Latter) Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) (John David Galt) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 15:52:49 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Escrow Service Protects Buyers and Sellers on Net Since the beginning days of e-commerce, merchants have been suspicious of netizens, and netizens suspicious of merchants. Many are the horror stories we've heard from netizens who attempted to make purchases on the net only to find their checkbook cleaned out either because of dishonesty by the merchant or a lack of security in his network conn- ection. By now, everyone knows the problems amazon.com had with this a couple months ago. There are guys who set up bogus storefronts with their only intention being to collect credit card numbers, passwords and personal identities. There are honest merchants on the net who have an 'all sales final' policy and while they do ship out the merch- andise ordered, it may take a long time to arrive and not be of very good quality. The netizen of course is then stuck with it. Let's flip the coin over: merchants on the net have plenty of horror stories also. Credit card fraud on the net is a familiar story. A merchant accepts a card, sends the merchandise then gets a chargeback a month or two months later with no way to collect from his customer. Some netizens cheat and claim they never got the merchandise. Merchants rightfully are scared to send out merchandise 'on approval' since so many folks -- netizens and others -- would just never get around to paying. But in the defense of netizens, they also want to be able to see, examine, touch and use the merchandise before buying it, to make sure it is as advertised and will meet their needs. So what is the solution? I have found something I think might work and I recommend its review by merchants and netizens: an inexpensive, licensed, reputable *escrow service* for the net. An escrow service is a service which holds money in trust pending actions by the various parties involved. One that operates on the net is called i-Escrow, and it is a *bonded*, *licensed* (in the state of California) agency registered with the Department of Corporations. Its purpose is to act as intermediary between buyer and seller on the internet for persons or companies which wish to use its reasonably-priced, inexpensive services. Let's say you have something for sale. You describe the item on your website, and include with it a 'Buy It' .gif which is linked to your file at i-Escrow.com ... a buyer clicks that link and is taken to the i-Escrow.com site. If they have previously used the service they will simply login and identify the purchase they wish to make. If they have not used i-Escrow.com before, they will need to register and give satisfactory identification about themselves, their credit card, etc. Likewise, a first time seller needs to identify him/herself to the satisfaction of i-Escrow.com and the escrow agency reserves the right to periodically audit, using their own internal procedures, any site offering things for sale via escrow to be sure all is honest. The escrow agency will not accept sites that offer illegal services, memberships in 'adult' web sites, etc. They will not accept any merchant who has an 'all sales final' policy or a merchant who refuses to allow his merchandise to be examined by a netizen in his own residence or office for at least two days. So let's say you as seller have registered the item(s) with i-Escrow and have links on your site for each item pointing to your file at the agency. A buyer clicks on the link. As noted above, the netizen registers, which can be done on line, by fax, or telephone as desired, providing credit card number, submitting a wire transfer or whatever. *The merchant never sees this credit card information at all*. Once the buyer has registered, and tendered payment to be held in escrow, the agency sends email to the seller advising that satisfactory payment has been received, and giving a 'ship to' address. The agency does address verification on credit cards, and works with the netizen regards alternative shipping addresses, etc. The merchant does not know how it was paid for, and has no reason to care. Based on the agency's 'sales authorization' or approval to complete the sale, the merchant ships the merchandise. i-Escrow.com has specific guidelines the merchant must follow: The shipment must go out promptly (it is hoped the netizen will have what he purchased the very next business day via a courier service); it must be very secure in its packaging; it must be fully insured against damages, however the escrow service pays the insurance costs as part of the deal. The best part: *on receipt of the merchandise, the netizen has two complete days -- starting with the day after the merchandise is receieved -- to examine the stuff*. After two days, assuming no complaints, the agency sends payment in the form of its own trust account check to the merchant, less its fees, which are about the same as what the merchant would pay for credit card service anyway. The netizen can, if he wishes, and he must do so to protect his rights, login to the escrow service and *cancel the payment* if he intends to return the merchandise. He has the aforementioned two days to do this. If the netizen cancels the transaction within two days he need give no reason for doing so, but he does have the obligation to return the merchandise in the same condition in which it was received and by the same manner of delivery; i.e. prompt return within a day or two, fully insured, carefully packaged, etc. Just as the merchant is paid two days after delivery lacking any orders to the contrary from the buyer, the netizen gets a refund two or three days after the merchandise has been returned and the seller gets a chance to inspect it. This does not have to a 'merchant' or 'internet storefront' versus 'customer' kind of situation. It works perfectly well for any buyer and seller on the net. Seller registers with escrow, links buyer to escrow; escrow collects payment in a method satisfactory to itself; advises seller to ship; later remits proceeds to seller. Buyer never has to worry about: 1) Seller got my credit card/checking account info. Seller never sees it. He is paid by escrow's client trust fund. 2) Seller has nothing for sale, just wants my money. Seller will not get your money until you authorize its release or default on saying anything for two days after receipt. If he ships nothing, he gets nothing. It all times out and you get money refunded. Ditto the seller and his concerns: if I send it to them to look at, will I ever get my money? What if this is a fraud credit card? Its not his concern any longer. He gets paid in cash. I strongly suggest buyers and sellers on the net look at the services of i-Escrow.com and see how it might benefit them. For sales up to about $50, the fee charged is $2.95 and from there up to a few hundred dollars, the rate is six percent, which is deducted from the sales proceeds remitted to the seller. Considering the fee includes full insurance on the shipment, credit card approval services and negotiations between seller and buyer as needed, its not a bad deal. The peace of mind given to both seller and buyer via the internet is worth the few extra dollars. Both sides realize they will get what they want from the deal. Since there is no monthly fee, no setup charge, nothing due except the fee taken on each transaction, merchants may want to add i-Escrow on their site to show their honest intentions. Netizens would do well when making a purchase from someone on the net to insist, 'lets handle the sale through an escrow for the protection of us both.' And imagine an internet merchant who says, 'yes, you can examine this merchandise in your home for two days before I get paid'. How very revolutionary, eh! Yours for better internet e-commerce, and do look at http://i-Escrow.com to see if it can help you. It might help me, more on that in the next message. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 16:09:29 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Credit Cards Now Accepted Here If you feel inclined to help alleviate my financial distress from time to time with the publication of this Digest and maintainence of the telecom-digest.org web site, you can now do so with credit cards if that is more convenient. Many readers in other countries have said it is difficult for them to get US Dollars or money orders for any reasonable fee. Some people here in the US prefer to use cards instead of writing checks. Whatever ... See the message above this regards i-Escrow.com, which I believe is the only bonded and licensed escrow agency in business to serve the net community, but I could be mistaken on that. I am going to be using their services. If you go to http://telecom-digest.org/donations.html you will see a link to 'make a donation using a credit card'. If you click there, you will get a page with several 'Buy It' buttons for various values. By selecting the button you feel is most appropriate, you will be taken to i-Escrow.com where you can register with them in one of various ways you are comfortable with. That registration will carry over to any subsequent dealings you may have with them elsewhere on the net. After you have made your decision, escrow sends me email which I must acknowledge. You then have two days in which to review your decision and cancel it if you wish to do so. Thanks very much! PAT ------------------------------ From: Daniel Ganek Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 15:56:32 -0400 Organization: Radionics, Inc. Daniel Ganek wrote: > J.F. Mezei wrote: >> Bill Levant wrote: >>> 3) It's possible, I guess, that PAC Bell's ANI is screwed up, and that >>> someone else's line is sending your number. Unlikely, I'd say. >> Happened to me once a few year ago in Bell Canada (Quebec) territory. >> I was alone in house. Police rings bell and tells me someone in the >> house has dialed 911. I said no, I was alone, and I didn't dial >> it. They explained that they had to search the house. (Never though >> about asking for search warrant). They didn't find anything. (Not much >> of a search though). > If someone were holding you hostage would you want the police to get > a search warrant first? > Happened to me once at a Post Office. I was buying stamps and three > officers walk in with shotguns poised. Said the silent alarm went off > and asked if they could search the premises. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The thing with a warrant is police > cannot just show up on a 'fishing expedition' and decide to look > around. If they force their way in and do so anyway, they are wasting > their time because the court will not admit anything they found as > 'evidence' as a result. If they have reason to believe a crime is > in progress that is a different situation. Seems to me that a 911 call would be enough reason to believe a crime was in progress. This is really a no-brainer since 911 calls are recorded and logged. /dan ------------------------------ From: mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) Subject: Re: More BBS Memories Date: 17 Aug 1999 17:29:16 -0700 Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article , David B. Horvath, CCP wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I was discussing the earliest days >> of BBS networking yesterday, one I forgot to mention was Ripco, and >> another was Karl Denninger, both of Chicago. I do not really know what >> Karl is up to these days, but I do know that Ripco, which started out >> as a small BBS with a reputation in the early 1980's of being mostly >> a phreak board has been one of the major ISPs in Chicago for a number >> of years. Almost all of the localized, Chicago area ISPs had their >> beginning as a BBS going back ten to fifteen years ago. > Ahhh back in the old days with the hack/phreak (it was hard to draw a > line back then) BBS'. Anyone remember 8BBS in the 408 (SoCal) area 408 is Northern California.. Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San Jose... mattack@area.com ------------------------------ From: Javier Henderson Subject: Re: More BBS Memories Date: 18 Aug 1999 07:51:03 -0700 Organization: Completely Disorganized dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) writes: > Ahhh back in the old days with the hack/phreak (it was hard to draw a > line back then) BBS'. Anyone remember 8BBS in the 408 (SoCal) area > code? For the sake of accuracy, 408 is actually in Northern California. -jav ------------------------------ From: agaffin@nww.com (Adam Gaffin) Subject: Re: MCI Frame Outage Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 11:58:00 GMT Organization: Network World Fusion Reply-To: agaffin@nww.com On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:29:48 -0400, oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) wrote: > It will be interesting to read about all this in the trade journals > ... it must have been one hell of a squirrelly problem to have > continued for so many days. David Rohde, one of our telecom reporters, has been following this closely. Some of his articles: Update: MCI WorldCom CEO offers credits in wake of frame relay net problem http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/0816mciupdate.html Another MCI WorldCom frame victim: Network integration Even as MCI WorldCom picks up the pieces of its recent frame relay crisis, another key victim has emerged: the company's plan to integrate all its networks. http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/0817mciworldcom3.html You'll have to register to read them, but it's free, at least. ------------------------------ From: mdpc@netcom.com (M.D. Parker) Subject: AC 500 - Follow Me Service Date: 18 Aug 1999 18:01:05 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Anybody know who offers 500 follow me service these days. Both MCI and ATT and discontinued this service. Thanks, Mike mdpc@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Instead of 500 Follow Me as such you may want to look into something like Call America's 'My Line' service which does the same things on a toll free 800 number. The 'My Line' service is identical in all respects to the old 500 service, but it is greatly enhanced with voicemail, immediate re-routing of your 800 number to wherever you want it to ring, the ability to use it for outgoing calls without a calling card/payphone surcharge added, etc. They are located in San Luis Obispo, CA. You can contact GST/Call America at 800-541-6316 and speak with Ernie Strong. I have used them for several years with complete satisfaction. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 18:07:01 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: Phone Fee For School Internet Service Too Popular > I guess that I am too much of a curmudgeon, but when ever there is a > link to a {New York Times} article, I won't do it. Sure it might be > great information, but anything that puts a roadblock up when they > don't have to is not worth my effort. I wonder how many other folks > avoid it as well? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Quite a few folks avoid links to NYT > for the same reason you mention which is the same reason I avoid them. > There simply are too many other news sources which do not try to get > personal data on netizens. PAT] It is for just this reason that EFF? 2600? set up the cyberpunk/cyberpunk" login/password combo a long time ago and gleefully gives it out to everyone. That way anyone can browse NYTimes without having to worry about them being "tracked" in particular. :) D ------------------------------ From: jim.rusling@usa.net (Jim Rusling) Subject: Re: Sanford Wallace Troubles ... Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 02:23:09 GMT Organization: Mustang Information Systems, Mustang, OK Reply-To: jim.rusling@usa.net radparker@radparker.com (Al Iverson) wrote: > In article , lwrules2@my-deja.com > (Sanford Wallace) wrote: >> You couldn't have unchecked that box, because the box doesn't exist. >> You are clearly told at signup that your free use of our autoresponder >> system entitles us to send you commercial emails. It's not spam. >> There are paid autoresponders out there but our service is ad >> subsidized, as per our sales materials. > FYI, just quick follow up, I'm a rabid anti-spammer myself. See > http://relays.radparker.com for more information about the blacklist I > run. Having dealt with Sanford in the long dead past (and cursing > him), and having dealt with Sanford now, I can say for certain that > he's not a spammer any more. Also as a rabid anti-spammer, I agree. Jim Rusling Mustang Information Services Mustang, OK http://jrusling.home.mindspring.com ------------------------------ From: tzs@halcyon.com (Tim Smith) Subject: Re: US West In Court Over ISDN Net Service Speeds Date: 17 Aug 1999 19:59:28 -0700 Organization: Institute of Lawsonomy > The original poster's DSL line is 256 kilobit, making it impossible to > reach speeds of 100 Kilobytes per seconds. We'd be safe to assume he > meant 100 Kilobits per second. Probably right, because he said 100k. If he had said 75k, though, it turns out it would be possible he meant bytes, even though that is way faster than you'd think possible for a 256 kbit/second line. That's because USWest's 256 kbit/second DSL is actually currently 640 kbit/second down. Similarly, I've got the 1 megabit/second up/down service, and it is actually 1280 kbit/second down, and something like 1070 kbit/second up. Keep this in mind whenever a USWest customer is describing rates. Rumor is that USWest is putting in new equipment that will let them actually limit the 256 kbit (and the 512 kbit) customers to the rated speed. Tim Smith ------------------------------ From: rlhrrs@aol.comrmv.com (Robert Lee Harris) Date: 18 Aug 1999 04:11:07 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Crazy Proposals For 310 Area Code > (B) Preserve the local calling area as it currently exists. Any point > that is currently local to any of the 17 rate centers would be local to > the new consolidated rate center. However, the LECs would now demand a > rate increase to make up for the lost toll revenues. It seems like the best way to overlay numbers would be to apply the new area codes to cellular phones and pagers. Since wireless numbers are billed per minute anyway, there would be no temptation to increase rates for calling a wireless phone from a regular phone line. ------------------------------ From: tthiel@slonet.org (Tom Thiel) Subject: Re: Telco Recordings Tie Up Answering Machines Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 04:52:27 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Call 611 and ask if your CO switch supports a feature called "cutoff-on-disconnect", or COD (like the fish). Here, in my local CO, default is not activated. Also, the COD does not aways travel through pair-gain equipment, and they may have to track that down. I had a customer with a Auto-Attendant used in night mode only. All of a sudden they would come in in the morning and find all 24 lines on the key system in use. The A.A. would disconnect if it received COD, but the telco had switched theie service to pair gain without telling them. The newer boards at the remote site would not pass the COD from the CO, so the A.A. never hung-up. A friendly call to the CO switchman found the problem, and they solved it when they could find some earlier release boards. On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:38:47 -0400, Bill Newkirk wrote: > Put on a longer outbound message such that the far end will hang up > and the line will have time to supervise before you start recording. > LGRL of Texas wrote: >> Phone answering machines are designed to not record silence, dial >> tones or the off hook warning. For many years, Southwestern Bell, when >> a caller hangs up on an answering machine, sends 20 seconds of dial >> tone, which is about the length of the outgoing message. THEN sneds a >> phony ringing signal which "answers" with a recording "If you'd like >> to make a call, please hang up and try again" ... all of which is >> RECORDED by answering machines. Tom Thiel tthiel@slonet.org "Remember, it don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi" - Peter Schickele (PDQ Bach) ------------------------------ From: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric Morson) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 09:21:52 -0400 Subject: Connecticut Overlays To Be Finalized In September Connecticut state utility regulators chose overlays to relieve the crunch in both 203 and 860 area codes. A final decision is expected in September. See the articles at: http://AreaCode-Info.com in the August 1999 Headlines section. Eric B. Morson Co-Webmaster AreaCode-Info.com EMail: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: LA Shootings: 1999 v.1968 Date: 18 Aug 1999 03:20:37 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS The spate of anger shootings in the US -- from the Oklahoma City bombing to the Los Angeles anti-semitic day care center assault troubled me. Sadly, IMHO, most of the news media focus on the sensational aspects (e.g. release of 911 tapes playing the terror-stricken people calling for help). We don't get much of a substantive look. The following is a stab to try to make sense of things. Anyway, I came across a book, written in 1970, about Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. Written before Watergate, before Vietnam ended, but during turbulent times, it raised some questions of: where we were, and where are we now? 1968 was not a happy year whatsoever. We had the assasinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. We had serious race and peace riots. The violence at the Chicago Convention. All of this deeply worried the country: where was it headed? The "movement" was vague and undefined, yet it did have a lot of influence. A great many of society's mores and traditions were thrown by the wayside. Some deservedly, but many regretfully. Getting back to 1999: In 1968 people despaired of the violence of the time. Has society learned anything? Are we better off? Crime, while slightly decreasing recently, is still way up over the mid 1960s. The inner cities are worse now than before. In 1968, society was troubled. Fear over the Vietnam war and domestic issues. The Communists. But in 1999, supposedly we're in the best of all worlds. The economy is booming, skilled or unskilled, there are jobs available, and yet inflation is very low. There's no war, no draft. Technology has lowered the cost of many luxuries. We have our computers, cable TV, multiple home phones, mobile phones. What's going on? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 1968 was a particularly troubling year for me also. I lived in Chicago at the time; the riots in April that year following King's assasination were just awful. I do not know how many times that year I got tear-gassed, caught up in street corner protests, etc. Everywhere you walked around in downtown Chicago that year it seems there was a police officer swinging a club at you and telling you to move faster, to go somewhere else, etc. At various times in that year, there were National Guard and/or Army troops on duty in Chicago on street corners, etc. On a Sunday night in August, about the middle of the month like now, but 31 years ago in 1968 I was sitting with some friends in Lincoln Park on the north side of the city. Police flew overhead in a heli- copter and tossed out tear gas bombs at the people sitting in the park. And then when everyone started running off to avoid the noxious fumes, there were police waiting at all the entrances of the park to beat you over the head with a club on your way out. That is the way the rodent control officers work also. To get rid of rats, they stick a hose in the burrow and shoot gas in there. As the rats run out the other end of the tunnel to safety, the rodent control people stand there and club them to death. It all makes perfect sense for the police to do the same thing I guess, since as most of them would be quick to point out, the people they deal with are little more than just scum or about equal to rodents. As if that were not enough in one week, a few days later I was downtown having dinner with some friends in the bar at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. This was during the 1968 Democratic convention. There were several hundred military troops lined up marching along on Michigan Avenue downtown which was not an unusual sight at all that year, and quite a few protestors as well. For some reason, the police got angry about something that happened; they came storming into the Hilton Hotel and into the dining room area where we were seated. They proceeded to totally trash the whole bar, break all the glasses and bottles at the bar, and then went to the buffet table where all the food was sitting, overturned the table, dumping all the food on the floor. Two of the plate glass windows looking out into Grant Park were smashed. On the television set that was playing, Walter Cronkite was asking why the police were being that outrageous. Mayor Daley pointed his finger at Senator Rubicoff and said (I quote) 'it is Jew Bastards like him who have made all the trouble'. When someone in the dining room said the police were the ones making the trouble and humorously noted, 'they do not look like Jews to me, but they seem to be bastards, alright ...' a couple of police officers responded by smashing the picture tube on the television set there in the bar and then four or five of them just literally beat the hell out the guy who made the comment. Everyone else who had been sitting there eating dinner or drinking at the bar was sort of shocked at all this. The police made everyone leave at that point. At the time, my office was in the McCormick Building, right across the street, and when I came to work the next morning, everything at ground level was a total shambles. Litter and trash everywhere, broken glass all over the street. The Hilton Hotel had boarded up all its broken windows. 1968 was just a dreadful year in Chicago. Everywhere you went the police and/or the National Guard troops were beating people up they did not like, first gassing them then clubbing them when they tried to escape, just like is done to get rid of rodents. It started the middle of April and went on like that into September at least. Chicago was a bit more brutal than some other cities, but things were like this all over the USA that year. And even to this day Chicago Police insist they did not start any trouble. PAT] ------------------------------ From: navage@interlog.com Subject: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 18:32:44 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Many US 1-800, 888, and 877 toll free numbers appear to be "blocked" from being accessed from within Canada. Does anyone know of a (legal) way to access such 1-800, 888, and 877 "US only" toll free numbers from Canada? Is there a free or fee based service which one can use to access a US telephone network from within Canada and be able to dial such "blocked" toll free numbers, as if they were being called from within the US? Problem is ... some companies only have 1-800, 888, or 877 numbers, making it impossible to reach them by phone from Canada. Any help finding a work around to this problem would be appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 11:34:15 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: NANP Administration Pat - FYI - Looks like Lockheed is spinning off the NANP administration. This is from the FCC Daily Digest today. -- Best -- Arthur Daily Digest Vol. 18 No. 158 August 18, 1999 Information described within this Daily Digest may be viewed at the FCC World Wide Web site (http://www.fcc.gov) under the subdirectory '/Daily_Releases/Daily_Digest/1999/dd990818.html' [snip] Released: August 17, 1999. COMMON CARRIER BUREAU SEEKS COMMENT ON LOCKHEED MARTIN IMS CORPORATION AND WARBURG, PINCUS & COMPANY AMENDED REQUEST FOR EXPEDITIOUS REVIEW OF THE TRANSFER OF THE LOCKHEED MARTIN COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY SERVICES BUSINESS (CC DOCKET 92-237).On August 16, Lockheed Martin IMS Corporation filed an Amended Request for Expeditious Review of the transfer of the Lockheed Martin Communications Industry Services business to newly formed newStar, Inc., formerly known as CIS Acquisition Corporation, to ensure the continue neutrality of the North American Numbering Plan Administrator. Comments due September 7; replies September 17. (DA No. 99-1647). -- Dr. Arthur Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Phone: 602-371-9708 Fax : 602-336-7074 ------------------------------ From: Gerald Latter Subject: Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 15:16:45 -0400 We are using a channelized CSU/DSU (Kentrox Datasmart 658) to separate voice and data. The PBX which we want to utilize for voice is located in a separate building 2000 feet from the location of our routers and the CSU/DSU. It is our understanding that there is a signal limitation of 600+ feet on running a copper wire between the DB15 terminal connector on the CSU/DSU and the DB15 connector on the PBX. We have fiber available (single mode and multi mode) between the buildings, but I have not found anything that will allow us to utilize the fiber to carry this signal (The only fiber loop converters I have found work with full T1's only). Does anyone know of a way to extend this signal 2,000 feet preferably over fiber (for lightning protection). Thanks in advance, Jerry Latter ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 07:32:47 GMT Bill Newkirk wrote: > This business of lots of ads is why sometimes I think of the web as > 'Prodigy Perfected' ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I never really followed prodigy.com > that much; do they have a lot of offensive ads and privacy invasions > on that site also? PAT] You might want to dig out the press release that announced the initial creation of Prodigy (I remember it in the Digest when it happened, so it ought to be in the archives). Prodigy was (or claimed to be) the first online service that made viewing advertisements a condition of using the service. You were only allowed to access their service using their software, which used part of the screen to continuously display ads; and you were not allowed to add filters or the like that would defeat either the ads or their primitive built-in censorware. To enforce these conditions, the contract you had to sign when subscribing gave Prodigy part-ownership of the computer you used to log on. I have no idea whether any or all of this is still true; I have never used Prodigy. John David Galt [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wow, that sounds like a really great idea. I think I will make it a condition for using the telecom-digest.org web site. I will have advertising messages pop up in your face now and then which you must read as a condition for using the site; you will give me ownership of your computer; and anything creative you do at any time with your computer while you are on line at this site becomes my property. You have to sign over your copyright, etc. I wonder how in the world Yahoo managed to pull that off on all the Geocities people? As you may know, Yahoo made that demand on all the netizens there, that they had to turn over all their intellectual property rights, etc as a condition of being allowed to put up pages at their crummy advertising-in-your-face-all-the-time site. I am glad I was able to assist David Massey in getting his 'Tribute to the Telephone' out of there before he got all mixed up in that mess. If you have not visited yet (or recently) http://telecom-digest.org/tribute you might like to check it out. Its a great little online telephone museum with lots of pictures and files of interest. But seriously, I did *not* know that Prodigy.com went so far as to claim ownership of your computer as part of the terms of usage at their site. They must have really thought they were hot stuff. Ah, if only I had the resources, I would love to make a *totally* free-net kind of resource for netters, with web pages, etc and a total ban on any and all advertising, data-collecting, etc. I guess it is not to be ... I can barely keep myself and this Digest afloat sometimes, let alone start anything else. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #316 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 19 16:20:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA19992; Thu, 19 Aug 1999 16:20:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 16:20:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908192020.QAA19992@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #317 TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Aug 99 16:20:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 317 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Art Kamlet) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Tony Toews) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Paul Wills) Re: How the C Language Got its Name (Art Kamlet) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800 888 877 Numbers From Canada (J Oppenheimer) Re: MCI WorldCom Works To Finish Data Network Repairs (Jeffrey Carpenter) Re: MCI Frame OutageRe: MCI Frame Outage (User 6) Re: AC 500 - Follow Me Service (Scott Gordon) Re: AC 500 - Follow Me Service (Eric Morson) Yahoo / Geocities Terms (Derek Balling) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Christopher J. Pilkington) Re: VISA Authorizations (Christopher J. Pilkington) Re: Watch Out for Forever Paging (Christopher J. Pilkington) Re: Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU (W.D.A. Geary) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls (Julian Thomas) Re: Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU (Joseph Wineburgh) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 15 Aug 1999 01:13:19 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Charles Gray wrote: > Thus, the terminal block with four screws that was mounted on millions of > residential baseboards was a "C block". What happened to "A blocks", > and "B blocks" I will never know. Not really related, but ... We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Organization: Me, organized? Not a chance. Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 01:45:37 GMT msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) wrote: > However, in the late 1970s when I was at the University of Waterloo, > Canada, someone there developed a language (I don't remember what it > was for) *from* C and called it ... "Eh". And Eh was in turn followed > by "Zed". And of course one of the other humorous naming sequences is the University of Waterloo creating a student version of Fortran named Watfor. When they decided to improve on it they called it Watfiv. The structured version was, however, Watfiv S. Guess they didn't want all those wierd computer science students making fun of Watsix I guess. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm VolStar http://www.volstar.com Manage hundreds or thousands of volunteers for special events. ------------------------------ From: Paul Wills Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 08:56:31 -0400 Seeing how far this discussion of Bell System nomenclature has come (Dennis Ritchie himself!) I figured it's time to bring it back to terminal blocks. I can't say anything about 66 blocks either but as one who collects various mundane objects of telephony, I must say that the Bell System numbering schemes can be a bit strange. For example, there is a small outdoor terminal block that was used to terminate a drop wire at a pole. The first type I have is called a 101A. This consists of a porcelain block mounted on a metal bracket with a flip up galvanized lid. The next improvement I have is an aluminum box shaped enclosure in which the porcelain block is mounted on the back. The lid slips down over the front and is attached with a chain so it can hang loose when the box is open. This is called a 101B. OK, I'll go with that. The last Bell System improvement is a plastic surface mounted plate in which the two terminal posts are embedded. The cover consists of a molded rubber "cup" that stretches over the plate. The nomenclature: 101B2. Go figure! Paul Wills ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: How the C Language Got its Name Date: 18 Aug 1999 22:17:19 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Adam Sampson wrote: > This is why C++ is called C++, of course; ++ is the increment > operator in C, so the author used this to avoid having to call it > either "D" or "P". (Although "C++" would evaluate to "C" in a C > expression, so perhaps "++C" would have been a better name.) Which is why Bjorn Strousroup will tell you he tried to call it ++C but was overruled. > You can find the whole sordid story on the homepage of Dennis Ritchie > (the R in K&R) at . Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 22:40:00 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada Toll free numbers can be designated U.S. & Canada accessible, U.S. only, or accessible by only one (or more) area code, depending on the wishes (generally based on the marketing area) of the subscriber. However, these companies do have local numbers as well, without which there'd be no 'ring-to' number to designate pointing the toll free number to. ICB offers an 800/888/877 number trace service, though its not inexpensive. Feel free to email me privately at mailto:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com for more information. Judith Oppenheimer, Publisher & Pres joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com ICB Toll Free News http://icbtollfree.com WhoSells800.com http://whosells800.com ICB Consulting http://800consulting.com 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Judith, I am wondering if there are any longer the type of 800 number which was on a dedicated wire pair of its own with no 'ring to' number attached. Do you recall the kind I mean? Years ago, you could go into an office and see a phone that was the actual 800 line termination itself. It would be a one-way incoming line (battery, but no dial tone if you lifted the receiver when no call was present). The number plate on the phone would even identify it as 800-xxx-xxxx. Usually there was no dial or touch-tone pad on the phone; it looked like a manual instrument. Next question: is there such a thing as 'banded in-Wats' any longer, as far as pricing is concerned? Finally, is there such a thing as outgoing wats service any longer, or has the price for long distance calls in general been reduced to the point that no one cares about purchasing X hours of time per month as could be done in the old days? Judith or anyone else is welcome to answer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 23:04:14 -0400 From: Jeffrey J. Carpenter Subject: Re: MCI WorldCom Works To Finish Data Network Repairs > The long distance phone company said it took a frame relay network > platform out of service Saturday for 24 hours in an effort to restore > stability to the system. Work on the platform, which disrupted service > for some Internet customers, was due to be completed Sunday. The question that needs to be asked is why did it take them ten days to back the changes out? Why didn't they do that soon after the problem started? Their handling of this outage seems to be much worse than AT&T's handling of their prior outage. Jeffrey J. Carpenter P.O. Box 471 Glenshaw, PA 15116-0471 Phone: +1 500 488-4800 Fax: +1 500 488-4802 Email: jjc@pobox.com Web: http://pobox.com/~jjc/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 23:51:31 -0500 From: User 6 Subject: Re: MCI Frame Outage > Update: MCI WorldCom CEO offers credits in wake of frame relay net > problem http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/0816mciupdate.html > Another MCI WorldCom frame victim: Network integration > Even as MCI WorldCom picks up the pieces of its recent frame relay > crisis, another key victim has emerged: the company's plan to > integrate all its networks. > http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/0817mciworldcom3.html > You'll have to register to read them, but it's free, at least. The bottom line is that they didn't adequately test this patch. Saying Lucent provided bogus code does not relieve them of the responsibility to test the software in the lab before rolling it out. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is good that they explained the problem, but as you point out, their first obligation is to their own customers, some of whom had some serious problems as a result of the outage. Never put something like on line without *extensive* testing, even if it has to be delayed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sgordon@sbbs.net (Scott Gordon) Subject: Re:AC 500 - Follow Me Service Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 02:14:56 -0500 Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Might you be interested in an 800 number follow me? That we have to offer. Actually has follow me, faxing, and voice mail all built in. - Scott ** Current Promotions - Expire 8/31/99 Or While Supplies Last ** - Buy 1 Phone, Get 1 Free - Visit http://www.sprintdealer.com - Motorola StarTac W/FREE PAGER - $169.99 (After Rebates) - Samsung 2000 W/CLA & EarBud For $99.99 - Sanyo 3000 Dual Mode For $109.99 - Motorola Extra Express Pager W/1 Year Airtime For $99.99 ** Visit http://www.sbbs.com For Complete Details! ** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Scott, I printed your message not so much because all the readers and myself needed a little more spam today, but because of your opening line on Follow Me 800. Suppose you tell us about *your* version of the same service, and how it compares. Features, pricing, etc. Should I begin referring people to you instead? If so, why? And please, no commercial advertising with your response, just the facts on your Follow Me 800. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric Morson) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 10:34:33 -0400 Subject: Re: AC 500 - Follow Me Service I called Ernie Strong about the My Line Service. His company charges $8.50/month plus $0.25/minute for use. MCI Personal 800 service, if you are an MCI customer, is free of monthly fees, costs $0.30/minute, and has nearly all of the same "virtual office features" including voice mail, terminating number redirection, the ability to turn the number on and off, fax service, etc. Just thought I'd let you know! Eric B. Morson Co-Webmaster AreaCode-Info.com EMail: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are *not* a subscriber to MCI otherwise, how much is the charge or is it available at all? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 20:55:09 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Yahoo / Geocities Terms > I wonder how in the world Yahoo managed to pull that off on all the > Geocities people? As you may know, Yahoo made that demand on all the > netizens there, that they had to turn over all their intellectual > property rights, etc as a condition of being allowed to put up pages > at their crummy advertising-in-your-face-all-the-time site. No! No! No! That is what everyone who was incapable of actually READING the T&C believed. What Yahoo did was grant themselves a non-terminating, sublicensable right to use, disseminate, copy, and distribute the data people had uploaded to their web pages. Yahoo never claimed ownership of the property, nor did the original owners waive their own rights to the property away. All they did was grant Yahoo the right to use it indefinitely. The only substantial changes Yahoo made to its terms and conditions was that it limited it in scope, such that if a user drops the Geocities service and removes the data from Yahoo's server, Yahoo no longer has any rights to the data. It just took forever, it seemed, to get that worded properly and put into the T&C. Derek, who is not an official spokesperson for Yahoo, does not work in the legal department, and had no official part in the Y!/Geo merger, but who does REALLY hate seeing misinformation consistently reprinted as fact. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let me ask you this Derek -- what right does Geocities/Yahoo have to grant themselves *any rights whatsoever* regards the work of someone else without that person's permission? I am not talking about *linking* to it; that is a right that everyone has; I am talking about copying it or disseminating it, and/or dis- tributing it. You might say that the right is given as a condition for being allowed to take a 'homestead' there; a homestead whose address on the system is becoming increasingly long and complex as the space fills up. You cannot just get a simple xxxx/xxxx type address there any longer it seems. I would think the 'homesteader' was essentially paying his own way there by virtue of (a) the advertising constantly splashed at him and his visitors that cannot be removed and (b) the requirement that the homesteader provide a link back to Geocities as a way of advertising for Geocities itself. Add to that perhaps (c), that if an occupant there is at all creative and presents a very nice, very well presented page, it adds to the overall attractiveness of the site. So now (a) and (b) are not enough of a trade-off for the 'free' space being given and you want distribution rights as well to the content? Its not like free web space on the net was in short supply you know ... I would like to hope that in the merger of the two, Geocities would begin to be a better place, and get lifted up to the higher standards it seems to me have always applied at Yahoo rather than Yahoo getting lured and seduced into operating in the way Geocities has done since its beginning. Yahoo has a number of very excellent services; its 'My Yahoo' news page and its news ticker are wonderful features (when they work right, snicker!) and I trust I won't see an advertising popup on my screen from them anytime soon. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) Date: 18 Aug 1999 21:00:18 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over What was the designed way of doing an epoch rollover in the GPS? Or did DOD expect it to only run for 1024 weeks? Christopher J. Pilkington To reply, you know what to do. ------------------------------ From: cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) Date: 18 Aug 1999 21:00:18 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Why is the practice of credit holds still used today? Most merchants have on-line or dial-up terminals. Why can't the transaction post at point-of-sale, similar to the NYCE, Cirrus, Pulse and Most ATM networks. The credit holds method wrecks havoc on users of the VISA "debit" or "check" cards. Imagine a consumer has $500 in their checking account. They make a purchase for $400 with their "check" card. They can then go to an ATM and overdraw their account, withdrawing $300. When their purcahse posts, their account will be -$200. Christopher J. Pilkington To reply, you know what to do. ------------------------------ From: cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) Date: 18 Aug 1999 21:42:55 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Watch Out for Forever Paging Is my thinking correct that this company obtains your BTN from ANI? If so, how do they bill to someone calling from a PRI circuit that doesn't send ANI? I.e. the office only sends the NPA and NXX. Christopher J. Pilkington To reply, you know what to do. ------------------------------ From: wdag@my-deja.com (W.D.A. Geary) Subject: Re: Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 14:51:43 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. _Exactly what_ is the PBX interface to the CSU/DSU? AFAIK, a "channelized" (split-off) signal is still T1 format (with the timeslots either rearranged or just the non-desired ones "idle") and a T1 extender should work just fine. In article , Gerald Latter wrote: > We are using a channelized CSU/DSU (Kentrox Datasmart 658) to separate > voice and data. The PBX which we want to utilize for voice is located > in a separate building 2000 feet from the location of our routers and > the CSU/DSU. It is our understanding that there is a signal > limitation of 600+ feet on running a copper wire between the DB15 > terminal connector on the CSU/DSU and the DB15 connector on the PBX. > We have fiber available (single mode and multi mode) between the > buildings, but I have not found anything that will allow us to utilize > the fiber to carry this signal (The only fiber loop converters I have > found work with full T1's only). W.D.A.Geary Wardenclyffe Microtechnology Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't. ------------------------------ From: jt5555@epix.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 15:20:51 GMT In , on 08/17/99 at 01:24 PM, gwheeler@vmguys.com (Gerry Wheeler) said: > I prefer the explanation about the cat. My in-laws have a speed dial set > for my number, which is 591-1xxx (x's are there to protect the innocent). > If you press the speed dial button while onhook, there is not sufficient > time to get dial tone before it starts dialing, so the first digit is > missed. And the next three digits are ... So, when the cat would step on > the phone while walking around the counter, guess who would show up at > the door. If there's a way to program a pause in the speed dial, then the cat would just get the in-laws and not the law. Julian Thomas: jt 5555 at epix dot net http://home.epix.net/~jt remove numerics for email Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If he programmed a pause in there, he would reach the in-laws instead of the outlaws ... that was a joke, you can laugh now if you wish. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Wineburgh Reply-To: Subject: Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 08:50:09 -0400 FWIW The visual networks CSU's we use can go up to 654 feet, so it sounds like that spec is accurate. Is there any way to put the CSU/DSU in the vicinity of the PBX and backhaul the data to where you need it? Maybe have the router in the PBX room, then send the data layer back to where you need it. A lot of the routers/switches support fibre these days. One other thought -- you say the FLC's you've seen support 'full' T1's? That's basically what's riding on our DSX (DB15) ports between the VN CSU's and the PBX. We just use channels 13-24 or whatever. Maybe it's just the DSX/DB15 connector they don't support. #JOE ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #317 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 19 17:40:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA23163; Thu, 19 Aug 1999 17:40:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 17:40:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908192140.RAA23163@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #318 TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Aug 99 17:40:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 318 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Dave O'Shea) Re: Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU (Ed M) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada (K Lightfoot) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada (Robert) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada (L. Raphael) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada (Steve Winter) Toll-Free Service Physical/Logical Terminations (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Art Kamlet) Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms (Garrett Wollman) AT&T's Planned MediaOne Deal Poses Test For US Cable Policy (Monty Solomon) For Sale: FORCE 6U VME Sparc 2, 10 and 20 (John Bodo) Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) (Geoff Dyer) Centurion - Upper Key Question (Keelan Lightfoot) Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Robert Casey) Error in AT+cmgs (citycom@cyberia.net.lb) Re: Dial Lights (was Re: Who Makes AT&T Phones Now) (Jeffrey Carpenter) Re: MCI Frame Outage (steven@primacomputer.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Organization: snaip.net Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 18:00:00 GMT John Willkie wrote in message news:telecom19. 315.1@telecom-digest.org: > I am a Sprint PCS customer and have been for the better part of a > year. On several occaisons, I have neglected to be timely in paying > my bill and had the service suspended. Each time this happened, I > would spend several hours (each way) traveling on transit to the > nearest San Diego county Sprint PCS office. Upon paying the bill (in > cash) the service would be immediately restored. I'm a Sprint PCS customer too, and while I have an occasional gripe about coverage gaps or dropped calls, they've always been good about processing my payments, even when we got out of sync and were one month overdue, straightened out with a single call to clear up the payment history. I've also run several small businesses, and one of my major problems is *always* collections. Customers seem to feel there's nothing at all wrong with going 60 and 90 days past due. They always had time to call up and ask questions or make service requests, but never enough to get around to writing a check. Put yourself in Sprint's shoes: Your boss is three months behind in paying your salary. Do you smile and thank him for his gracious payment, or do you rip him a new one, sue for damages, then work for someone who's more responsible? > Last Friday (Aug 13) I repeated the process. When I got there, I was > informed that they were charging me $3.00 for the privilege of > receiving my payment. If I did not want to pay the three bucks, I > could use their "free" drop box, in which case I would not walk out > with a receipt. By a notice, this "feature" went into effect on > August 12, 1999, on orders of "Kansas City." I used the same method on my customers. 2% per month late fees, plus cancelling any "early payment" discounts. The customers who are mildly irresponsible paid up and kept on time afterwards. The deadbeats found someone else to sponge off. > The clerk explained that the manager was usually pretty good about > emptying out the box every twenty-four hours. Pretty kind of him, processing payments by hand instead of the batched system that they are supposed to be processed with. > I have never heard of an organization, particularly one with at least > partially regulated rates, charging for accepting cash, let alone > having the gall to call acceptance of funds a customer service. I think they're being polite and using a nice euphemism. Would you rather they tried honesty? > As it was, I did not pay enough that day to reactivate the service. > Several days later I made sufficient payment to reactivate the service > and was charged another $3.00 for the acceptance of my payment. The amount of time you seem to spend driving to and from Sprint's various offices would be free to lounge around if you'd stick a stamp on an envelope and just mail the thing in. > I was told by the clerk at the second office (much closer to home) > that my phone would be working in about four hours. When I mentioned > that previously the phone had always worked before I left the office > after paying cash, he told me that they had a new system that would > only activate the phone within four hours. "So the new system takes > longer to activate the phone?" He said that it was not his decision > to do things that way. When given a choice between servicing a customer who always pays on time, and another who never pays until put into collections, guess who takes priority? > I've been pretty busy (talking on the phone, among other activities) > for the past couple of days, but I plan to pursue this matter with > federal and state authorities and to review applicable sections of > federal and state statutory and case law. Go for it! The rest of us who are subsidizing those who are permanent delinquent accounts would just be thrilled at knowing that our usage fees are being used on such wonderful things such as this, rather than useless activities like increasing coverage areas or adding data features to PCS. > My gut feeling is that what Sprint PCS is doing with the fee is > unlawful and is a material change in the terms of my service > agreement. I told the clerk that I believe it to be a surrogate > "reconnect fee." You *might* want to read it again. If it's a standard agreement, you have promised to pay "reasonable and customary" collection costs, legal fees, and penalties for non-payment. Most companies really don't want to take those steps except for the absolute worst offenders. I think you should simply take your business to a more deserving company. ------------------------------ From: Ed M Subject: Re: Extending Voice Signal From a Channelized CSU/DSU Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 15:05:26 -0400 Organization: UUNET Assuming that you're using a drop and insert CSU/DSU that DB15 is a full T1 (even if you're only using it to pass a few of the channels on to the PBX.) One pair on it is the transmit and the other is the receive. I'm sure someone on this list can provide you with which pins are which. All you need to do is run the transmit and receive pairs to fiber line drivers which often have screw terminals. We've had good luck with these and I think they are the cheapest you'll find: http://www.tccomm.com/TC1620,TC1620R.htm Gerald Latter wrote: > We are using a channelized CSU/DSU (Kentrox Datasmart 658) to separate > voice and data. The PBX which we want to utilize for voice is located in > a separate building 2000 feet from the location of our routers and the > CSU/DSU. It is our understanding that there is a signal limitation of > 600+ feet on running a copper wire between the DB15 terminal connector > on the CSU/DSU and the DB15 connector on the PBX. > We have fiber available (single mode and multi mode) between the > buildings, but I have not found anything that will allow us to utilize > the fiber to carry this signal (The only fiber loop converters I have > found work with full T1's only). > Does anyone know of a way to extend this signal 2,000 feet preferably > over fiber (for lightning protection). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 14:06:31 -0700 Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers From Canada From: Keelan Lightfoot > Does anyone know of a (legal) way to access such 1-800, 888, and 877 > "US only" toll free numbers from Canada? > Is there a free or fee based service which one can use to access a US > telephone network from within Canada and be able to dial such "blocked" > toll free numbers, as if they were being called from within the US? Dialing 1-880-xxx-xxxx instead of 1-800-xxx-xxxx works for 800 numbers. There is a charge, though, (For me -- a BC Tel customer -- I believe it was a 16 cent connection charge.) I have encountered the numbers to use for 888 and 877 before, but do not remember what they were. Try looking through back issues of the TELECOM Digest -- there was a thread (as I remember) about 800 numbers, and the 888 and 877 numbers were mentioned somewhere in there. Keelanm Lightfoot ------------------------------ From: Robert Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers From Canada Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 17:32:20 +0200 > Many US 1-800, 888, and 877 toll free numbers appear to be "blocked" > from being accessed from within Canada. > Does anyone know of a (legal) way to access such 1-800, 888, and 877 > "US only" toll free numbers from Canada? I live in Germany and use a "Call Back" service to access US-Based 800 numbers. You dial a normal phone number in the States and let it ring once or twice. You then hang up, and the number that you called calls you back since it is attended by an automated system. This computer then asks you which number you would like to dial. The service I use is called World Wide Telecom: http://www.wwtelecom.com You can travel all over the world and this service will always call back the correct number. It is very easy to use and is much cheaper than most international carriers (for normal numbers) and allows you access to numbers that would normally be blocked from you. Sincerely, Robert Horan zxmqm28@remove.this.to.mail.me.usa.net ------------------------------ From: raphael@lisa.cs.mcgill.ca (Louis Raphael) Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 11:13:22 GMT Some of the long-distance companies (I forget which, but call around -- you'll probably get the most luck with the medium-size outfits / resellers) offer a service whereby you pay a fee per minute "to the border" and they allow you to call US 800 numbers. Totally legal, although not necessarily cheap. Louis ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 04:32:36 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com navage@interlog.com spake thusly and wrote: > Many US 1-800, 888, and 877 toll free numbers appear to be "blocked" > from being accessed from within Canada. It is not so much that they are "blocked" as that they are international calls and the per minute rate makes it forbiddingly expensive. You are talking international 800 rates here. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 15:59:32 -0500 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Toll-Free Service Physical/Logical Terminations In TELECOM Digest article "Dialing 'Blocked' US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada", Judith (joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com) wrote: > Toll free numbers can be designated U.S. & Canada accessible, > U.S. only, or accessible by only one (or more) area code, > depending on the wishes (generally based on the marketing area) > of the subscriber. > However, these companies do have local numbers as well, without > which there'd be no 'ring-to' number to designate pointing the > toll free number to. and our moderator, PAT, replied with: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Judith, I am wondering if there > are any longer the type of 800 number which was on a dedicated > wire pair of its own with no 'ring to' number attached. Do you > recall the kind I mean? Years ago, you could go into an office > and see a phone that was the actual 800 line termination itself. > It would be a one-way incoming line (battery, but no dial tone > if you lifted the receiver when no call was present). The number > plate on the phone would even identify it as 800-xxx-xxxx. > Usually there was no dial or touch-tone pad on the phone; it > looked like a manual instrument. I don't know how many "old" 800 terminations might still exist these days, but I assume that a similar situation exists for some of the largest nationwide "call centers" with toll free numbers. Particularly if a particular 800/888/877 number can be answered in multiple locations depending on the time-of-day / day-of-week, and/or location of the calling party, and/or traffic volume within the long-distance carrier or volume of calls to that company - and all on the SAME toll-free number. It is possible that the 800/888/877 number is ultimately translated to one of several possible "geographic/POTS" numbers - the particular number translated to is determined to by the situations indicated above. But I assume that there are _STILL_ 800/888/877 numbers that do _NOT_ translate to "geographic/POTS" numbers but rather to "non-customer-dialable" routing-strings, probably with some 0XX or 1XX pseudo-NPA / pseudo-central-office codes (just like they did many years ago). Many times when calling an 800/888/877 number, the long-distance carrier handling that toll-free number inserts a voice-menu of touchtone choices _FOR_ the customer. Pressing a particular DTMF digit will then route the call to that particular department which may be in New York. Pressing a different digit could route the call to a different department which might be in Chicago. etc. The Long Distance carrier then completes the call using "internal" routing codes and _NOT_ geographic/POTS numbers of NPA-NXX-xxxx. Even the actual termination location of particular 800/888/877 numbers could be handled "directly" by the Long Distance carrier, right into the called customer's PBX or ACD, without ever seeing the local switching network of a Bell or Independent LEC (or for that matter, CLEC). Such situations existed back in the 1960's and 70's, and still exist today. If the physical termination of such toll-free numbers _never_ enter the distant-end LEC's _switching_ network (although _dedicated-lease-line_ copper/microwave/fiber/etc from a distant-end LEC might still be utilized), then there is no need for a "geographic/POTS" NPA-NXX-xxxx number from a LEC/CLEC in that called customer's location for the 800/888/877 number to "point" to. As for banded-WATS for "pricing" or rates, much of this appears to have disappeared. Most of the differences in rates for the called 800/888/877 customer is intra vs. inter state, US vs. Canada origination, etc. It might "appear" to be like the rate/price "banding" of the 1960's/70's/80's, but I don't think that there is much the old multiple differing price/rate bands _WITHIN_ the US or Canada anymore. On another matter regarding the original issues in this thread, NANPA and the INC had set aside 880, 881 and 882 for "caller-pays" on international calling to US/Canada based 800/888/877 numbers. I don't know exactly how widespread this has been implemented _between_different_ countries _within_ the NANP, nor how much works on calls to +1-800/888/877 from _outside_ the NANP, but the stated use of such "replace" codes is still "on the books". One from outside of the country who wishes to dial an 800 number would dial the call replacing the 800 with 880. For 888, replace it with 881. And for 877, replace it with 882. NANPA and the INC are supposed to be eventually "reclaiming" these "replace" codes for "international caller pays" (880, 881, 882) from such use, but there are objections to some of the reclaiming. Also, even if such codes do work in some cases/places, they might not necessarily work on calling each and every possible NANP-based 800/888/877 number, due to different situations of internal NANP routings/destinations/etc, such as the ones I'd mentioned earlier in this posting. MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 19 Aug 1999 16:58:16 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Tony Toews wrote: > msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) wrote: >> However, in the late 1970s when I was at the University of Waterloo, >> Canada, someone there developed a language (I don't remember what it >> was for) *from* C and called it ... "Eh". And Eh was in turn followed >> by "Zed". > And of course one of the other humorous naming sequences is the > University of Waterloo creating a student version of Fortran named > Watfor. When they decided to improve on it they called it Watfiv. One of the languages I used was supposed to be an improvement on Algol 58 or one of its predecessors: MAD. (Michigan Algorithmic Decoder, but I suspect it was named first, and the acronym filled in later.) Instead of if ... then it used Whenever .... Otherwise abbreviated as W\R O\E It was Fortran-like but for reasons I can't remember now, I liked it much better than Fortran. It ran initially on an IBM 704, then a 709 and by the time I moved out of that area, it was moving to a really new, fast 7090. Any MAD folks left? Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is that where {MAD Magazine} got its name also? What about MAD Cow Desease? LOL ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms Date: 19 Aug 1999 21:05:24 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Derek Balling : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let me ask you this Derek -- what right > does Geocities/Yahoo have to grant themselves *any rights whatsoever* > regards the work of someone else without that person's permission? They don't, and can't, grant themselves anything -- the person providing uploading the Web pages grants them permission. The agreement is a legal CYA which allows them to actually perform the service they are being asked to perform. (If the user does not grant permission to disseminate, then it makes no sense to upload it to a service whose sole purpose is to disseminate.) Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same wollman@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Obviously no one is going to object to whatever technical requirements are present regarding uploading and downloading of files, or moving them around from one server to another as needed. And it should go without saying that if someone puts a web page there they want it to be seen. Maybe they should have phrased things differently, and instead, talked about the processes involved and how they do it, and made it easier for their users to understand. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 23:33:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T's Planned Mediaone Deal Poses Test for U.S. Cable Policy By STEPHEN LABATON WASHINGTON -- As two federal agencies review AT&T Corp.'s $58 billion bid to buy Mediaone Group, they face the central question of whether the combination is, in essence, too large to block. http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/att-mediaone.html Coalition Opposes AT&T Deal By Shu Shin Luh Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 18, 1999; Page E3 A consumer coalition criticized AT&T Corp.'s proposed $58 billion acquisition of MediaOne Group Inc. yesterday, contending that the merger would give the number one long-distance company too much control over the cable and high-speed Internet markets. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/aug99/consumer18.htm Published Wednesday, August 18, 1999, in the Miami Herald Consumer groups lambaste cable deal AT&T's MediaOne bid comes under fire From Herald Staff and Wire Reports WASHINGTON -- In a move that could have significant ramifications in South Florida, consumer groups are asking federal regulators to block AT&T's bid to buy MediaOne, saying the deal would give the company too much control over cable TV and high-speed cable Internet service. http://www.herald.com/content/today/business/docs/067731.htm ------------------------------ From: John Bodo Subject: For Sale: FORCE 6U VME Sparc 2, 10 and 20 Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 11:25:11 -0700 Organization: SBC Internet Services I have some more FORCE VME Sparc's for sale. I have one model 10 (Single processor, 64MB RAM) and one SPARC 20 (Dual processor, 512MB RAM). I also have an assortment of VME Chasis, Power PC and Sparc 2's. If you need 6U standard VME, drop me an email and I'll send over an inventory. John ------------------------------ From: gldyer-nospam@geocities.com (Geoff Dyer) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 14:37:08 GMT On Wed, 18 Aug 1999 07:32:47 GMT, Pat wrote: > wonder how in the world Yahoo managed to pull that off on all the > Geocities people? As you may know, Yahoo made that demand on all the > netizens there, that they had to turn over all their intellectual > property rights, etc as a condition of being allowed to put up pages > at their crummy advertising-in-your-face-all-the-time site. I am AFAIK, they backed off in quite a hurry. As I read the current Terms of Service, you have to grant them (non-exclusive) rights which are basically enough for them to serve (and mirror) the pages etc, and which last only as long as the pages are hosted there. (That last point could cause problems related to timing and implementation of removal, I suppose.) I get the impression they just didn't think through the wording until the backlash hit them. Geoff (to e-mail me, remove any instances of "-nospam" from my address) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 23:42:39 -0700 Subject: Centurion - Upper Key Question From: Keelan Lightfoot I just bought an older rotary Centurion payphone (QSD-400A, I mentioned it in an earlier message -- Northern Telecom's ugly brown plastic block phone.) Anyway, I got two keys with this phone, but they are both for the lower lock (Coinage). My question is, are the upper locks (Electronics box) keyed the same for many Centurions? The lower lock (coinage) is different for each phone, I have heard, and the lower lock key does not work in the upper lock (The milled grooves running the length of the key are inverted.) Where could I get this lock unlocked? Would the telephone company that originally owned this phone be able to help me with this problem? Who makes the locks for these phones? Can I buy replacements? Also, what kind of signalling would a payphone such as this use to communicate with the CO? Thanks, Keelan Lightfoot ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? Date: 19 Aug 1999 04:56:27 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. I've been hearing radio commercials for internet web based bill paying services lately. Idea is to get rid of the hassle of writing checks and licking stamps. And that you can have this service take care of it for you. They email the fact you have this bill, and you authorize them to pay it. Maybe I don't get that many bills (3, the electric bill, phone bill, credit card bill, and rent check) per month, and it takes a few minutes at most to do them (I pay them when I get them, that way they don't get forgotten). And I don't have to entrust a service with open access to my money (checking account). And they must be making money at this somehow to pay for the commercials and etc. So, what's the point? I'm just a wrong number from the phone company! ------------------------------ From: citycom Subject: Error in AT+cmgs Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:36:02 GMT Hi all, I am using hyper terminal Win95 to send an sms message through a Nokia 2210. The problem is that the sms commands are returning error although the other commands like Dial command and Hang up call ... are working well. Can any one help me. Thank you. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 22:51:37 -0400 From: Jeffrey J. Carpenter Subject: Re: Dial Lights (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) > To my knowledge all the pushbutton Trimlines with the round keys on > the keypad had power supply powered a power supply. When they made > the "second generation" Trimline with the squared keys they were lit > by phone line powered LEDs. In addition to the LED version with square buttons, there was also a rotary version which used green LEDs. Jeffrey J. Carpenter P.O. Box 471 Glenshaw, PA 15116-0471 Phone: +1 500 488-4800 Fax: +1 500 488-4802 Email: jjc@pobox.com Web: http://pobox.com/~jjc/ ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: MCI Frame Outage Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 11:25:58 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer The people at MCI-Worldcom here in Hong Kong have told us that the problems we are experiencing are due to a broken undersea cable. Is their whole network going to hell or what? Steven >> I'm still looking for detailed information as to the cause of the >> major MCI outage this last week. I understand they are using >> (upgrading) to Ascend/Cascade platform for their frame network and >> that they have been quoted in the press saying that the software >> caused the outage. Anyone have any information as to the validity of >> this or any other detailed information of this problem. I'm wondering >> how this might affect a similar Ascend configuration as a potential >> buyer. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #318 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 19 21:13:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA01019; Thu, 19 Aug 1999 21:13:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 21:13:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908200113.VAA01019@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #319 TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Aug 99 21:13:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 319 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson No Credit Cards After All (TELECOM Digest Editor) My Second Disappointment of the Day (TELECOM Digest Editor) MyLine Service Discontinued (M. D. Parker) Arizona's New Telemarketing Law (Philip Tait) Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? (anyone) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Coredump) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (The Bakers) Re: Dialing "Blocked" 800, 888, 877 Numbers (Bill Levant) Re: Dialing "Blocked" 800, 888, 877 Numbers (John McHarry) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (John Stafford) Determining PIC (Dave Close) Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms (Sean Donelan) Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication (figue20@aol.com) Re: Escrow Service Protects Buyers and Sellers on Net (plasticbill) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:31:12 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: No Credit Cards After All Well, it appears i-escrow.com is not quite up to the task ... at least at this point. Regretably, the fact that they are unwilling to handle what they term 'intangibles', i.e. web site membership fees, and similar information services, is not very well spelled out in the introductory material sent out by their partner beseen.com ... yes, it is stated -- way down deep in their terms of service -- that they will not do it, but none of the introductory material that I read said anything about it. After a few of you tested it out yesterday and today to see how it would work, i-escrow.com contacted me and said they would not handle the transactions; they are quite concerned about the rate of fraud on the net. With tangible goods, a specific delivery address and return receipt provides them with protection they find adequate; there is no delivery receipt or delivery address where information services or web-site 'memberships' are concerned. Although it was not actually stated in the two conversations I had with them, I also get the impression they are not that interested in very small accounts such as this site either. Obviously for them, a large sale of several hundred or several thousand dollars where a signed delivery receipt is available is going to be a lot more profitable than two or three 'sales' of twenty dollars each in a month's time where there is no signature on file. I cannot blame them really, and I do believe their service to the net is very useful assuming you actually have tangible merchandise to sell, and are not merely trading as I do, on my good looks, charm and intelligence. (You may laugh now, although I am not laughing ... ) If it takes no more work or effort (and possibly less) to process an escrow for a thousand dollars than one for twenty dollars, which would you take? The very small, almost non-existent profit on twenty dollar transactions, combined with the notorious amount of fraud on the net does not make an appealing combination. I was told they 'may be able to do it in a few months'; I don't plan to sit here holding my breath while my face turns blue waiting to see if it happens. For those of you who tested the system -- that is, placed an 'order', got it set up in the i-escrow.com system and then cancelled it to see if they were good on their word and how it would work, I hope you found it to work as I said it would. I do think it is a reputable service, being bonded, licensed and supervised by the state of California and something that will benefit the buyers and sellers of the net. Well, so much for my bright idea of the week; I am sorry it did not work out and apologize to those of you who were intending to use it. Look Smart/beseen.com did not leave me looking very smart this time. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:41:30 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: My Second Disappointment of the Day Now comes word that the MyLine people are going out of business. All existing accounts, including my own, are killed as of September 1. I have to wonder what is wrong with those people? They have a perfectly fine product which they have refused to market with any degree of effort since it was first started. I know it is going to be a real pain for me to find something that works as well for the same money. Maybe that guy who spammed me yesterday with all the stuff for sale who said he also offers follow-me style 800 numbers will answer as I invited him to do so he can explain his plan. PAT ------------------------------ From: mdpc@netcom.com (M. D. Parker) Subject: MyLine Service Discontinued Date: 19 Aug 1999 23:02:26 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. FYI... I called Ernie Strong and he related that the MyLine service is being sold to the original developers. During this ownership transfer neither Call America nor the new owners are taking orders for new service. From what I understand the official transfer date is 1 September 1999 ... but taking new orders will follow that date by some period. Mike mdpc@netcom.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Instead of 500 Follow Me as such you > may want to look into something like Call America's 'My Line' service > which does the same things on a toll free 800 number. The 'My Line' > service is identical in all respects to the old 500 service, but it > is greatly enhanced with voicemail, immediate re-routing of your 800 > number to wherever you want it to ring, the ability to use it for > outgoing calls without a calling card/payphone surcharge added, etc. > They are located in San Luis Obispo, CA. You can contact GST/Call > America at 800-541-6316 and speak with Ernie Strong. I have used > them for several years with complete satisfaction. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is not a question of 'taking any new orders'; the entire thing is being shut down according to the voicemail I got today from someone at their office. As of September 1 it is dead. I certainly am pleased with the two week notice I got. This really is not a surprise. They've made little or no effort to market it for quite a long time, despite what a good service it is. I don't know right now where I will get the same kind of service. I may not even bother with it any longer to be honest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Philip Tait Subject: Arizona's New Telemarketing Law Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 14:19:33 -0700 Organization: AlliedSignal Engines & Systems - Phoenix, AZ Good news from telemarketing sufferers in Az: http://www.ag.state.az.us/pr/081799.html (Phoenix, AZ) - Secretary of State Betsey Bayless and Attorney General Janet Napolitano today announced that a new State law, SB 1326, passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Jane Hull this year, will help pprotect consumers from unwanted telemarketing calls. Their joint effort to educate the public about the law, which took effect August 6, includes a new brochure, phone cards for consumers to place by their telephones and television public service announcements. The law mandates that most telephone sellers register with the Secretary of State's Office. Registration forms are available on the Secretary of State's website at www.sosaz.com. Consumers may now search for telephone solicitors' registration online. Telemarketers who qualify to file a limited registration under the new law may for the first time register online. The information will immediately be available to the public on the website. Arizona's "do not call" statute is similar to a federal law requiring most telephone sellers to maintain a "do not call" list. Consumers can have their names placed on individual companies' lists by simply telling telephone salespeople that they do not want to be called. In addition, the law prohibits sellers from: intentionally dialing cellular phones or pagers; using automated random dialing to access unlisted or unpublished telephone numbers; using call blocking; dialing telephone numbers with prerecorded messages without the consumer's prior consent. Violators could face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation. Information on telemarketing is available by calling the Attorney General's Office at (602) 542-5763 or 1-800-352-8431 and on the Secretary of State's Office website. Information on individual companies is available from the Better Business Bureau at (602) 264-1721. Philip J. Tait.....AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az.....pjt@phxase.allied.com ------------------------------ From: anyone@anywhere.com (anyone) Subject: Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? Date: 19 Aug 1999 15:46:43 PDT Organization: Concentric Internet Services I am looking for a regular POTS line phone that will enable me to send and recieve emails from the phone, without having to use a computer. I am willing to get an ISP for a mail account, but don't want to use a computer. I have seen the phone in "Hello Direct", but it only receives. I want to send as well. TIA ... jmg [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Dear JMG, whoever you are, was this such a controversial topic that you felt you had to send it anonymously to be published here? Anyone at anywhere, indeed ... how is anyone supposed to reply to you if they wish to do so, or don't you care if they do or not? PAT] ------------------------------ From: coredump@NOxSPAM.enteract.com (Coredump) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 23:21:54 GMT Organization: Cores' Internet and Storm Door Company On 15 Aug 1999 01:13:19 -0400, kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: > In article , Charles Gray > wrote: >> Thus, the terminal block with four screws that was mounted on millions of >> residential baseboards was a "C block". What happened to "A blocks", >> and "B blocks" I will never know. > Not really related, but ... > We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us > even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA > batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? Sure, they are/were about 8" tall and 2" dia. 1.5 Volts. They used to be used in rural telco subscriber equipment, for talk battery among other things. I don't think they're made any longer. John coredump@NOSPAM.enteract.com http://www.enteract.com/~coredump Lost and bewildered on the Information Superhighway [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can still get them in Radio Shack. They are also used to operate Western Union clocks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: The Bakers Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 20:58:00 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Art Kamlet wrote: > We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us > even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA > batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? Yes, they were large dry cells used to power the filaments in battery operated vacuum tube radios. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:24:04 EDT Subject: Re : Dialing "Blocked" 800/888/877 Numbers > the type of 800 number which was on a dedicated wire pair of its own > with no 'ring to' number attached. Even back when 800 numbers worked like this, they had "plant test numbers" associated with them, that worked (for INCOMING calls) just like most 800 numbers work today. You could even get dial tone on them (at least where I worked, in NJ) but you couldn't dial anywhere ... not even operator ... everything went to an intercept. The outbound WATS trunks had numbers like 609-175-1111; I don't know if they had PTN's. Bill ------------------------------ From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 00:41:27 GMT On Wed, 18 Aug 1999 22:40:00 -0400, Judith Oppenheimer wrote: > However, these companies do have local numbers as well, without which > there'd be no 'ring-to' number to designate pointing the toll free > number to. 800 numbers with significant volume are generally connected directly to the long distance carrier. They have no NANPA number. Of course the companies do, but those numbers don't generally go to the same places as the 800 numbers, which can have time of day and point of origin routing. Smaller volume 800 numbers tend to behave as you describe. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Judith, I am wondering if there are > any longer the type of 800 number which was on a dedicated wire > pair of its own with no 'ring to' number attached. Do you recall > the kind I mean? Years ago, you could go into an office and see a > phone that was the actual 800 line termination itself. It would be > a one-way incoming line (battery, but no dial tone if you lifted > the receiver when no call was present). The number plate on the > phone would even identify it as 800-xxx-xxxx. Usually there was no > dial or touch-tone pad on the phone; it looked like a manual > instrument. Next question: is there such a thing as 'banded in-Wats' > any longer, as far as pricing is concerned? For significant volume, rates are pretty negotiable. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some sort of banded pricing in effect, but I am not aware of any. > Finally, is there such a thing as outgoing wats service any longer, > or has the price for long distance calls in general been reduced to > the point that no one cares about purchasing X hours of time per month > as could be done in the old days? Judith or anyone else is welcome to > answer. PAT] Again, for enough volume, everything is negotiable. I seem to recall that in Canada there is even an unmetered evening service for consumers. This is about the same as outwats. It would surprise me if nobody was offering businesses flat rate calling in the US for dedicated access. It isn't too hard to calculate how many minutes this amounts to. ------------------------------ From: John Stafford Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 20:21:32 -0400 Organization: Global Network Services - Remote Access Mail & News Services (To the writer who had three bills per month to pay): You're probably not the target market. I have a couple more bills than yourself (say seven/month phone, cable, electricity, water, rent, car insurance, credit card) which cost a minimum of $2.31 to process (stamp cost). While writing a check isn't hard by any means, they cost about 5 cents a piece (.35) and are a slight pain (a few minutes each to write check, find stamp, assemble envelope, and mail). Probably 45 minutes/month. I can cut that to 15 with online bill paying. A half hour of my time is probably worth a few dollars. Just input the amount and go (or not even that with the new bill receipt ones which will automatically pay). Now the cost would be around $5-8 for my level of usage depending on provider (I use statusfactory.com) so I am still spending a small amount for convenience. Also consider the float (up to $1500 for two weeks or more) I can easily get by having my payment go out on a date closer to the due date. Worth $1-2. Unfortunately, you could get the same effect by setting up direct withdrawal for all of your bills, which I can do (and actually have done) for every bill except for my credit card and rent. But this way it would all be integrated at one place and I wouldn't have to change my information (and give my information) at seven different merchants for electronic payment. So why do I do it? Because I travel out of the country a lot. I can set up my bills to be paid months in advance (or automatically upon receipt). And that is worth a heck of a lot more than $7/month. One missed payment on a credit card is $29 these days which pays for several months right there. And being evicted while gone would be unpleasant. My only other option is massive upfront payments which make people suspicious and lead to bad incentives on their part. Or make a large (and possibly dangerous) imposition on a friend or relative. Other people I know who use these services are people who have the money to pay their bills but are "bad" at doing it. While I find that somewhat sad (after all, its really not that hard), it's a luxury item. Really it's a small amount (restaurant meal for one person) to make something hated much easier. But with three checks/month that you're always home to process it'd be pretty dumb. John Robert Casey wrote in message news:telecom19. 318.14@telecom-digest.org: > I've been hearing radio commercials for internet web based bill paying > services lately. Idea is to get rid of the hassle of writing checks ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Determining PIC Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 23:00:47 GMT I know that I can call 700 554 4141 to determine the current PIC on most phone lines. However, I have PRI circuits provisioned for data access only. They have no audio. Is there some way to determine the PIC on such lines, other than calling the local carrier? Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) Subject: Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms Date: 19 Aug 99 16:28:14 CDT Organization: Data Research Associates, St. Louis MO > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let me ask you this Derek -- what right > does Geocities/Yahoo have to grant themselves *any rights whatsoever* > regards the work of someone else without that person's permission? The basic theory is two parties can enter into any legal agreement they want. In consideration for Geocities service, you agree to license use of your web content to them. Two parties freely entering a contract. For example, by buying/using a major league baseball ticket and entering the stadium, you have indicated your agreement for Major League Baseball to broadcast use your image at the baseball park as a happy/drunk/ stupid fan essentially forever. If you don't want MLB to use your face, don't enter the ballpark. Pretty much the same thing goes for Geocities/Yahoo, if you don't want to license the use to them, don't put use their servers for your web pages. Obviously, there are caveats, and you should always consult a lawyer about your particular situation. In particular, what happens when Geocities/Yahoo unilaterally changes their agreement. Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I understand how legal agreements work, thank you. What I guess I do not understand is why anyone would want to go along with such a lame-brained, one-sided deal. Is there a shortage of sites where one can establish a web page these days? PAT] ------------------------------ From: FIGUE20@aol.com Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 18:34:30 EDT Subject: Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication Do you have info or do you know the home page for United Vista Telecommunication? ------------------------------ From: plasticbill@my-deja.com Subject: Re: Escrow Service Protects Buyers and Sellers on Net Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 21:31:20 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Hey PAT, I went to iEscrow and checked it out but couldn't find the link. I tried again later and realized that the link to BuyIt was actually an ad. BuyIt is actually a joint service from Beseen and iEscrow. You can't sign up on the iEscrow site for the button -- you've actually should go straight to: http://buyit.beseen.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for the clarification on this, but it is all sort of a moot point from my point of view. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #319 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 20 03:40:20 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id DAA14416; Fri, 20 Aug 1999 03:40:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 03:40:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908200740.DAA14416@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #320 TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Aug 99 03:40:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 320 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: Issues 317 and 318 (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Bruce F. Roberts) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Hudson Leighton) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Derek Balling) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (John B. Hines) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Christopher Wolf) Re: Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? (Richard Shockey) Re: US West In Court Over ISDN Net Service Speeds (Brian Elfert) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (John David Galt) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (Herb Stein) Re: MCI Frame Outage (John R. Levine) Re: Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication (John R. Levine) Re: LA Shootings: 1999 v.1968 (David Scheidt) 900 Mhz Cordless Phone (Herb Stein) Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms (Derek Balling) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 22:24:31 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Administrivia: Issues 317 and 318 After issue 317 went out on Thursday, the counter keeping track of issue numbers failed to increment and issue 318 went out with a *subject line* saying 317 even though all the contents inside were labeled 318. Please adjust your copies accordingly. 319 then went out Thursday night, and this message appears in 320. Also, some have complained that the issues are arriving out of order when sent in email. I do not have any solution for this problem, it just gets sent when the mailing software at LCS/MIT decides to send it. Sorry. Thanks! PAT ------------------------------ From: Bruce F. Roberts Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 18:41:43 -0700 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services The "A" battery was the low volt cell, usually 6 volts, in an antique radio circuit. If you recall the cylindrical 6 volt batteries with brass, knurled nuts that was much like an old "A" battery. The "B" cell was the high volt battery, usually 90 to 135 volts. TTFN -br- ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 21:32:53 -0500 Organization: SkyPoint Communications, Inc. >> We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us >> even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA >> batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? > Sure, they are/were about 8" tall and 2" dia. 1.5 Volts. They used to > be used in rural telco subscriber equipment, for talk battery among > other things. > I don't think they're made any longer. > > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can still get them in Radio Shack. > They are also used to operate Western Union clocks. PAT] And your local Elevator/COOP/Feed Store they are used to run Electric Fence Chargers , usually used in threes they also come in a large lantern battery style that is 3 A cells in a metal case. http://www.skypoint.com/~hudsonl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:31:58 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? At 05:40 PM 8/19/99 -0400, you wrote: > I've been hearing radio commercials for internet web based bill paying > services lately. Idea is to get rid of the hassle of writing checks > and licking stamps. And that you can have this service take care of > it for you. They email the fact you have this bill, and you authorize > them to pay it. Maybe I don't get that many bills (3, the electric > bill, phone bill, credit card bill, and rent check) per month, and it > takes a few minutes at most to do them (I pay them when I get them, > that way they don't get forgotten). And I don't have to entrust a > service with open access to my money (checking account). And they > must be making money at this somehow to pay for the commercials and > etc. > So, what's the point? I know some people, who have valuations in excess of 8 digits, who can't get a credit card despite their huge assets. Why? Because they're so damn busy they forget to pay their bills. Seriously, not kidding around here. This is probably more prevalent here in Silicon Valley, where you have people with decent salaries, nice stock options, and working 6-7 days a week 12 hours a day and wondering what that thing called "sleep" is, let alone "Free Time". Honestly, you're NOT the target audience for that service. Someone like those people are the target audience, where they can go to a web site, spend 30 seconds every couple weeks to go "click" and pay all their bills, done, fin, over. It's the high-tech equivalent of hiring an accountant who receives all your bills, pays them, and manages your day-to-day money (a common practice, ask nearly any Hollywood star). D ------------------------------ From: jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 03:32:30 GMT Organization: US Citizen, disabled with MS, speaking solely for myself. wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) wrote: > So, what's the point? That sending you a bill via e-mail is a whale of lot cheaper for the guy currently sending you a paper bill every month. Silly you, expecting the consumer to benefit ... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 00:10:38 -0500 From: Christopher Wolf Organization: Texas Instruments Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) asked: > I've been hearing radio commercials for internet web based bill paying > services lately. Idea is to get rid of the hassle of writing checks > and licking stamps. And that you can have this service take care of it > for you. They email the fact you have this bill, and you authorize > them to pay it. Maybe I don't get that many bills (3, the electric > bill, phone bill, credit card bill, and rent check) per month, and it > takes a few minutes at most to do them (I pay them when I get them, > that way they don't get forgotten). And I don't have to entrust a > service with open access to my money (checking account). And they must > be making money at this somehow to pay for the commercials and etc. > So, what's the point? I don't need envelopes, stamps, checks or time to run to the post office. The monthly fee works out to be close to what I spent on stamps. I send the command to pay the bills as soon as they come in, but the bank knows I actually want it to wait X days before sending an electronic payment to the business, giving me extra interest. Standing payments like the mortgage get send automatically and on time, every time. For other standing loan payments, I pay ahead a few months at a time, with commands to not actually send the money until Oct 1 or Nov 1 or etc. It's my bank which handles the payments, so no outside services except the one who forwards the payment requests. W ------------------------------ From: rshockey@ix.netcom.NsSPaM.com (Richard Shockey) Subject: Re: Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 01:45:07 GMT Organization: Shockey Consulting LLC anyone@anywhere.com (anyone) wrote: > I am looking for a regular POTS line phone that will enable me to send > and recieve emails from the phone, without having to use a computer. > I am willing to get an ISP for a mail account, but don't want to use a > computer. I have seen the phone in "Hello Direct", but it only > receives. I want to send as well. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Dear JMG, whoever you are, was this > such a controversial topic that you felt you had to send it anonymously > to be published here? Anyone at anywhere, indeed ... how is anyone > supposed to reply to you if they wish to do so, or don't you care if > they do or not? PAT] Well he may have a silly email address but his topic is rather timely ... NEW YORK (AP) -- SBC Communications, the telephone company for the Southwest and California, plans to sell an e-mail-only phone service for people who want to communicate online, but don't want to use a computer or surf the Internet. The new eMessage service, expected to be announced on Thursday, uses a portable telephone attachment with a computer-like keyboard and screen. SBC, based in San Antonio, hopes eMessage will appeal to those who find that e-mail has become an essential tool for business or personal dealings -- but also find computers and the Internet either intimidating, confusing, time-consuming or too expensive. eMessage would mark the first time a major phone company has offered service for an ``information appliance'' designed for those who want to use the Internet with the ease of turning on a television or making a call. But an e-mail-only device might prove too limited compared with a new breed of Internet telephones that will enable people to engage in popular Web activities like shopping and chatting without having to boot up a computer or log on. eMessage will be introduced in September at a cost of about $10 a month, about the same as the typical monthly fee for limited Web access via computer, or half the fee for unlimited Web access. Likewise, the eMessage device will sell for about $180, half as much as the new Web-phones. SBC will sell eMessage through its Pacific Bell unit in California and through its Southwestern Bell unit in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas. Richard Shockey Shockey Consulting LLC 8045 Big Bend Blvd. Suite 110 St. Louis, MO 63119 Voice 314.918.9020 FAX 314.918.9015 Internet E-Mail/IFAX rshockey@ix.netcom.com eFAX 815.333.1237 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: US West In Court Over ISDN Net Service Speeds From: belfert@foshay.citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 01:42:06 GMT tzs@halcyon.com (Tim Smith) writes: > Keep this in mind whenever a USWest customer is describing rates. > Rumor is that USWest is putting in new equipment that will let them > actually limit the 256 kbit (and the 512 kbit) customers to the rated > speed. As of August 9th, US West is limiting speeds to the purchased speed for new customers. New 256k and 512k customers no longer get 640k rates. US West has not changed the speeds on existing customers due to fears of backlash from existing customers. Brian ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 02:29:09 GMT llambda@gmx.net wrote: > I have noticed that someone has been registering at web sites with a > user name of "cypherpunks" and a password of either "writecode" or > "cypherpunks". This interferes with the proper purpose of the web: > targetted advertising. The proper purpose of the web is to let companies (and anyone with a web site) participate in a great database which anyone can search and use. It is a "pull" model, where we get the information when _we_ choose to go and get it, as opposed to a "push" model such as the practices of junk-mail and spam, where the company sends us stuff when _they_ feel like it. Some companies use web-sites as gateways to systems that attempt to (a) sell information to paying customers, or (b) collect information about anyone who views their pages (usually on the sly). There is nothing wrong with (a), but I see it as an extension to the original purpose of the web, and it would be a bad thing if it replaced most of the free sites. (b), in my view, is not legitimate unless you ask the user in simple language what you want them to tell you, and tell them exactly how the data will be used (as Europe now requires and we ought to). To mine personal data directly from users' computers without their knowledge is intrusion/cracking and ought to be illegal. The NY Times' activity lies somewhere between (a) and (b). At least they openly request your information, so they're not doing wrong; but if the web has a "proper purpose," their desire for information about you is certainly not that purpose. John David Galt ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 04:19:52 GMT The other thing that is important about this subject is this: ALWAYS lie, big time, whenever asked questions in a poll. If my opinion is worth asking for, I expect financial remuneration for it. I'm not trying to be anonymous, just obnoxious. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: MCI Frame Outage Date: 19 Aug 1999 22:36:45 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The bottom line is that they didn't adequately test this patch. > Saying Lucent provided bogus code does not relieve them of the > responsibility to test the software in the lab before rolling it > out. According to info I've read elsewhere, Lucent warned them that the update wasn't ready for prime time, but MCI decided to deploy it anyway. Why it took them a week to figure out that Lucent wasn't kidding when they said it didn't work is beyond me. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication Date: 19 Aug 1999 22:57:14 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Do you have info or do you know the home page for United Vista > Telecommunication? If you mean Vista-United Telecommunications, it's the local phone company for Disney World and a few immediately adjacent businesses. As far as I can tell, it has no residential subscribers, unless Disney's Potempkin village of Celebration is in its service area. Vista is as in Buena Vista, a/k/a Disney, United is as in United Telecom a/k/a Sprint, it's a partnership between the two. Surely they have the only LEC-issued phone book with Mickey Mouse on the cover. They claim to be the first LEC in the country to deploy fiber optics and the first to implement 911. They don't appear to have a web site. Don't see why they'd want one. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: David Scheidt Subject: Re: LA Shootings: 1999 v.1968 Date: 20 Aug 1999 06:23:17 GMT Organization: EnterAct L.L.C. Turbo-Elite News Server > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 1968 was a particularly troubling year > at least. Chicago was a bit more brutal than some other cities, but > things were like this all over the USA that year. And even to this > day Chicago Police insist they did not start any trouble. PAT] Well, of course. Everybody knows the Police aren't here to cause disorder, they are here to preserve disorder. dscheidt@enteract.com Ketchup, therefore, shows both thixotropic and pseudoplastic rheological properties. -- John Schmitt, in AFU [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That was a comment by Mayor Daley on the occassion of one of the several riots in Chicago during 1968. PAT] ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: 900 Mhz Cordless Phone Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 03:50:44 GMT Does anyone know about the Bell Phones (by Northwestern Bell) 900 Mhz "Cordless Phone with Caller ID for Call Waiting." $49.99 - seems too cheap to be worth a ... Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:27:34 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms Garrett wrote: > They don't, and can't, grant themselves anything -- the person > providing uploading the Web pages grants them permission. The > agreement is a legal CYA which allows them to actually perform the > service they are being asked to perform. (If the user does not grant > permission to disseminate, then it makes no sense to upload it to a > service whose sole purpose is to disseminate.) To which Pat responded: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Obviously no one is going to object to > whatever technical requirements are present regarding uploading and > downloading of files, or moving them around from one server to another > as needed. And it should go without saying that if someone puts a > web page there they want it to be seen. Maybe they should have phrased > things differently, and instead, talked about the processes involved > and how they do it, and made it easier for their users to understand. PAT] No, Pat, this is legal stuff here. Nothing is obvious except that Yahoo is a multi-billion-dollar with deep pockets for people to sue. In the legal world, NOTHING goes without saying. As Tom Clancy put it in one of his books, "If it isn't written down, it didn't happen"... It's sad, I wish it wasn't that way, and I wish there could be a certain amount of "that makes sense" in the legal world, but that's just the way it is. Without that legalese, someone would be well within their rights to sue Yahoo for the mere act of actually serving the content up, let alone copying it to a server farm without permission. Why isn't the technical explanation in the document? Ask your lawyer. You NEVER explain things in a legal document. You say the minimum you need to say to accomplish the task you need to accomplish, in this case, granting the rights to the data to Yahoo. Once you explain things, you get into interpretations, and "I thought it meant this", and "But you only meant that". Again, standard disclaimers apply ... I am NOT a company spokesperson, I'd probably get my ass kicked for even discussing this (well not really, but probably a harsh talking to *g*).... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let me ask you this Derek -- what right > does Geocities/Yahoo have to grant themselves *any rights whatsoever* > regards the work of someone else without that person's permission? > I am not talking about *linking* to it; that is a right that everyone > has; I am talking about copying it or disseminating it, and/or dis- > tributing it. This is an easy one. If you upload your HTML page to say, uploads.geocities.yahoo.com (a fictional machine). If I, as Yahoo, want to copy that file over to www1 through www5000.geocities.yahoo.com (a very fictional number, but representing the large mass of web servers in Yahoo's server farm serving up Geocities pages), then I, as Yahoo, NEED that right. The Digital Copyright Protection Act would explicitly forbid me from copying that data without you granting me the right to do that. If Yahoo was to copy that data, WITHOUT that license being granted, any Homesteader could say "Hey, they copied my data to 5000 servers in California! I didn't give them permission to do that!", and they'd be right. WE can't copy it at all, not without EXPLICIT license to do so. Likewise, we can't actually SEND that data to anyone (e.g., people who want to view the web page) unless we have a license to use the data. It could be charged that, by sending someone's copyrighted work without getting an explicit license to do so, that we have violated their copyright by the mere act of serving the page. Without that license, we become nothing more than an extension of the user's hard drive. We can't move it to web servers, we can't fulfill requests for copies of the data via HTTP, we can't do anything. It can only sit, exactly where the creator of the data put it and never be touched or used by anyone by the creator. Is that what you intended when you uploaded to Geocities/Yahoo? I certainly doubt it. Why does it have to be sublicensable? Because we may not always own the server farm, we may contract out to another company to manage a server farm for us. If we do that, then we need to be able to grant them the same rights to copy the data, disseminate the data, etc., that we enjoy, because they're going to need that same degree of coverage and protection from liability. > Its not like free web space on the net was in short supply you know True, but from what I can tell of other "free web space" licenses, their legal departments need to go pick up a copy of the DCPA and actually read it, or else some enterprising web designer could sue the bejeezus out of them and win lots of cash. That's the long and the short of it, Yahoo needs that license, legally, to do the task that the user, in uploading content, WANTS Yahoo to do. To serve the content without that license is opening Yahoo for a Copyright violation lawsuit, which is bad in every sense of the word. What we screwed up on, and I think we're the first ones to admit it, was that we didn't limit ourselves to the duration of the "user lifetime". You'll notice that we still grant ourselves those rights, and those rights have never changed from any version of the User Agreeement. All that really changed was the "out clauses" upon which we surrender/lose that license to the data. > I would like to hope that in the merger of the > two, Geocities would begin to be a better place, and get lifted up > to the higher standards it seems to me have always applied at Yahoo > rather than Yahoo getting lured and seduced into operating in the > way Geocities has done since its beginning. Yahoo has a number of > very excellent services; its 'My Yahoo' news page and its news > ticker are wonderful features (when they work right, snicker!) and > I trust I won't see an advertising popup on my screen from them > anytime soon. PAT] The pop-up ads fall into the realm of things covered by NDA's and such, but I can say that, personally, I find the Geocities pop-up ads the most annoying things on the planet, and that I am not alone in this belief. :) And I'll pass along your compliments to the respective departments who handle the other properties. :) The terms of Yahoo/Geocities are no different, really from other web space providers: Tripod: "By submitting a Member Web Page to Tripod, you grant Tripod and its affiliates a royalty-free, nonexclusive, worldwide, unrestricted license to use, copy, transmit and distribute the content for the limited purposes of displaying and promoting the user's personal homepage and for displaying the content of such personal homepages elsewhere within the Lycos Network. The term of the license will extend only for the duration of the Tripod membership. In the event that the Tripod membership is terminated for any reason, Tripod Inc. and its affiliates will relinquish all rights to the member content as described above following the duration of any applicable promotional activities ongoing at the time the membership is terminated. " Xoom.com: You grant to XOOM.com and its affiliates a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide, unrestricted license to use, copy, modify, transmit, distribute, and publicly perform or display the submitted pages or other content for the purposes of displaying such information on XOOM.com's sites and for the promotion and marketing of XOOM.com's services. XOOM.com disclaims ownership of member sites and will not resell or otherwise convey these rights to any third party. [Note that their contract doesn't allow them the option of subcontracting out their web farming. Potentially shortsighted but necessarily a problem. Xoom.com actually doesn't have an out-clause. Note that the license is irrevocable, which is where Yahoo ran into problems earlier.] Homepage.com: "HomePage.com does not claim ownership of the Content you place on your HomePage.com Site. By submitting Content to HomePage.com for inclusion on your HomePage.com Site, you grant HomePage.com the world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your HomePage.com Site and HomePage.com itself. You acknowledge that HomePage.com does not pre-screen Content, but that HomePage.com and its designees shall have the right (but not the obligation) in their sole discretion to refuse or remove any Content that is available via the Service. Without limiting the foregoing, HomePage.com and its designees shall have the right to remove any Content that violates the TOS or is otherwise objectionable. You agree that you must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of any Content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such Content. " These are the same things in the Yahoo/Geocities license: "Yahoo does not claim ownership of the Content you place on your Yahoo GeoCities Site. By submitting Content to Yahoo for inclusion on your Yahoo GeoCities Site, you grant Yahoo the world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your Yahoo GeoCities Site on Yahoo's Internet properties. This license exists only for as long as you continue to be a Yahoo GeoCities homesteader and shall be terminated at the time your Yahoo GeoCities Site is terminated. You acknowledge that Yahoo does not pre-screen Content, but that Yahoo and its designees shall have the right (but not the obligation) in their sole discretion to refuse or remove any Content that is available via the Service. Without limiting the foregoing, Yahoo and its designees shall have the right to remove any Content that violates the TOS or is otherwise objectionable. You agree that you must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of any Content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such Content. " You might even notice some similarities in wording ... What Yahoo has is functionally identical to what MANY of the web page providers have. Why? Because they HAVE to have that in there. Many of the providers either influenced our agreement directly, or were directly influenced by our agreement (I have NO idea which is older, so I won't speculate), but the similarities between Yahoo's agreement and Homepage.com's agreement are eerily uncanny. Hopefully, this can put an end to this thread? D ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #320 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 20 05:31:42 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id FAA17319; Fri, 20 Aug 1999 05:31:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 05:31:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908200931.FAA17319@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #321 TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Aug 99 05:31:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 321 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Tutorial: Doing Your Own Telephone Wiring (Digest Reprint) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Steven) E-commerce and Privacy: Perception Versus Reality (Monty Solomon) Re: VISA Authorizations (Andy Finkenstadt) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Herb Stein) U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Monty Solomon) The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault (TELECOM Digest Editor) Even I Get Accused of Spamming (TELECOM Digest Editor) Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Tutorial: Doing Your Own Telepone Wiring Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 04:00:00 EDT As the time for the AT&T divestiture was drawing near in the early 1980's, telcos were issuing booklets to their customers letting them know about such things as how to do their own telephone wiring and installation of phones. I thought you might like to see one of those booklets, which was printed here in the Digest about seventeen years ago. If you are planning on doing some telephone wiring of your own in the near future, perhaps you will want to print this out and keep it for future reference. This appeared in the Digest originally on Monday, November 29, 1982 as a special supplement sent out to the mailing list and Usenet. PAT ---------------------------- TELECOM Digest Supplement Monday, 29 November 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 133A Today's Topics: New England Telephone's Customer-Provided Inside Wire Program Date: 22 Nov 1982 1952-EST From: Dave Mitton Subject: New England Telephone's Customer-Provided Inside Wire Program An Introduction to Providing Your Own Telephone Wiring How to Do It Yourself, Including Technical, Material and Workmanship Standards. New England Telephone [Transcriber's Notes: There was no copyright notice, reference number or order number on this pamplet. I have corrected a few typos that I found. The page numbering in the original Table of Contents was preserved, but I have repaginated this transcription to fit on standard 66-line line printer paper. DJM 22-Nov-82 ] WARNING: Limitations of Liability o The customer is responsible for the installation of CPIW and standard jacks in the accordance with the tecical standards furnished to the Public Utilities Commission. o In the event that the customer installs, maintains or attempts to maintain inside wire, the customer assumes the risk of loss of service, damage to property, or injury of the customer or the customer's agent. The customer will save the Company harmless from any and all liability, claims, or damage suits arising out of the customer's wire installation or maintenance activity. o Where CPIW is maintained by the customer, the customer is responsible for correcting any service difficulty that is causing harm to the telecommunications network upon notice from the Company that such wire is causing the difficulty. o In those instances where the Company makes a repair visit to the customer's premises and the service difficulty or trouble results from the CPIW that is not installed or maintained in accordance with the technical standards for such wire, the customer will be responsible for the payment of the Maintencance of the Service Charge in the accordance with Company tariffs filled with the Public Utilities Commission. TABLE OF CONTENTS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction.................................. 1 What Is Inside Wire?.......................... 2 What Is A Network Interface................... 2 Means Of Connection To The Network............ 2 General Considerations........................ 3 Technical and Safety Considerations......... 3 Limitations................................. 4 Connecting Your Telephone..................... 4 Workmanship And Material Specifications For Customer-Provided Inside Wire (CPIW)........ 6 How To Install Your Own Telephone Wire........ 8 Wiring Components........................... 8 Planning Your Wiring Job.................... 9 When Planning Remember......................10 Caution: Safety First!......................12 Installation Steps..........................13 Testing.......................................14 Troubleshooting...............................14 Quick Installation Checklist..................15 Table A.....................................16 Table B.....................................16 Table C.....................................16 Table D.....................................17 Appendix A - Definition of Terms..............18 Notes.........................................21 CUSTOMER PROVIDED INSIDE WIRE (CPIW) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction The New England Telephone Company now offers the option for customers (or their agents) to install their own residential or multi-party* and individual line cusiness wiring for use with Federal Communications Commision (FCC) registered or grandfathered nonbutton and/or single button telephone sets and associated equipment. *NOTE: Party-line service must have Telephone Company provided terminal sets. Customer provided equipment may not be used with PARTY LINE SERVICE. Customers with (semi-public) coin telephones or multi-line equipment on their exchange service are not eligible for this option. This pamplet contains minimum technical material and workmanship standards for the installation of inside wire by customers. It contains guidelines that a customer must follow. It will explain how to plan your wiring project, what components are available and necessary to do the job. Further, it explains how to safely install wiring, what safety percautions to take, and how to test your wiring when you complete it. Also, it explains how your telephone is connected to the telecommunications network. Customers must comply with all building and electrical codes in the jurisdiction served by The New England Telephone Company and Article 800, entitled, Communications Circuits of the Electrical Code, relevant sections of which are incorporated by reference in this booklet. The standards in this document are subject to change as technology, installation and maintenance methods change. The New England Telephone Company reserves the right to revise these standards when the need arises. Customer safety and the safety of our employees is a great concern of The New England Telephone Company. Appendix A provides a definition of the terms used herein. WHAT IS INSIDE WIRE? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside Wire is all telephone wire that is inside a telephone company customer's premises and is located on the customer's side of the Network Interface (NI). Customer Premises Inside Wire can be installed by the customer of the customer's agent, other than The New England Telephone Company. WHAT IS A NETWORK INTERFACE? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Network Interface (NI) is the physical and electrical boundary between Customer Premises Inside Wire and the telecommunications network. The NI can be any telephone Company-provided modular jack. Your telephone line runs from your home or business to the local telephone company switching office. There it is connected to equipment that hooks you up with the nationwide telephone network. [A figure shows the modular jack type with a swinging cover on the front. A label on the jack reads: NETWORK INTERFACE o CAUTION Disconnect plug from this jack during installation and repair of wiring o TESTING Plug working phone directly into this jack. If phone operates, Fault is in wiring. If phone does not operate, call Repair service. ] MEANS OF CONNECTION TO THE NETWORK --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The line will enter your home and terminate in an NI which is installed by the Telephone Company when you establish telephone service. Generally, the telephone wiring entry to a structure will be located at the same place as electrical wiring. The NI will be placed near this entry. If an NI is not in place, any existing telephone company-provided modular jack may be used to connect newly installed customer-provided inside wire to existing inside wire. The NI must be located inside the customer's premises at an accessible point. There are several reasons for this: o Connection through a telephone company-provided modular jack is required by the Federal Communication Commission's (F.C.C.) Registration program. o Utilization of a jack makes it easier to connect or disconnect customer equipment or wire to the telecommunications network. o Having the jack inside the customer's premises helps assure the customer's privacy of communication and helps to prevent unauthorized use. o Utilization of a jack forms a boundary for the ending of the network service and the beginning of the inside wiring and equipment. The point of location for the NI will be determined by The New England Telephone Company. It's important to note that if you plan to add to existing wiring or to wire your premises from scratch, you must have either an NI or other telephone company-provided modular jack that has been installed by The New England Telephone Company. When you complete the wiring, you'll plug your wiring directly to the NI or other telephone company-provided modular jack. The end of your wire must have a modular plug on it to enable you to connect to the NI or telephone company- provided modular jack. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical and Safety Considerations Wiring may only be use to conduct the operating signals, voltage and currents normally found on telephone network service lines. Customer-Provided Inside Wire must be capable of withstanding without damage, exposure to induced lightning surges and 60 Hz power line disturbances. This standard requires that such wiring and its associated hardware be designed, installed and maintained so as to operate safely when conduction these signals, surges and disturbances. Limitations Any Customer-Provided Inside Wire that does not conform to the standards published in this booklet will neither be connected to the network nor maintained by The New England Telephone Company until it is in compliance with tariffs on file. CONNECTING YOUR TELEPHONE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connecting points between your inside wire and your telephones may be of several types, depending on when your phones were installed: o Modular - Most recently installed telephones are connected to the inside wire via a modular system, which, for desk type phones, consists of a miniature plug at the end of the telephone cord and a matching jack on the wall or baseboard. (see Fig. 1). Wall mounted phones have a pair of slots and a sliding modular plug on the back. The phone is attached to a "connecting block" on the wall, which has two rivets that fit into the slots and a modular jack which accepts the plug located on the back of the phone. (see Fig. 2). [Fig. 1 shows a wall surface plate with a modular jack in it.] [Fig. 2 shows the back of a standard modular wall phone and the appropriate modular wall phone plate with the slots and guides labeled.] o Permanently Wired - The telephone is connected directly to the inside wire and cannot be unplugged. The connection point is usually a small, square plastic box near or on the baseboard by the floor. [A figure shows a 42A block with a cord running out of it.] o Four-Prong - On some desk-type telephones, there is a round or rectangular four-prong plug at the end of the telephone cord. The four-prong plug plugs into a jack with four holes. Telephones equipped with such plugs may be plugged in and unplugged easily, enabling you to move them from room to room as needed. [A figure shows a four-prong connector and plug.] To convert permanently wired phones or those with four-prong plugs to a modular system, you will need a converter kit from the Telephone Company or a retail store that sells telecommunications products. (Note: Any converter which is to be used as a NI must be Telephone Company provided.) WORKMANSHIP AND MATERIAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR CUSTOMER-PROVIDED INSIDE WIRE (CPIW) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The specifications contained in this document apply to Customer-Provided Inside Wire, which is used in conjunction with Residence and Individual Line Business telephone service that are used with non-key terminal equipment. 1. Building and Electrical Codes a. All building and electrical codes applicable in your state to telephone wiring shall be complied with. b. The requirements set forth in Article 800 of the National Electrical Code, entitled Communication Circuits and other sections of the code incorporated therein by reference shall be complied with. 2. Wire a. Wire shall be of a gauge no thinner that 24AWG; it shall be flexible annealed copper or its equivalent; it shall contain a minimum of 2 conductors each insulated by a semi-rigid polyvinyl cloride or its equivalent; and should be constructed in a twisted pair configuration. See Table A for additional information. b. Insulated conductors shall have a jacket or sheath with a 1500 volt rms minimum breakdown rating. c. Wiring shall be installed so that there is adequate insulation of telephone wiring from commercial power wiring and grounded services. See Table D from additional information. d. Wiring must be sheathed in an insulating jacket in addition to the insulation enclosing individual conductors, or it must be enclosed in conduit. In either case, it shall be assured that this physical and electrical protection is not damaged or abraded during placement of the wiring. e. Removal of the wiring jacket or individual conductor insulation for connections or splices shall be accomplished by removing the minimum amount of insulation necessary to make connection or splice. Insulation equivalent to that provided on the wire and its jacket shall be suitably restored, either by placement of the splices or connections in an appropriate enclosure, or by using adequately insulated connectors or splicing means. f. Any point where the sheathing, insulation or enclosure for wire has been removed shall be accessible for inspection. If such points are concealed they shall be accessible (e.g., by removing a cover) without disturbing permanent building finish. 3. Physical Protection a. In addition to the general requirements that wiring insulation be adequate and not damaged during placement of the wiring, wiring shall be protected from adverse effects of weather and the environment in which it is used. b. Where wiring is attached to building finish surfaces (surface wiring) it shall be suitably supported by means which do not affect the integrity of the wiring insulation. See Table C for additional information. 4. Electrical Protection Lightning or other hazardous voltage protectors placed by the Telephone Company shall not be disturbed, removed, or otherwise modified by the customer. 5. Limitations on Electrical Signals a. Only signals which emanate from the local telephone company central office, or which are generated by telecommunications equipment at the customer's premises which are "non-hazardous voltage sources" [see Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) Rules Part 68 Section 68.306(b)(4)] may be routed in premises telephone wiring. b. Electrical current on individual wiring conductors shall be limited to values which do not cause an excessive temperature rise, with due regard to insulation materials and ambient temperatures. HOW TO INSTALL YOUR OWN TELEPHONE WIRE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wiring Components Before you buy any wire, plan the whole wiring job to decide how many of the various components you'll need. There are several types of components associated with telephone wiring: o Modular Outlets - These are the jacks or connecting blocks, into which modular phones are plugged. There are two basic types: jacks for desk telephone sets, and jacks for wall telephone sets. In shopping for wiring components, you may find several variations for modular jacks. Some attach to the surface of the baseboard or wall, while others are flush-mounted, requiring a hole in the wall. Some also provide a spring-loaded door to cover the jack opening when nothing is plugged into it. This protects the inside of the jack from dust or dirt, which can damage the electronic contacts. These outlets must meet the Federal Communications Commission's (F.C.C.) Registration Program requirements. o Bridges - The purpose of a bridge is to connect two or more sets of telephone wires. Some bridges include a cord with a modular plug on the end, which can serve as an entrance plug in connecting your wire to the telephone company-provided NI or modular jack. Other bridges are designed to be placed at a junction where several telephone wires meet. Proper use of bridges will minimize the amount of wire required for the job. [A figure shows an outside line that connects to a Protector Block, which connects to a Network Interface, which connects to an Entrance Bridge, which connects to a jack and a Line Bridge, which connects to several jacks.] o Telephone Wire - Wire used should be should be solid copper, 22 to 44 gauge, and have four insulated conductor wires, colored red, green, black and yellow. The wire should have an outer plastic coating protecting all four conductors, all must meet Federal Communications (F.C.C.) requirements (the package should indicate that the material contained therein meets such standards). Wire staples generally are used to secure wire to a wall. PLANNING YOUR WIRING JOB --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Determine where you want to place the modular outlets. Determine which type of outlet is best for each location. If the jack is likely to be exposed to excessive dust or dirt, use jacks with protective covers. Determine the best path to run the wiring from the NI or other existing telephone company-provided modular jack to each of the new outlets. Place bridges where two or more paths come together. Inventory the tools you'll need to do the wiring job, such as: - Screwdriver with insulated handle - A pair of diagonal cutters with insulated grips, to cut wire - A tool to strip the wire coating off without damaging any of the four conductors - Hammer or staple gun for staples used to attach wire to wall or baseboard - Drill, with appropriate sized bits, to drill holes for screws, anchors and toggle bolts - Key hole saw, if a hole in the wall is necessary, and a drill with a large enough bit to make a hole for the saw blade For best results, you should follow these guidelines and observe these restrictions. In addition, your wire must comply with technical, material, and workmanship standards approved by state regulatory bodies and any local building codes. If the wire is not in compliance, the result could be poor telephone service, and your safety and the safety of others may jepardized. The Telephone Company will charge a Service Charge, if a service technician is called to your premises and the trouble is located in your wire and/or if they are required to repair it. WHEN PLANNING, REMEMBER ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- o DO NOT place connections to wiring in outlet or junction boxes containing other electrical wiring. o When wiring, avoid: - damp locations - locations not easily accessible - temporary structures - wire runs that support lighting, decorative objects, etc. - hot locations, such as steam pipes, furnaces, etc. - locations that subject wire and cable to abrasion o Place telephone wire at least six feet from bare power wiring or lightning rods and associated wires, and at least six inches from other kinds of wire (e.g., antenna wires, wires from transformers to neon signs, etc.) steam or hot water pipes and heating ducts. See Table D for additional information. o Do not connect any external power sources to your inside wire or outlets. o Do not run wire between seperate buildings. o Do not expose wire to mechanical stress, such as being pinched when a door or window closes on it. o Do not place wire where it would allow a person to use the phone while in a bathtub, shower, swimming pool or other dangerous locations. o Do not try or pull or push wire behind walls when electric wiring is already present in the wall area. o Use only bridged connections if it is necessary to establish a splice of two or more wires. o Place connecting blocks and jacks high enough to remain moisture-free during normal floor cleaning. o Do not attach jacks so that the opening faces upward - this increases the potential for damage from dirt and dust. o Wires should run horizontally and vertically in straight lines, and should be kept as short as possible between bridges and other connections. o Run wiring along door and window casings, baseboards, trim, and the underside of moldings, so it will not be conspicuous or unsightly. o Wood surfaces are better for fastening wire and attaching connecting blocks, jacks, and bridges. When attaching hardware to walls, place fasteners in studs (wooden beams behind the walls) whenever possible. o If drilling through walls, floors, ceilings, be careful to avoid contacts with concealed hazards, such as electrical wiring, gas pipes, steam or hot water pipes, etc. o If installing wire next grating, metal grillwork, etc., use a wire guard or two layers of friction tape to resist abrasion. o Always fasten wire to cement or cinder blocks with screw anchors, drive anchors, or masonary fasteners. o Avoid running wire outside whenever possible. If exterior wiring is necessary, drill holes through wooden window or door frames and slope entrance holes upward from the outside. Try to use rear and side walls so the wire will not be as noticeble; place horizontal runs out of reach of children and family members; and avoid placing wire in front of signs, doors, windows, fire escapes, "drop wires" and across flat roofs. o When fastening wire to metal siding, the type of fastener used depends on the type of siding and the method used to install it. Check with the vendor who sold you the wiring materials. Look out for voltages coming from the telephone line before starting and work involving metal siding. Extra caution should be used when working on mobile homes. Mobile homes should be properly grounded. Other voltages (e.g. electrical) are usually higher and can therefore present an extreme danger working around metal. Therefore, proper grounding is very important. CAUTION: SAFETY FIRST! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Telephone connections may have varying amounts of electrical current in the bare wires and terminal screws. Therefore, before you begin installation, make sure the entrance point of any existing wire is unplugged from the NI or telephone company-provided modular jack while you are working. This will disconnect any wiring from the telephone network. If you're just connecting a new modular outlet to existing wiring which you cannot disconnect, take the handset of one of your telephones off the hook. This will prevent the phone from ringing and reduce the possibility of electrical shock. Disregard messages or tones coming from the handset signalling you to hang up. In addition: o Use a screwdriver with an insulated handle. o Do not touch screw terminals or bare conductors with your hands. o Do not work on wiring while a thunderstorm is in the vicinity. INSTALLATION STEPS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once you've planned your wiring job, acquired the necessary components, and observed the safety precautions you're ready to start the installation. For each component you use, be sure read thoroughly any instructions accompanying the component before you begin. Follow these simple steps to complete the wiring job: 1. Install a bridge or some other component to act as an entrance plug for your wire. This plug will connect to the NI or telephone company-provided modular jack. The bridge should have a modular-type cord with a plug at the end to insert into the NI or modular jack. Another acceptable type of entrance plug is a length of telephone wire with a modular plug on the end. Do not ever insert the entrance plug into the NI or modular jack until your wiring is completed. 2. Attach each modular jack to the wall or baseboard. Use wood screws on wooden surfaces. Drill holes slightly smaller than the diameter of the screws being used to make installation easier. To fasten components to plasterboard walls, use screw anchors or toggle bolts. 3. Run wire to each modular jack stapling it to the wall or baseboard about every 8 inches. Be sure to not pierce or pinch the wire with staples. Allow enough wire to make the electrical connections to the modular jack attached to the wall or baseboard. See Table C for additional information. 4. Strip the plastic coating on the phone wire as needed and connect the colored conductors (e.g. red, green, black, and yellow) to the terminals for each modular jack. Trim excess wire and attach the modular jack cover (if any) to the base. See Table B for additional information. 5. When you've completed your wiring job, place the plug on the end of your bridge into the NI or telephone company-provided jack. TESTING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- After installing the wiring, test it. Lift the handset of a phone plugged into one of the new outlets, listen for dial tone, then dial any single number other that "0". Listen. If you hear a lot of excessive noise, or if dial tone cannot be interrupted, you have a problem. Attempt to locate it by using the following "Troubleshooting" guidelines. If you cannot locate or repair the trouble yourself, disconnect the defective wiring until you can get the problem repaired. TROUBLESHOOTING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If testing indicates problems in the wiring you've installed, or if problems develop with the phone service later, try to determine if the problems are being caused by your own wire and equipment, or by the telephone line. Here are some of the things you can do to try to identify the nature of the problem: o Unplug the wire you installed from the NI or telephone company-provided modular jack. Plug any phone (other than the one used when you detected the problem) directly either of these jacks. o If the problem persists, the telephone company lines or equipment may be faulty and you should: - Dial the telephone company's repair service bureau listed in your directory. - Describe the problem you are experiencing and be sure to state that you have installed your own wiring. o If the problem no longer exists when you plug another phone into the NI or telephone company-provided modular jack, it probably is being caused by your wire or equipment. You may be able to localize the source of the problem by plugging the working phone into different outlets and testing each separately as before. Among the possible sources of trouble are broken wires, worn insulation, incorrect (e.g. red and green conductors reversed) or loose connections and staples put through the wire. Note: If you have Touch-Tone(r) Service and after lifting the handset of a phone plugged into the new outlet you installed you hear dial tone, but the Touch-Tone(r) dial does not operate, unplug the wire from the NI or other telephone company-provided modular jack, reverse the red and green conductors at the outlet, then plug it back into the NI and check the phone again. If you still can't locate the problem, call the telephone company's repair service bureau. QUICK INSTALLATION CHECKLIST: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- o Be sure the entrance plug is unplugged from the NI or telephone company- provided modular jack. o Attach each component securely to the wall or baseboard. o Run wire to each component allowing enough extra wire to make electrical connections. o Make electrical connections and put covers on components. o Plug the entrance plug into the NI or telephone company-provided modular jack. o Plug in telephones and test (see "Testing" instructions). o See "Troubleshooting" instructions if problems occur. TABLE A - Selection of Wire ------------------------------------------------------- | Type of Wire |Pair No.| Pair Color Matches | ------------------------------------------------------- | 2-pair Wire | 1 | Green | Red | | | 2 | Black | Yellow | ------------------------------------------------------- | 3-pair Wire | 1 | White/Blue | Blue/White | | | 2 | White/Orange | Orange/White | | | 3 | White/Green | Green/White | ------------------------------------------------------- TABLE B - Inside Wire Connecting Terminations ------------------------------------------------------- | Wire Color | Wire Function | ------------------------------------------------------- | 2-pair | 3-pair | Service w/o | Service with | | wire | wire | Dial Light | Dial Light | ------------------------------------------------------- | Green | White/Blue | Tip | Tip | | Red | Blue/White | Ring | Ring | | Black | White/Orange | Not Used | Transformer | | Yellow | Orange/White | Ground | Transformer | ------------------------------------------------------- TABLE C - Typical Fasteners and Spacing Intervals ------------------------------------------------------- | Fasteners | Horizontal | Vertical | From Corner | ------------------------------------------------------- | Wire clamp | 16 in. | 16 in. | 2 in. | | Staples(wire) | 7.5 in. | 7.5 in. | 2 in. | | Bridle Rings* | 4 ft. | | 2-8.5 in.* | | Drive Rings** | 4 ft. | 8 ft. | 2-8.5 in.* | ------------------------------------------------------- * When changing direction of wire runs the fasteners should be spaced to hold the wire at approximately a 45-degree angle. ** To avoid possible injury do not use drive rings below a 6 foot clearance level, use bridle rings. TABLE D - Separation And Physical Protection For Premises Station Wiring This table applies only to telephone wiring from the Network Interface or other telephone company-provided modular jacks to telephone equipment. Minimum separations between telephone wiring whether located inside or attached to the outside of buildings and other types of wiring involved are as follows. Separations apply to crossing and to parallel runs (minimum separations). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Types of Wire Involved | Minimum | Wire Crossing | | | Separations | Alternatives | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Electric | Bare light or power wire | 5 ft. | No | | Supply | of any voltage | | Alternative | | | Open wiring not over | 2 in. | See Note 1. | | | 300 volts | | | | | Wires in conduit or in | None | N/A | | | armored or nonmetallic | | | | | sheath cable, or power | | | | | ground wires | | | | | | | | | Radio & | Antenna lead-in and | 4 in. | See Note 1. | | TV | ground wires | | | | | | | | | Signal or | Open wiring or wires in | None | N/A | | Control | conduit or cable | | | | Wires | | | | | | | | | | Comm. | Community Television | None | N/A | | Wires | systems coaxial cables | | | | | with grounded shielding | | | | | | | | | Telephone | Using fused protectors | 2 in. | See Note 1. | | Drop Wire | Using fuseless protector | None | N/A | | | or where no protector | | | | | wiring from transformer | | | | | | | | | Sign | Neon Signs and associated | 6 in. | No | | | wiring from transformer | | Alternative | | | | | | | Lightning | Lightning rods and wires | 6 in. | See Wiring | | Systems | | | Separations | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE 1: If minimum separations cannot be obtained, additional protection of a plastic tube, wire guard, or two layers of vinyl tape extending 2 inches beyond each side of object being crossed must be provided. APPENDIX A DEFINITION OF TERMS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armored or Non-metallic Sheathed Cable An assembly of two or more insulated conductors having an outer sheath of moisture resistant, flame retardant, non-metallic materials. Bare Wire An electrical conductor having no covering or insulation whatsoever. Bridle Ring A device used to loosely hold telephone wiring where appearance is not a factor. The bridle ring screws into the supporting surface. It is usually used where the wire is run below six feet and contains no sharp or hazardous edges. The telephone wire is inserted after the ring is in place. Cleats Porcelain fasteners which are used to fastend electric power wires that insulated but do not have an outer protective jacket. Coaxial Cable A two conductor cable for transmitting electrical signals that consists of a tube of conducting material surrounding a second centrally located conductor which is held in place by insulators. Conduit A plastic or metal pipe or tube used to carry telephone or electrical wiring. Connecting Block A device used for terminating premises telephone wiring and a means of connecting telephone sets to such wiring. Customer-Provided Inside Wire Is that wiring which is inside the premises from a Network Interface (NI) to the telephone hardware and is provided by the customer. Dial Light A small light bulb powered by a low voltage and used to illuminate a telephone set dial in dark locations. Drive Rings A device used to loosely hold telephone wiring in place where appearance is not a factor. The nail in a drive ring is driven into the supporting surface and the ring is open to permit placing or wires. A drive ring must be at leaset six (6) feet from the floor so that its nail will not present a hazard. Drop Wire Wire used to transmit telephone service into a customer's premises. It may be aerial or buried. Knobs Porcelain fasteners used to affix electrical power wires which are insulated but do not have an outer protective jacket to a surface. Modular The term "modular" as used herein applies to the connection of a telephone set mounting cord to a telecommunications network via plugs located on the end of such cords and jacks used to terminate premises inside wire. Network Interface The physical and electrical boundary between customer premises inside wire and telecommunications network. The Network Interface can be any telephone company provided modular jack. Non-Modular The term "non-modular" as use herein applies to the connection of a telephone set mounting cord to the telecommunications network via a four(4) pin plug and matching jack, or via hardwiring. Open Wiring A wiring method using cleats, knob, and tubes, or flexible tubing for the protection and support of insulated conductors run in or on buildings and not concealed by the building structure. Party Line A basic telephone exchange service line whose use is shared by two or more residential subscribers. Protector A device used as protection from hazardous voltages. It may be mounted either inside or outside the premises. If mounted outside it will be covered with a plastic or metal housing. Raceways A metal or plastic channel used for loosely holding electrical and telephone wires in buildings. A raceway is usually located in the floor and is usually encased on three or four sides by concrete. Registered Terminal Equipment Terminal equipment which is registered for connection to the telecom- munications network in accordance with Subpart C of Part 68 of the F.C.C.'s rules. If a terminal device has been properly registered it will have an identification number permanently affixed to it. Ring As used herein "ring" refers to that side of a two wire telephone circuit which is connected to the negative side of a battery located at the Telephone Company Central Office. It is like the "hot" side of a residential lighting circuit. Telecommunications Network The public switched telephone network. Tip As used herein "tip" refers to that side of a two wire telephone circuit which is connected to the positive side of a battery at the Telephone Company Central Office. It is like the ground side of a residential lighting circuit and its color code is green. Transformer As used herein, a transformer is an electrial device which reduces the voltage in electrical house wiring to a low voltage in order to operate a dial light. It plugs into a electrical outlet and has externally located low voltage connections which are extended by inside wiring to the telephone set dial light. Wire Clamp A device used to secure telephone wires to a surface. One end is U shaped for placement over the wire. The other end contains a tab which is affixed to the mounting surface with a nail or a screw. Wire Guard A length of plastic (round or U shaped) use to protect telephone wiring from abrasion or foreign voltages. NOTES End of TELECOM Digest Supplement ******************************** ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 01:15:26 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? I can't see these internet bill-paying services catching on up here in Canada, because the banks themselves are already pretty far along in this respect. I'll limit my discussion to the CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) as that's where I do the bulk of my banking. I know that the TD (Toronto Dominion) Bank works pretty much the same way (fee structure is a tad different), and other banks are also doing similar things. Anyways: I do almost all of my banking over the internet, with the exception of deposits: I am paid cash and need to use their ATM machines to actually stash money in the account. But from that point, I pay all of my bills (about 12 per month) via their online bill-payment system. This can be accomplished two ways: 1) For bills that vary in the amount from month to month (ie: long distance service, electricity, etc.), you simply login to their service once the bill arrives, select the bill you want to pay, type in the amount, and click "PAY NOW". And it's done - the money takes roughly two business days to get to your creditor (sometimes less in my experience). 2) For bills that stay the same from month to month (ie: cable TV, my "budget plan" natural gas bill, etc.), I can set up automatic-payment schedules. The procedure is exactly the same as the "pay now" system outlined above, except you enter the day of the month to pay the bill each month. From there, it's automatic. Every month, on the 16th, the CIBC sends $75 to Atco Gas on my behalf (as long as the money's actually in the account). Super convenient. The fees? The web-banking system itself is free of charge. You can check your balance, look over past transactions, etc., all without charge. Fees kick in when you do things like paying bills, transfering money to another account, etc. As of September 1st, however, you now have the option to do UNLIMITED electronic transactions for $6/month, which works out to about $4/month in US currency. That includes "Interac" POS transactions (ie: I can walk into 7-11, pour myself a Slurpee, hand over my bank card and they'll withdraw $1.27 from my account). Doesn't include cheques, which are $0.60 each, but these are capped at a maximum of $6/month, for a total of $12/month. From what I've seen of the internet bill-paying services, they work in one of two ways: 1) You give them a "float" from which they pay your bills. It's really like having a second bank account, with the added benefit that they are NOT a bank and if they go belly-up, your money is not insured. 2) They make periodic withdrawals from your regular bank account to cover the bill payments, which causes you to incur service charges from your bank (if not on a flat-rate scheme as I've mentioned above). So you have the added benefit of paying transaction fees twice, once to the bank and once to the internet bill-paying company. Nope, I really can't see this catching on north of the 49th parallel... From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU The sun got confused about daylight savings time. It rose twice. Everything had two shadows. --Steven Wright ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 16:13:11 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer In my village the banks offer services that allow you to automatically transfer a fixed amount, transfer a variable amount no larger then $X pay the bill in full from any ATM, or telephone, etc. I spent last month in the states, where hardly any of these services exist. It was miserable. I have more bills to pay then you, so it saves me a lot of time. I certainly can see your point about giving some fly-by-night startup internet company access to my bank account. But as a value added service from the bank it is great. Steven ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 03:30:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: E-commerce and Privacy: Perception Versus Reality Please review: http://thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5981,00.html ------------------------------ From: kahuna@panix.com (Andy Finkenstadt) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 19 Aug 1999 20:02:15 -0400 Organization: Me Myself and I Reply-To: kahuna@panix.com In cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) writes: > Why is the practice of credit holds still used today? > Most merchants have on-line or dial-up terminals. Why can't the > transaction post at point-of-sale, similar to the NYCE, Cirrus, Pulse > and Most ATM networks. You just answered your own question. "most" merchants are on-line and authorize all transactions. But authorization is not the same as settlement, where a vendor actually gets money deposited to their bank account (after subtracting fees, reserves, and other costs of doing business). And not all vendors are online, or even authorize a transaction before you leave the store. There are stores in the malls at christmas who take an imprint and run the charges later. You must understand that not all VISA processors are online with all others, and that VISA itself is a marketing organization and provides some clearinghouse activity. Since not all processors are online all the time, and since computers have nightmares or other downtime, and since credits cost significantly more than charges to settle, and since large computers dealing in millions of transactions work far more efficiently in a batch mode than in OLTP mode, it is infeasible to require instant settlement of 100% of transactions. Andrew Finkenstadt (http://www.finkenstadt.com/andy/) "I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone." Bjarne Stronstrup ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 04:25:01 GMT No doubt it's totally unreasonable for them to expect payment on time. Deadbeats usually pay extra. In article , Dave O'Shea wrote: > John Willkie wrote in message news:telecom19. > 315.1@telecom-digest.org: >> I am a Sprint PCS customer and have been for the better part of a >> year. On several occasions, I have neglected to be timely in paying >> my bill and had the service suspended. Each time this happened, I >> would spend several hours (each way) traveling on transit to the >> nearest San Diego county Sprint PCS office. Upon paying the bill (in >> cash) the service would be immediately restored. > I'm a Sprint PCS customer too, and while I have an occasional gripe > about coverage gaps or dropped calls, they've always been good about > processing my payments, even when we got out of sync and were one > month overdue, straightened out with a single call to clear up the > payment history. > I've also run several small businesses, and one of my major problems > is *always* collections. Customers seem to feel there's nothing at all > wrong with going 60 and 90 days past due. They always had time to call > up and ask questions or make service requests, but never enough to get > around to writing a check. >> Last Friday (Aug 13) I repeated the process. When I got there, I was >> informed that they were charging me $3.00 for the privilege of >> receiving my payment. If I did not want to pay the three bucks, I >> could use their "free" drop box, in which case I would not walk out >> with a receipt. By a notice, this "feature" went into effect on >> August 12, 1999, on orders of "Kansas City." > I used the same method on my customers. 2% per month late fees, plus > cancelling any "early payment" discounts. The customers who are mildly > irresponsible paid up and kept on time afterwards. The deadbeats found > someone else to sponge off. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 02:58:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department is seeking new powers to break into private premises and disable security precautions on personal computers as a prelude to a wiretap or further search, the Washington Post reported Friday. http://news.lycos.com/stories/TopNews/19990820RTNEWS-TECHNOLOGY-COVERT.asp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:10:01 -0500 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Here's the deal: I know someone who was on a conference call where testing of the patch was being discussed. He heard a manager say "we don't have time for this crap". Referring, of course to the delay necessary to properly test a patch of the hardware in the lab. I can't recall who's slogan it was that said "we will sell no wine before its time". Well this one hadn't aged long enough. There have been several instances of patches and loads being rolled out on the Worldcom side of the house that had already been rejected by the MCI lab and sent back to the vendor for corrections. They'd apparently taken the vendor's word that it was just a peachy load ... That's not to say that they would necessarily caught this even with a full test and soak cycle, as the cause of the problems appear not to have been not too terribly obvious. They =might= have noticed that =something= was amiss with it though and delayed rollout until it could be determinied what the deal was. That's why you spend millions of dollars deploying test labs that replicate the field as closely as possible in the first place. At least a couple of their major accounts have now taken their business elsewhere; they simply can't risk it happening again. PAT ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 21:27:40 -0400 Subject: Even I Get Accused of Spamming These days it seems, anyone who gets a piece of mail they cannot recall requesting immediatly squeals like a stuck pig and accuses the sender of 'spamming'. Of course, they do not hesitate to lie about the circumstances; that is part of the politics of it all. Consider some mail I got Thursday. A lady writes me as follows: > I have never asked to be added to your subscriber list. I just started > my internet service yesterday and have received over 15 messages from > you. > Please delete me from your mailing list immediately Over fifteen messages in two days! I am so proud ... even Spamford, in all his glory, could not manage to spam a brand new netter fifteen times or more in two days. I wrote her back and said I had a couple problems. For one, I would need to know what address to remove from the list, and for two, she might have gotten three or four issues of the Digest one day and then three or four the next, but she did not get fifteen pieces of mail sent by me. She never did tell me what address it was coming to, but after some creative grepping of the mailing list and some wasted time on my part fingering a few of the entries, looking at some .forward files and whatnot. The trouble is, the entry was not for a woman, but for a man, and a man who the record said had been on the mailing list since *1995* ... 'I just got my internet service yesterday ...' I asked her if she had any idea how she might be getting email to what was obviously her name, yet my records showed a man's name with a 1995 starting date. I mentioned the man's name ...'oh, that is a guy I was married to a few years ago; the marriage was annulled; I have no idea where he is at; I think he is in Africa.' I mentioned the slight variation in the way she had given her address versus what I found on the list. 'Oh, yes, that is another email address of mine' ... pretty good for just getting your internet service yesterday and already have gotten spammed more than fifteen times, isn't it. Now readers, do you see why I refuse to use majordomo and other very crappy programs like it for maintaining a mailing list? I have no doubt that some of these silly netizens have been trying to get off of some list or another since 1989 and have yet to properly format their request or provide the right entry. I had that one from South America who bugged me for several months wanting to know why I was refusing to remove his name; I even had one about a year ago who actually turned me over to some spam-fighting organization when I 'refused her simple request to not keep sending her mail.' She got to where she was batching up all the garbage she had and sending it to me a megabyte at a time; so I started returning the courtesy to her, two or three megabytes at a time. Finally I got a chance to talk to the admin at her site; it turns out she was not even on my list at all but some commercial telecom mailing list elsewhere. She wrote the spam-fighting group telling them how rude I was; I wrote back to tell her I would rather be incredibly rude than as incredibly stupid as she was, and that I was closing the file at that point and hoped she would do the same; and start sending her complaints to the proper mailing lists in the future. 'I just got my internet account yesterday and already gotten over fifteen letters from you ..' (typed by her, I am sure, with eyes open wide in wonderment). Sigh ... PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 03:32:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking The Federal Reserve Board votes unanimously to let banks make account statements available to customers through e-mail or the Web. http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5970,00.html ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #321 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 20 19:58:51 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA12858; Fri, 20 Aug 1999 19:58:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 19:58:51 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908202358.TAA12858@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #322 TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Aug 99 19:48:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 322 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cable and Wireless Update: Portugal Renumbering (Michael Hartley) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Chris Griem) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Jason Lindquist) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Satch) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (William H. Bowen) Telecom Clipart Wanted (Mark Jeffrey) Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms (Fred Atkinson) SprintPCS Surcharge Not Just For Late Payers - All Must Pay (E. Cummings) Lucent Targets Excel for Next Purchase (John Stahl) Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop (Tony Pelliccio) Re: AT&T's Planned MediaOne Deal (Kevin DeMartino) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:12:00 +0100 From: Michael Hartley Subject: Cable and Wireless Update: Portugal Renumbering Hi Pat, FYI some info I got from Cable and Wireless today. Regards, Mike From: (062)C(038)W I(038)PSCO Subject: International Updates 99_74 & 75 Date: 19 August 1999 19:08 ====================================================================== Subject: PORTUGAL - ADVANCE NOTICE ====================================================================== Country Code: 351 This is advanced notice of a major re-numbering change in Portugal with affect from 01:00 hrs UTC, 31st, October, 1999 (Portugal local time 00:00 midnight.) From 31st October the prefixes/digits will identify the networks/service as described in the table below: First Digit Description 0 Prefix for International calls (00) - not applicable for inbound Portugal calls 1 Special Numbering and Short Numbers (eg. Emergency, Information, ...)) 2 Fixed Telephone Service Numbers 3 Fixed Telephone Service Numbers (reserved for network expansion) 4 Reserved (future use) 5 Reserved (future use) 6 Non-Geographic Numbers (Premium Rate Services, Audiotex, ...) 7 Non-Geographic Numbers (VPN, UPN, ...) 8 Non-Geographic Numbers (National Freephone Numbers, IFS, HCD, UPS, ...)) 9 Mobile Services (Cellular, Paging, Trunking, ...) All subscriber numbers will always be 9 digits long (up to 15 digits will be possible for certain services - area codes 941, 943, 944) Digit 2 - will be the identifier of the subscribers of all Fixed Networks and should be added just after the Country Code. Digit 3 - is reserved for network expansion. Network Existing Format New Format Fixed (Lisbon) +351 1 765 4321 +351 21 765 4321 Fixed (Oporto) +351 2 765 4321 +351 22 765 4321 Fixed (Azores) +351 96 65 4321 +351 296 65 4321 Fixed (Madeira) +351 91 65 4321 +351 291 65 4321 Digit 9 will be the identifier of all Cellular Mobile Networks and will replace existing code 93 (the digit 3 will drop). Network Existing Format New Format Mobile +351 936 765 4321 +351 96 765 4321 Mobile +351 933 765 4321 +351 93 765 4321 Mobile +351 931 765 4321 +351 91 765 4321 (The old Analogue Mobile Network will maintain the 676 code) Summary of New Numbering Plan: Area Code Network 21 Fixed - Lisbon 22 Fixed - Porto 23 Fixed - Other areas 24 Fixed - Other areas 25 Fixed - Other areas 26 Fixed - Other areas 27 Fixed - Other areas 28 Fixed - Other areas 29 Fixed - Madeira and Azores 600 Voice Mail Services 671 Data Networks Access 674 ditto 676 Analogue Mobile Phone 678 Data Networks Access 679 ditto 705 Virual Private Networks 707 Universal Access Numbers 80080 International Informations 884 Personal Number 91 GSM - Telecel 93 GSM - Optimus 941 Paging - Contactel 943 Paging - Telechamada 944 Paging - Telemensagem 946 Paging - Madeira 947 Paging - Azores 948 Trunking 96 GSM - TMN Regards, Cable & Wireless, International and Partner Services Customer Operations. +44 1344 713852 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:39:54 -0500 From: Chris Griem Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? As I understand this situation, the software was supplied by AT&T's Lucent labs, and MCIWorldcom was assured that proper shakedown testing had been completed and all problems remedied. If this is true, then the fault cannot be accurately placed unless somebody pops their head up and says "yep, I'm the culprit!" MCIWorldcom is attempting the gargantuan task of integrating two completely different types of networks (one based on dcs systems and the other based on muxes), and the software and inventory disparities inherent in this situation. like most ventures of this type, there are problems in implementation. I work for MCIWorldcom, and I realize that I'm more sympathetic to the situation than most, but the circumstances involved in the frame relay problems have (so far) no obvious origin aside from "the software". chris griem kilter@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:35:23 -0500 From: linky@see.figure1.net (Jason Lindquist) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? In comp.dcom.telecom was written: > I can't recall who's slogan it was that said "we will sell no wine > before its time". That was the Ernest & Julio Gallo winery. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:29:05 GMT From: satch@concentric.net (Satch) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Organization: SBC Internet Services ptownson@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote in : > I can't recall who's slogan it was that said "we will sell no wine > before its time". I want to think it was Carlo Rossi vineyards. I liked the Hiney wine commercial better, though: "We shall sell no wine before it's paid for." _____ _/satch\_______________________________ |Computationally addicted since 1970. | |Advertisement on request. | |_______________________________________| ------------------------------ From: bowenb@best.com (William H. Bowen) Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:04:03 GMT Reply-To: bowenb@best.com Monty Solomon wrote: > WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department is seeking new powers to > break into private premises and disable security precautions on personal > computers as a prelude to a wiretap or further search, the Washington > Post reported Friday. > http://news.lycos.com/stories/TopNews/19990820RTNEWS-TECHNOLOGY-COVERT.asp Monty, I can't say I'm suprised at all about this latest assault by our "INJustice Dept" on the American people and the Constitution. And this from a group that will do nothing about criminal conduct in the White House, including masss murder, treason and other crimes by the present occupant. All I can say is that the first government nazi that breaks into my house to screw around with my computer is going to exit in a rubber bag! Regards, Bill Bowen bowenb@best.com Daly City, CA ------------------------------ From: Mark Jeffrey Subject: Telecom Clipart Wanted Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 09:16:23 -0700 Hi Pat, I wonder if you or any of your readers could recommend a good source of clip-art for use in the Telecom world. There are endless pictures of PCs on peoples desks, but not much to show for switches, line frames, servers, consoles, telephone poles, DLCs, street cabinets, etc. Any suggestions welcomed, the cheaper the better or course! Mark Jeffrey Senior Consultant / Network Architect MCS EMEA Telecom Practice Tel: (+44) 118 909 3787 Fax: (+44) 118 909 6761 mailto:markjeff@microsoft.com http://www.microsoft.com/UK/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 07:48:02 CDT From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Yahoo / Geocities Terms know of one other site that makes that claim, Pat. For those of you who are hams, I refer to the 'http://www.qrz.com' site. QRZ is a service that allows you to look up the name and address of a ham radio operator by his callsign. They give you the option of listing other information about yourself on the Web site, including your email address, a brief profile, adding your QSL card or picture. The legal agreement they have posted on the site is that you give waive all your copyrights, renumeration, etc., etc. and they have the right to publish your QSL Card, picture in their CD-ROM version of the database and anything else they'd like to. I'd love to put my QSL card on the site, but I paid to have my card logo made and I'm not about to give up my rights to it. I have no objection if they publish it on their CD-ROM database (where people see it when they look up *my name or callsign*), but to give them free use of my card for other purposes (including advertising their services) I have a problem with, too. I'd be interested to know how the QRZ folks would respond. For those of you that doesn't know what the term 'QRZ' means, it is a code used by ham radio operators for brevity (when running Morse code). It means 'Who is calling me?'. Hence, a way to find out who is calling you (if you know what their callsign is). I will give them credit that it is a neat name for such a service. There are others providing a similar service. Buckmaster's is one that comes to mind. I'm not sure what their policy is, though, or if they allow you to attach QSL cards/pictures to your listing (QSL is a term that means 'I am acknowledging receipt', threfore a QSL card is a post card sent by a ham to another ham to give written confirmation of a radio contact). Fred, WB4AEJ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:30:36 -0400 From: E. Cummings Subject: SprintPCS Surcharge Not Just For Late Payers - All Must Pay Pat, I'm hopeful this helps clarify the SprintPCS surcharge issue: While I have limited sympathy for fellow SprintPCS customers whose delinquent payment habits increase my rates, Mr. Willkie has a valid concern that he failed to clarify to anyone unfamiliar with SprintPCS' new bill payment policy. SprintPCS has just instituted a $3.00 fee on *all* customers who prefer to pay their bill in cash in person. I have never heard of a company with thousands of retail locations charging its customers an extra fee for simply paying their bill in person -- even if it's on time or in advance. I have been a charter customer of SprintPCS for about two years, and simply prefer to pay my bill at the nearby local store in cash, in advance. Last weekend I stopped by and noticed a new sign at the retail counter indicating that *all* in-store bill payments would cost an additional $3.00. Apparently SprintPCS is trying to alleviate the problem of lines of bill-paying customers at the counter as their customer base increases with this "payment disincentive plan." If SprintPCS needs to hire more (or more efficient) employees to handle normal bill payments, then I feel this is the cost of doing business that should not be foisted soley upon those good customers who simply prefer to pay their bills in person with cash. If economics is the issue, the fact should be noted that SprintPCS pays a 2% to 3% surcharge to credit card companies each time a customer pays their bill over the phone by credit card, but that when a cash payment is received there is no such hit on the company's revenue. When I called SprintPCS to inquire if this was a nationwide policy change, I was told yes. So I asked if there was a surcharge for paying a bill by telephone with a credit card (No.) Then I asked if there's a minimum amount I could have billed to my credit card (again No.) Then I stated that if this $3.00 "bill payment fee" was continued I would protest by paying my bill by credit card in daily $5 increments -- which would cost SprintPCS far more in administrative overhead to process than a single cash payment. Again, there was no reaction. Finally, I called my local SprintPCS store manger who I had to browbeat into noting on my account that I could make in-store bill payments at that retail location without incurring a $3.00 fee each time. No good customer should have to go through this. Perhaps there are other TELECOM Digest readers who simply prefer to pay some or all of their bills in cash for personal reasons (yes, I have credit cards for emergencies) and agree that this "bill payment surcharge" is inappropriate. Let's hope it isn't a trend. If any readers are SprintPCS customers, I would encourage them to voice this concern to a SprintPCS manager. > John Willkie wrote in message news:telecom19. > 315.1@telecom-digest.org: >> Last Friday (Aug 13) I repeated the process. When I got there, I was >> informed that they were charging me $3.00 for the privilege of >> receiving my payment. If I did not want to pay the three bucks, I >> could use their "free" drop box, in which case I would not walk out >> with a receipt. By a notice, this "feature" went into effect on >> August 12, 1999, on orders of "Kansas City." ------------------------------ From: John Stahl Subject: Lucent Targets Excel for Next Purchase Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 18:37:26 +0000 Lucent Technologies continues to "buy" it's way into equipment manufacturers who have systems for the internet market with major emphasis on the VoIP arena. Their latest target is Excel, a Hyannis, MA, based manufacturer of open, programmable switching platforms which serve as a bridge between circuit and packet networks. According to Lucent this acquisition added to their present product mix of the 7R/E(tm) will enhance their present #5ESS switch offerings to the telecom industry. The following is a short blurb taken from the Lucent press release of the acquisition: >>> Lucent Technologies To Acquire Excel Switching > Lucent Technologies announced it has agreed to acquire Excel > Switching Corporation, of Hyannis, Mass. Excel's open, > programmable switching platforms serve as a bridge between > circuit and packet networks and enable service providers to > quickly enter new markets with applications created by > software developers from around the world. For more info you can go to Lucent's internet site and read the whole press release: URL: http://www.lucent.com/press/0899/990818.coa.html. Submitted by: John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom/Data Consultants email: aljon@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Real Competition in the Local Loop Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 03:59:37 GMT In article , roy@endeavor.med. nyu.edu says: > shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: >> The "trick" is that done *right* there should be one set of >> telephone wiring, and one set of "coax". All owned by the *building >> owner*. They should terminate in a place where multiple vendors can >> connect to the internal wiring. > In our case, we even approached the cable vendor who would likely be > in the area, but not for a couple more years. We asked about things > like that. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that when the finally > came around, they would not touch our wiring, but would install their > own cable plant. Hard to blame them for thinking that way, either. > Sure cuts down on finger-pointing if the end customer is getting a bad > signal. Actually they install their own because of leakage specifications. Cable systems are broadband -- they run over a spectrum of frequencies that are also used for public service, aircraft navigation, amateur radio and a host of other services. Should the cable become leaky they're subject to some pretty severe penalties if they don't fix it immediately. By installing their own plant they have it at a known state and therefore reduce their liablility. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: Kevin DeMartino Subject: Re: AT&T's Planned MediaOne Deal Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:38:24 -0400 In V19 #318, Marty Solomon called our attention to an article describing the opposition of consumer groups to the AT&T acquisition of MediaOne. > A consumer coalition criticized AT&T Corp.'s proposed $58 billion > acquisition of MediaOne Group Inc. yesterday, contending that the > merger would give the number one long-distance company too much > control over the cable and high-speed Internet markets. > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/aug99/consumer18.htm It seems to me that this consumer coalition is doing a disservice to consumers by opposing this acquisition. It is true that when this deal is completed, there won't be as many independent cable companies and cable rates may go up in the near term. However, cable rates are limited by competition from satellite TV, over-the-air broadcast TV (in areas where the reception is ok), and even video stores. Personally, I prefer to rent video tapes rather that to subscribe to premium movie channels. Until now there has been no real competition for local telephone service. With the acquisition of cable companies by AT&T and other developments, this situation is rapidly changing. In the article cited above, the position of consumer groups was paraphrased as: "AT&T has not proved it can provide local phone competition". I don't want to sound like a cheerleader for AT&T, but: Who do they think provided most of the local phone service in this country for nearly 100 years? Another issue is Internet access, where the cable companies are providing real competition to the local telephone companies. The consumer groups are questioning the impact of the MediaOne acquisition on rates for high speed Internet access. AT&T may choose to raise these rates, but that will spur the competition from the telcos. As digital subscriber line (DSL) services become more widely available, the telcos will be able to compete effectively with the cable companies in the area of high speed access. DSL can also support video-on-demand, which will enable the telcos to start competing on the video turf of the cable companies. The telcos have been slow to deploy DSL. However, this situation appears to be changing as the telcos sense the threat to their traditional business areas and the opportunity to turn the tables on the cable companies. Kevin DeMartino Dynamics Research Corporation ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #322 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 21 01:58:26 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA23944; Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:58:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:58:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908210558.BAA23944@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #323 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Aug 99 01:58:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 323 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Worldcom's Customer Service (Blake Droke) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Andrew) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Re: Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? (Matt Ackeret) Re: Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? (Mike Pollock) Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge...) (Danny Burstein) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Washi Desu) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Colin Sutton) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (LARB0) Re: Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication (Russell Blau) Re: Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication (Stanley Cline) Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (Joey Lindstrom) Re: 900 Mhz Cordless Phone (Steve Winter) Business Telephone System Needed (pct@wirepaladin.com) Re: Dial Lights (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) (Larry R) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Bill Newkirk) MyLine Question - Who Owns the 800 Number (M. D. Parker) Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) (Bill Newkirk) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Blake Droke Subject: Re: Worldcom's Customer Service Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 21:10:01 -0500 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Reply-To: bdroke@sprintmail.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's nothing new where not caring > about problems is concerned. Bank One has had some severe security > problems with their online banking web site since they merged with > First Chicago a few months ago. Hearing from customers who are con- > cerned about the difficulty they have in logging in and the ability > of others to use cut and paste techniques to 'deep link' into pages > with customer's balances, etc is the last thing they care about. Try > sometime going to Bank One's home page for customer login and source > it ... review the source ... it looks like something a twelve year > old beginning hacker would put together. > So you think MCI tries to avoid customer contact whenever possible? > Why don't you simply avoid paying them whenever possible, and see > if that encourages them to make themselves a little bit more avail- > able. PAT] Oh I wouldn't do that, not with MCI. In May, 1998 I ordered ALL of our company's services with MCI disconnected. This included direct dial long distance at some locations, T1 access at one location, a four point multi-point data circuit and several calling cards. For months I continued to receive bills for access charges for these services. I called at least 15 times, mailed three certified letters, faxed ten disconnect letters. The problem was, I knew I owed for about one month's service, because of the one month notice required. I never could get a correct bill. One of the main reasons for leaving them was because we never, not even once, EVER received a correct bill. (There were many disputed items appearing as past due, when I disconnected.) I told them I would pay them when I received a correct last billing statement. This never happened. I eventually began receiving calls from their collection department, stating that our service would be disconnected if payment was not received. I told them, please, please, PLEASE disconnect our service, as that is what I requested six months ago. I also requested a corrected final bill. Nothing happened. The T1 even remained in service, although we never used it. (We didn't have any equipment on the line, but I once had someone from BellSouth check to see if it was still active, in December, it was.) Eventually after, a dozen or so more collection calls, a little screaming and yelling, the amount past due was reduced to something close to, but still more than I thought we reasonably, owed. I told them I would pay this amount if they saw that no more charges were EVER added and these accounts closed. Before I could send the payment, a collection agency called and demanded the money, that I had already promised to pay. We sent the collection agent the money, as well as letter stating that we no longer used any MCI services and that all MCI services should be discontinued, and that we would not pay any additional charges. The letter was also forwarded to MCI. That was in February, 1999. We still get a bill for $150 per month, plus accumulated past due balances for services that were ordered disconnected in MAY 1998!!!! Oh well, at least for some reason, they did stop charging for the T1. Honestly, I can't even figure out what the current bills for $150 are even for. It is nearly impossible to reach a human at MCI. If I do, and mention the above fiasco, they STILL act as if this is the first they've heard of the disconnect order!! I wonder how long before we get sent to a collection agency again? There is a lesson here. If you become an MCI/Worldcom customer, you will be one for life, even if you don't want to be one! ------------------------------ From: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: 20 Aug 1999 20:29:44 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Initial fault, I don't know, but who let the problem fester for ten days without just backing everything out as soon as it was obvious it didn't work? Hard to place that on anyone except MCI... The *Best* political site Free Software and Politics ------------------------------ From: andrew@3.1415926.org (Andrew) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: 21 Aug 1999 01:06:02 GMT Organization: MaTech Satch (satch@concentric.net) wrote: > ptownson@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote in > : >> I can't recall who's slogan it was that said "we will sell no wine >> before its time". > I want to think it was Carlo Rossi vineyards. Don't you remember Orson Welles doing the Paul Masson commercials? Andrew ------------------------------ From: Scot E. Wilcoxon Organization: self Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 22:02:30 -0500 So does MCI have their Lucent software licenses categorized as liabilities? I wonder what MCI could have done if they had source code? ------------------------------ From: mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) Subject: Re: Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? Date: 20 Aug 1999 18:39:30 -0700 Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article , Richard Shockey wrote: > eMessage will be introduced in September at a cost of about > $10 a month, about the same as the typical monthly fee for limited > Web access via computer, or half the fee for unlimited Web access. > Likewise, the eMessage device will sell for about $180, half as > much as the new Web-phones. Yes, that monthly fee is cheaper than most 'regular' ISP accounts. But there are several ways one could get email access for a much lower hardware cost: 1) WebTV is what, about half that? I could swear I've seen the first gen WebTVs for about $70, and there was even an ad for a combined WebTV/DISH Network device that in the future will have features like the TiVo and ReplayTV devices have (it has the hard drive but only does 'pause' so far) for $200. 2) You can easily get a so-called "ancient" computer for much less than that and run a terminal emulator on it, or even an email program. I realize I'm a UNIX geek, but it seems to me that you can easily get a setup configured to run pine automatically that would be at least as easy to use as an _email specific_ device. (Plus you can run Lynx to browse the web, etc ...) #1 is probably the best for a really computer-phobic person, and it would take a while for the WebTV setup to cost more (after the monthly fee overtakes the savings from lower hardware cost). mattack@area.com ------------------------------ From: Mike Pollock Subject: Re: Phone to Send and Recieve Email, Any Ideas? Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 23:04:43 -0400 Organization: It's A Mike! This is pricey, but it'll do the trick ... http://207.121.190.179/products.cfm?ID=1059&country_code=101 IS2630 With Screen Phone and Internet Access Web browsing - HTML 3.2 compatible supporting tables and frames E-mail capable - POP 3 application 7.7" full VGA color touch screen with stylus - high quality with ease of use V.34 Modem - allows fast access to all files Wireless full QWERTY keyboard - wireless keyboard allows mobility and comfort Touch screen keyboard - ability to respond to message via this keyboard while being mounted on the wall Software upgradable - the server will download upgrades to the set as they become available Memory expansion - memory can be expanded by using standard "SIMM" modules Two PCMCIA slots - supports additional functionality such as answering machines and other vertical applications Family information center - with the scratch pad and note pad application, a family member can leave a message on the screen Ability to log on to an Internet service by the means of a log on script Telephone Features High quality duplex speakerphone - allows you to speak and listen without using the handset Caller ID Type II* - allows you to see who is on Call Waiting Directory - allows you to create and store up to 200 names and addresses Multi-Functional message waiting light - illuminates when you have a new call on Caller ID*, a Voice Mail message or internal message left by family member Customizing telephone functionality - when subscribing to network services such as call forwarding, a button will appear on the screen to simplify the service Power failure operation - allows you to place a call during a power outage *Services provided by many local telephone companies for a fee. ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: 20 Aug 1999 22:04:40 -0400 In E. Cummings writes: > Pat, > I'm hopeful this helps clarify the SprintPCS surcharge issue: > While I have limited sympathy for fellow SprintPCS customers whose > delinquent payment habits increase my rates, Mr. Willkie has a valid > concern that he failed to clarify to anyone unfamiliar with SprintPCS' > new bill payment policy. SprintPCS has just instituted a $3.00 fee on > *all* customers who prefer to pay their bill in cash in person. I > have never heard of a company with thousands of retail locations > charging its customers an extra fee for simply paying their bill in > person -- even if it's on time or in advance. Alas, this is something that is occurring more and more in other businesses. For example, there are movie and "live" theaters in NYC which charge a "handling fee" for giving you a cash-paid ticket at the box office. NYC's Department of Consumer Affairs was looking at this as an advertising issue, since you were told your ticket was, say, $50 but you had to pay $52.50 to get it. Similarly the tax folk were wondering what the "real" taxable charge should be. Afraid I don't know the current status of their investigations. There are also many, many, other businesses that have a defacto charge of this sort. For example, all of you who still have a RBOC telco office (or, for that matter, any other utility) in your neighborhood raise your hands ... I count ... one ... two ... ? five? Which means you either have to mail a check or money order, or use one of the storefront "check-cashing" service centers. While some of the latter have cross arrangements to take your payment and give you full credit (with some of them even on-line to do it immediately), quite a few of them add a service fee of a dollar or so. Oh.. and, as a related matter, there's Fedex which, for the most part, refuses to take cash at most of their counters ... _____________________________________________________ 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: Actually, here in Junction City the United Telephone central office building/public business office/ accounting office are all in a two story building on the corner of 6th and Jefferson Street, in the downtown area. An actual live cashier, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Washi Desu Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 99 01:19:57 GMT Organization: Washi's Scrapbook Just a note on the situation in Japan. For as long as I've lived here (22 years), I've never written a check to pay a bill. Most bills get paid automatically each month from my bank account. Most people have these automatic bill-paying arrangements for their utilities, taxes, credit card accounts, newspaper delivery, etc. If you don't have such an account, the utilities will send someone to your house to collect the payment each month, or you can go to the bank and pay either manually or from a machine. This last area is one that is now being targetted by some banks as an Internet-based home-banking service. But for most people here, the bill-paying issue never existed. John De Hoog, Tokyo http://wonmug.com ------------------------------ Reply-To: Colin Sutton From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? Organization: Siemens Building Technologies Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 06:45:08 +1000 Joey Lindstrom wrote in message ... > I can't see these internet bill-paying services catching on up here in > Canada, because the banks themselves are already pretty far along in > this respect. The same goes for Australia. I've been paying all my bills through my bank's net facility since March 98. I can see my savings and credit card balances and transactions, transfer funds between accounts including loan accounts, pay bills to about 2000 authorities and companies. I know exactly whan I started using it because all of my transaction receipts are on my home PC. Colin Sutton ------------------------------ From: larb0@aol.com (LARB0) Date: 20 Aug 1999 12:02:00 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? It seems that the whole premise of using internet bill paying services relies on a trust of other people and automated processes with access to your money. My highly respected and large bank has made four errors in my account in the past three or four months. Yes - I am looking for an alternative bank. But (1) I would never have found/reconciled the errors without a paper trail and the ability to sit down with a person face to face; and (2) if a reputable bank can make errors, how can I trust an online, faceless interent company with access to my accounts. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:40:11 -0700 From: Russell Blau Subject: Re: Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication Organization: My Deja Email (http://www.my-deja.com:80) FIGUE20@aol.com wrote: > Do you have info or do you know the home page for United Vista > Telecommunication? It helps if you get the name right: it's "Vista-United Telecommuni- cations." They don't seem to have a web page, but you can get some other contact information, including an e-mail contact, at http://www2.scri.net/psc/mcd/TL728.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 07:03:20 -0400 From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Information Needed on United Vista Telecommunication John R Levine wrote: > If you mean Vista-United Telecommunications, it's the local phone > company for Disney World and a few immediately adjacent businesses. I just call 'em "DisneyTel" :) > As far as I can tell, it has no residential subscribers, unless > Disney's Potempkin village of Celebration is in its service area. It is -- so they do have residential tariffs filed. (From what I understand, they've always had a *few* residential subscribers, mostly Disney employeees who live on site, etc.) Their tariffs are available at the Florida PSC's web site: http://www2.scri.net/psc/ > Vista is as in Buena Vista, a/k/a Disney, United is as in United > Telecom a/k/a Sprint, it's a partnership between the two. Surely they > have the only LEC-issued phone book with Mickey Mouse on the cover. And Mickey is on the payphones, too... :) IIRC, Vista-United is also a COCOT company of sorts, in that they also operate the payphones at Disney*land* in California (the ILEC in the Anaheim area is PacBell.) Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 05:15:33 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 05:31:42 -0400 (EDT), Monty Solomon wrote: > The Federal Reserve Board votes unanimously to let banks make account > statements available to customers through e-mail or the Web. > http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5970,00.html OK, am I misreading this, or does this mean that, up until now, US banks have not been able to offer full-service banking on the internet? It seems that being able to get an account statement would be one of the most basic functions of such a service, and I've been able to get that from the CIBC for the last couple of years, with no legal impediments (it just took 'em that long to get the system working to that point!) From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU OS/2: Windows with bullet-proof glass. ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: 900 Mhz Cordless Phone Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 21:12:50 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) spake thusly and wrote: > Does anyone know about the Bell Phones (by Northwestern Bell) 900 Mhz > "Cordless Phone with Caller ID for Call Waiting." $49.99 - seems too > cheap to be worth a ... There are a bunch of cheap phones out there that work. If long range doesn't matter, people use them, they talk on them and they seem to be reliable. There are a lot of $2 watches that will tell you what time it is day after day month after month. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: pct@wirepaladin.com Subject: Business Telephone Systems Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:12:18 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Our office needs to purchase a new business telephone system. I am trying to find the right telephone system for an office of 70 persons. We also need a voice mail system. Can anyone suggest the right site to review systems or the right forum to ask in? I would also ask if anyone knows of a good system? Thank you. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 06:20:39 PDT From: Larry Rachman <_lr_@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Dial Lights (was Re: Who the Heck Makes AT&T Phones Now?) Jeffrey J. Carpenter wrote: > In addition to the LED version with square buttons, there was also > a rotary version which used green LEDs. And the LEDS flickered when you dialed as the dial interruped the loop current. This was especially interesting in the dark -- the strobescopic effect (obviously) synchronized with the dial rotation made it look like it was standing still! Larry Rachman ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 22:36:18 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com The Yahoo article http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990820/tc/technology_covert_1.html indicated that they'd be doing this as "black bag" jobs ... so I'd suppose they'd show up when you're not home. William H. Bowen wrote in message ... > Monty Solomon wrote: >> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department is seeking new powers to >> break into private premises and disable security precautions on personal >> computers as a prelude to a wiretap or further search, the Washington >> Post reported Friday. http://news.lycos.com/stories/TopNews/19990820RTNEWS-TECHNOLOGY-COVERT.asp > Monty, > I can't say I'm suprised at all about this latest assault by our > "INJustice Dept" on the American people and the Constitution. And this > from a group that will do nothing about criminal conduct in the White > House, including masss murder, treason and other crimes by the present > occupant. > All I can say is that the first government nazi that breaks into my > house to screw around with my computer is going to exit in a rubber > bag! ------------------------------ From: mdpc@netcom.com (M. D. Parker) Subject: MyLine Question -- Who Owns the 800 Number Date: 20 Aug 1999 15:34:51 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Seems like there might be some case to have an hold the current 800 number and transfer it to a new service supplier. At least, that is what I thought 800 transportability was all about. To do otherwise, with two weeks notice, seems VERY disruptive to the customers doing business using MyLine. Mike mdpc@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 22:29:04 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Years ago when I subscribed to prodigy for a bit, you got a smidgen of content surrounded by advertising for other stuff (either other locations on the prodigy system or a commercial ad.). I remember people really being unhappy when the animated ads started showing up at 2400 bps, you really waited a lot. So many web pages are cluttered with various ads, it just reminds me of that. Bill Newkirk wrote in message ... > This business of lots of ads is why sometimes I think of the web as > 'Prodigy Perfected' ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I never really followed prodigy.com > that much; do they have a lot of offensive ads and privacy invasions > on that site also? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #323 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 21 16:13:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA18480; Sat, 21 Aug 1999 16:13:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 16:13:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908212013.QAA18480@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #324 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Aug 99 16:13:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 324 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Phone Situation in Turkey (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Ed Leslie) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers From Canada (M. Desmon) Re: Telecom Clipart Wanted (Washi Desu) People Entering Into Stupid Contracts (Adam Frix) Re: Signalling System No. 4 (Howard Estes) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Dave Anderson) Inverse Multiplexer (LEE) Re: "A" Cell (Isaac Wingfield) Re: VISA Authorizations (Javier Henderson) Re: Help Needed - Is Phone Being Bugged? (Jay W. Parsons) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (amp@pobox.com) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Jonathan D. Loo) Problems With Motorola Mobile Phone (Paul Lenz) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Joseph T. Adams) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (David Koltermann) Re: Business Telephone Systems (dtm37@aol.com) MyLine Question -- Who Owns the 800 Number (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Dave Moore) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 02:31:04 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Phone Situation in Turkey This week's bummer was the *massive* earthquake in Turkey, which as of the weekend has now claimed in excess of ten thousand lives to the best of their calculations. Later in the week there other earthquakes around the world -- it seems to have been a busy week for that sort of thing -- but none with the extensive damage and loss of lives as in Turkey. Around the world, all the relief agencies are dispatching what personnel and supplies they can raise to be used to assist those poor people. The American Red Cross and the Red Crescent organizations both are feeling severely pinched by this crisis and need every spare dollar you can send them right now. I really wish that thing with the 'Buy It' buttons had worked out, because I would set up something so you could use your credit card *right now* to help however possible. But that did not work out, so what you need to do is contact the Red Cross in your community and find out the procedure to send funds to them earmarked specifically for relief in Turkey. If we have any readers near the scene of the disaster, or in a neighboring country with close contact, perhaps those folks would send in reports on the telecom and datacom situation there at the present time, and the extent of the damage to the communications infrastructure. I would like to print something on it next week if that is possible. Thanks very much for whatever you can do to help the people over there. PAT ------------------------------ From: EdLeslie@EDU.YorkU.CA (Ed Leslie) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 05:21:48 GMT Organization: York University, Ontario, Canada On Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:10:01 -0500, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > I can't recall who's slogan it was that said "we will sell no wine > before its time". Ernest and Julio Gallo, if my feeble memory serves ... EdLeslie@EDU.YorkU.CA ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: 21 Aug 1999 06:26:53 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:39:54 -0500, chris.griem@wcom.com allegedly said: > MCIWorldcom is attempting the gargantuan task of integrating two > completely different types of networks (one based on dcs systems and > the other based on muxes), and the software and inventory disparities > inherent in this situation. like most ventures of this type, there > are problems in implementation. Hi Chris! This is going to be rather blunt. You've been warned. :) I certainly don't wish to minimize the task at hand. But this parallels a problem I recently had turning up a T-1 to Verio. There were some issues which wouldn't have been a problem -- except that I called and got connected to Leased-line Support at Verio Corporate HQ in Dallas, and they had ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION about the brand-new T-1 turned up in Cleveland by Verio Ohio. The reason I ended up hollering at several Verio employees was not because there were technical issues, but rather because there were communications issues between Verio corporate and Verio Ohio, and between Verio as a whole and myself. Ahhh ... now, let's look at the MCI outage. Gee. They couldn't be bothered to say a damned thing to anyone, could they? The issue is the same in both cases. Lack of communications. Probably a screw-up on the part of Verio, but how about MCI? The difference between Verio Ohio and MCI Worldcom of BORG is that I was eventually able to get in touch with someone who (a) knew what was up, (b) gave a rat's ass about servicing the customer and (c) was willing to work with me to prevent such problems from happening in the future. None of the aforementioned things would have happened if the president of the company I work for that turned up the T-1 to Verio had gone with UUNet instead. I speak from personal experience dealing with MCI and the former LDDS Worldcom, and from hearing wonderful things about UUNet from many others. The worst thing is that if you're talking to a UUNet salesdroid, you had better make sure you're fully dressed, because they *will* try to rape you. Would you like to know how many thousands of dollars they wanted to charge my client for setup of a frac T-1? $5000. Plus well over a thousand a month. The quote was for **384K!!!** All of the evidence I've seen points to the fact that MCI Worldcom and its various subsidiaries don't give a damn about anything else other than taking as much money as possible out of their clients' pockets. So it doesn't surprise me that they refuse to say anything about outages. When AT&T had network problems, they went the extra mile to make sure their customers, and the public at large, knew what was happening and that they were trying to fix it. AT&T has turned out to be very service-oriented in spite of their reputation ("we're the phone company, we don't have to care"). The "we don't have to care" attitude seems to have landed at MCI Worldcom corporate headquarters. So, I have no sympathy for your company. Sorry. Screw 'em. In fact, I am going to laugh when you start getting sued over this fiasco. That would be what is commonly called "poetic justice." North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org I am the president and sole shareholder of NSTC. Thus, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do represent the official opinions of the company :) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:53:30 -0700 From: Michael A. Desmon Reply-To: mdesmon@us-one.net Organization: Imagine Telecom Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada In TELECOM Digest article "Dialing 'Blocked' US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada", Judith (joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com) wrote: > Toll free numbers can be designated U.S. & Canada accessible, > U.S. only, or accessible by only one (or more) area code, > depending on the wishes (generally based on the marketing area) > of the subscriber. > However, these companies do have local numbers as well, without > which there'd be no 'ring-to' number to designate pointing the > toll free number to. Having worked in network operations in switching and translations, I can tell you that not all toll free numbers have local numbers. They can be pointed from the carrier switch to the customer PBX over a dedicated T-1. We could add a local number in the translations in case the T-1 went down, or for time and day routing however. Most customers opted for this. ------------------------------ From: Washi Desu Subject: Re: Telecom Clipart Wanted Date: Sat, 21 Aug 99 04:42:51 GMT Organization: Washi's Scrapbook Mark Jeffrey wrote: > I wonder if you or any of your readers could recommend a good source > of clip-art for use in the Telecom world. There are endless pictures > of PCs on peoples desks, but not much to show for switches, line > frames, servers, consoles, telephone poles, DLCs, street cabinets, > etc. The SmartDraw drawing program has available a large selection of libraries that include much of what you want, though not necessarily down to the telephone pole level. http://www.smartdraw.com John De Hoog, Tokyo http://wonmug.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 08:09:30 -0400 From: Adam Frix Subject: People Entering Into Stupid Contracts > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I understand how legal agreements work, > thank you. What I guess I do not understand is why anyone would want > to go along with such a lame-brained, one-sided deal. Patrick, Have you never seen or been exposed to a typical cruise line ticket? It is, in fact, a contract for passage. The interesting thing is, while the terms of this contract are indeed available ahead of time, that tidbit is well hidden. Virtually all who buy cruises, do so by laying their money down *first* and getting their tickets afterward. And the first time they ever get exposed to the terms of the contract they just signed is AFTER they get their tickets, because the contract itself is written on the back of the tickets. And frequently, this contract is written in ink that is so light, it's virtually unreadable. The cruise lines have really set themselves up for suckers. And of course, if you'd ever take a look at the contract you've agreed to by buying a cruise ticket, you'd be astounded. You want to talk about lame-brained and one-sided! For grins, I'll call Carnival and ask them to send me a copy. We'll see what happens. ------------------------------ From: Howard Estes Subject: Re: Signalling System No. 4 Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 08:26:44 -0500 Interested in locating manufacturers of equipment that utilizes or tests systems or subsystems that utilize SS4. Howard Estes Motorola P29695@email.mot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 99 10:45:09 EDT From: Dave Anderson Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? On 19 Aug 1999 16:58:16 -0400, kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: > One of the languages I used was supposed to be an improvement on Algol > 58 or one of its predecessors: MAD. (Michigan Algorithmic Decoder, > but I suspect it was named first, and the acronym filled in later.) > Instead of if ... then it used Whenever .... Otherwise > abbreviated as W\R O\E > It was Fortran-like but for reasons I can't remember now, I liked > it much better than Fortran. It ran initially on an IBM 704, > then a 709 and by the time I moved out of that area, it was moving > to a really new, fast 7090. > Any MAD folks left? I got to use MAD on a 7094 in the mid to late 60s. One of its neat features was the ability to define new datatypes (IIRC -- it has been 30+ years) and new or overloaded operators to process them. As I recall, operator definition was by writing pseudo-assembler code with conditionals based on the number and type of the actual operands to control which instructions were actually generated in any particular instance. Dave Anderson Software engineer seeking employment in the Greater Boston (Mass.) area. Experience in operating systems, networks, compilers, client/server, and more. Interest in databases and hardware design. Proven ability to learn new environments quickly. ------------------------------ From: LEE Subject: Inverse Multiplexer Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 05:04:59 +1200 Organization: The Internet Group Ltd What is the term of of "Inverse Multiplexer" as used in telecommunication system? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:21:51 -0700 From: Isaac Wingfield Subject: Re: "A" cell Those 2" by 8" or so cells with binding posts on top are "#6" or "Number 6" dry cells. And they are still made. One early use was as the source of voltage for the "spark coil" in the Model "T" Ford, which initially had no generator or storage battery. The coil used four in series, I think. AFAIR, the "A" cell was specified but obsoleted without ever being manufactured. Same for "B", "E" and "F". There's another size, "G", which you will find four of in a standard 6 volt "lantern battery". Isaac Wingfield Project Director isw@ictv.com ICTV Vox: 408-364-9201 14600 Winchester Blvd. Fax: 408-364-9300 Los Gatos, CA 95030 ------------------------------ From: Javier Henderson Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 20 Aug 1999 13:35:29 -0700 Organization: Completely Disorganized cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) writes: > The credit holds method wrecks havoc on users of the VISA "debit" or > "check" cards. Imagine a consumer has $500 in their checking account. > They make a purchase for $400 with their "check" card. They can then > go to an ATM and overdraw their account, withdrawing $300. When their > purcahse posts, their account will be -$200. This is incorrect. In the example you set forth above, $400 of the customer's balance will be frozen and unavailable to the customer right after the merchant gets the authorization for the $400 chrge. So the maximum amount the customer would be able to withdraw at that point would be $100. -jav ------------------------------ From: Jay W. Parsons Subject: Re: Help Needed - Is Phone Being Bugged? Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 16:53:24 -0400 If you have five-digit dialing between the two systems, they are connected by digital or analog trunks. Cross talk may occur on both types of trunks. I would look to that before assuming a wire tap. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 01:46:22 -0500 From: amp@pobox.com Reply-To: amp@pobox.com Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) wrote: > llambda@gmx.net wrote: >> I have noticed that someone has been registering at web sites with a >> user name of "cypherpunks" and a password of either "writecode" or >> "cypherpunks". This interferes with the proper purpose of the web: >> targetted advertising. > The proper purpose of the web is to let companies (and anyone with a web > site) participate in a great database which anyone can search and use. > It is a "pull" model, where we get the information when _we_ choose to > go and get it, as opposed to a "push" model such as the practices of > junk-mail and spam, where the company sends us stuff when _they_ feel > like it. Too true. I didn't see the origional on this, and I wonder where llambda found out about this. Perhaps he noticed it in his logs and it annoys him. :) I've been using the cypherpunks account for about four years. It's a great way to jump into a site that you've not been to before and get what you want without having to waste time filling out a questionaire I'm pretty likely falsify anyway. There are a =lot= of folx on the cypherpunks list. Probably not as many as on TELECOM Digest of course. Next time that you goto a site, try "cypherpunks" or "cypherpunks@toad.com" as the login. You'll be amazed at how often it works. The downside to this is that the CP list gets a =lot= of spam from companies that people have given that email address for. It's the price you have to pay for convienience I guess. amp Seize the day! (before it seizes you!) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 03:29:55 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? In article you write: > I'll limit my discussion to the CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of > Commerce) as that's where I do the bulk of my banking. I know that the > TD (Toronto Dominion) Bank works pretty much the same way (fee > structure is a tad different), and other banks are also doing similar > things. Anyways: My bank, Provident Bank of Maryland, does the same thing: for no fee at all, you can sign up to view your account transactions over the Internet, and for a small monthly fee you can set up Internet bill paying. I personally didn't set it up because I don't want anything deducted from my account without my signature or ATM PIN. I like to have full control over all account transactions. I don't mind paying bills manually at all. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 04:11:05 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! I agree with some of the possibilities suggested by other TELECOM Digest readers. (1) Have a technician check the alarm system and make sure that it is functioning. Here in Montgomery County, Maryland, there are lots of people with alarms and there were so many false burglar alarms that the county passed laws imposing fines for false alarms. In fact there is a special police unit that investigates false alarms for the purpose of punishing the owner of the alarm. And in one of the local counties here if the police receive false burglar alarms from you they exclude you from all emergency services even in real emergencies. (2) Find out exactly how the cable TV and the phone are connected together. The cable TV box may be dialing 911. (3) Find out if you have a service that automatically dials 911 if the phone is off hook for a while. This is a safety service for the elderly and I think that it costs extra. (4) Do you have pets? Do you have children? (5) Maybe someone is breaking into your phone line on purpose, as a prank. (6) Crosstalk. Phone company tests don't always catch it even when they're looking for it. Intermittent crosstalk is hard to diagnose. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: Paul Lenz Subject: Problems With Motorola Mobile Phone Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 10:59:36 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In my holiday my sailing boat tipped over, I fell into the water, and my Motorola cd160 got wet. I thought "no problem, this is best drinking water of a Finnish national park". I removed the battery as soon as possible. Than I bought a small screwdriver, opened the case and let it get dry. After that, it seems to work again. It accepted my PIN, but then said "waiting for special code input". I called Motorola. They said, they are not allowed to give me that special code; I have to send it to repair. So I sent it to them (angryly!). Today I got it back. They wrote: "water damage, encroachment" and "we send it back unrepaired because repairing costs exceed it's worth". Nothing else - no list of defect parts, no information about expected repairing costs. Now I tried it without SIM chip, and dialled 112. I read "emergency call occurs", then I heared "beep beep beep" (it sounds like from remote), than I read again "check SIM chip" -- no connection at all. I wonder if my mobile phone is really out of order? What causes that "waiting for special code input"? Is there a water detector inside? Or a switch which recognizes if somebody opens it? Or is there a failed function check when I switch it on? It seems that only Motorola phones want this special code. Are there experiences with mobile phones of other manufacturers? Can you open and dry them, and they work again? Proppi proppi@sampo.han.de ------------------------------ From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power Date: 21 Aug 1999 13:59:28 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE William H. Bowen wrote: > I can't say I'm suprised at all about this latest assault by our > "INJustice Dept" on the American people and the Constitution. And this > from a group that will do nothing about criminal conduct in the White > House, including masss murder, treason and other crimes by the present > occupant. But it is OUR job, not just theirs, to hold mafia^H government officials responsible for their crimes, and for following the very Constitution by which every ounce of their rightful authority is granted. If we won't put these bastards down ourselves, then it is foolish to believe that their friends in the InJustice Dept. are going to do it for us. It is after all part of the same mafia^H government. > All I can say is that the first government nazi that breaks into my > house to screw around with my computer is going to exit in a rubber > bag! They won't be coming through your front door (at least not yet). They'll be coming through your Internet connection. If you're not already using a firewall, it's time to start, and if you're using an inherently insecure platform like Windows, it's time to stop. By the time they *do* come through people's front doors, they will have persuaded most law-abiding Americans to lay down their arms, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding, so that relatively few people will be in any position to effectively resist. These are dark days, for sure, but I believe we should always do the right thing, regardless of law, politics, or popularity. "Every man dies. But not every man truly lives." - William Wallace, from the movie, _Braveheart_ Joe ------------------------------ From: kol@netcom.ca (David Koltermann) Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 14:06:34 GMT Organization: Netcom Canada On 20 Aug 1999 22:04:40 -0400, dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) wrote: > In E. Cummings > writes: >> SprintPCS has just instituted a $3.00 fee on >> *all* customers who prefer to pay their bill in cash in person. I >> have never heard of a company with thousands of retail locations >> charging its customers an extra fee for simply paying their bill in >> person -- even if it's on time or in advance. > Alas, this is something that is occurring more and more in other > businesses. For example, there are movie and "live" theaters in NYC which > charge a "handling fee" for giving you a cash-paid ticket at the box > office. NYC's Department of Consumer Affairs was looking at this as an > advertising issue, since you were told your ticket was, say, $50 but you > had to pay $52.50 to get it. Similarly the tax folk were wondering what > the "real" taxable charge should be. This trend seems to be slowly gaining ground all over. Here in Canada, the CBC radio show recently had a segment on the protest put up by a customer when his gas utility began refusing to accept cash. They don't charge extra to handle it, they won't take it at all! I suppose the cashless society is slowly beginning to be enforced upon us. When they succeed, they will be able to compile comprehensive economic activity dossiers on all of us, all the time! Those who are of little interest to banks (I understand disadvantaged groups and the elderly poor have a hard time getting bank accounts at all in some places) will begin to be frozen out of the economy all together, or else they will have to pay more for everything than richer folk do. Such a wonderfoul world we live in. David Koltermann [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the United States at least, the law provides that our currency is considered satisfactory payment of all debts, 'public and private'. Lacking a contract in which you agree to provide some other form of payment, your creditor may not refuse a cash payment. If the creditor refuses to accept cash in payment of your debt, then under the law, the debt is forgiven. Your creditor does not have to accept checks, or other 'promises to pay'(which is what checks and credit cards are, the bearer of the note presents your promise to pay at your bank, etc) nor does your creditor have to accept partial payment of a debt. But if cold, hard cash is presented in complete and full payment of the debt, he must accept it under the law or your debt has been forgiven. An exception allows that in the case of a debt greater than ten dollars, the creditor is not obligated to accept 'the minor coins of the United States'; i.e. pennies, nickles or dimes as payment of the full debt. To those of you who have thought at one time or another that a good way to 'get even' with the tax collector was by going to their office with an armored truck full of pennies to pay the tax -- yes, people have done it when they were angry about their taxes -- the answer is the creditor does not have to accept that. But generally, cash must be accepted as full payment of a debt or the debt is forgiven. The catch is *was the debt already incurred or not*. In the case of a *proposed indebtedness*, ie you consider subscribing to telephone service, or cell phone service or whatever, the proposed creditor can insist that he will only allow you to become indebted to him on the condition that you agree to pay by (let us say) credit card or check each time or in whatever manner he specifies. 'Contracts' do not have to be written documents which you have signed. They can be verbal statements one person makes to another; they can be a sign posted on a wall in a public place and conspicuous way. A sign on a wall which says 'we do not accept larger than twenty dollar bills in payment' or a sign which says 'exact change required to ride the bus' are enforceable contracts. As an example, a few years ago a man in Chicago presented a one hundred dollar bill to the subway agent as payment of fare. The agent refused to accept it. The man 'jumped' the turnstiles and continued on his way. He was shortly thereafter arrested by police and charged with evasion of the fare. He pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty by the court. His defense was that when he tendered payment in full to transit authority, and transit authority refused his payment, his debt had been forgiven. Attorney for transit authority argued that the indebtedness had not yet occurred, and would not occur until the defendant had received conveyance from one point to another on one of transit authority's vehicles. Then he would be indebted, however, transit authority's contract with its riders posted conspicuously in the station and stated verbally to the defendant by the agent on duty was that transit authority refused to allow his (or any) indebt- edness -- i.e. you cannot ride the subway train -- unless you agree in advance to the terms of payment required, and that you in fact make an advance payment according to their terms to pay for your indebtedness when it comes due; that is when you disembark from the transit authority vehicle. You are not indebted when there is merely a discussion about or a proposal for you to become indebted, such as standing at the cage 'discussing' with the agent your intention to ride on transit authority vehicles. The man lost his case, and was fined three hundred dollars for fare evasion. Thinking he would get the last laugh anyway, the man goes to the cashier of the Clerk of the Court a few days later to pay his fine, in the form of *many* rolls of pennies and nickles. They take him back in front of the judge who proceeded to give him hell and tell him his options were to go somewhere with all those coins, cash them in and return with paper money later the same day or be held in contempt, his choice; 'but people who are held in contempt here usually spend a day in jail while they think about their situation.' I would think that if there was nothing in your contract with the telco requiring checks or credit cards as payment that you are within your rights to insist that they take cash for *debts already incurred* such as the prior month's service. But if their contract is like most and says that they have the right to change the contract terms with only a month's notice to you, and that your continued use of their service implies your agreement with their (new) contract, they probably could refuse to accept cash once any present 'indebtedness' had been cleared from the system, such as the next time you went to their office to pay. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dtm37@aol.com Date: 21 Aug 1999 14:42:35 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Business Telephone Systems > Our office needs to purchase a new business telephone system. If you are interested in the Cisco Selsius Voice over IP system contact Ron at CCSC 847-934-0580 or visit www.ccscnet.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 11:08:18 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: MyLine Question -- Who Owns the 800 Number (a) Legally, the North American Numbering Plan owns the 800 number. (b) On a more practical level, check your service agreement with MyLine. My experience with this type of service, like paging companies, is that the customer is not the subscriber of the 800 number, but rather, the service company is. If MyLine is the subscriber of record, the right of portability belongs not to the MyLine customer (you), but to MyLine itself. If it turns out you are the subscriber, find out who the RespOrg is so you know who to contact for instructions - routing, porting, etc. - on the number. I advise my clients that if portability is an issue, check subscribership before signing on with a service company for an 800 number. Judith Oppenheimer http://icbtollfree.com http://800consulting.com http://WhoSells800.com 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 mdpc@netcom.com (M. D. Parker) wrote: > Seems like there might be some case to have an hold the current 800 > number and transfer it to a new service supplier. At least, that is > what I thought 800 transportability was all about. ------------------------------ From: moore-cain@erols.com (Dave Moore) Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 15:34:28 GMT On Wed, 18 Aug 1999 08:25:29 PST, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: > David Perrussel writes: >> Datum's fix is to count the number of leap seconds issued since GPS >> satellites were put into service. From 7 January 1980 (day one as far >> as GPS receivers are concerned), there have been 13 leap seconds >> issued. The system is set so if there are more than 12 leap seconds >> issued (the amount when the new firmware was written), the GPS >> receiver thinks it is in the first epoch (0 to 1023). 12 or more and >> it will know it is in the second epoch (1024 to 2047). > And what will they do when the *next* rollover occurs (2047 by your > figures above)? Two things: (1) The next rollover after this one is 6 April 2019. (2) Datum's fix as described above is invalid, although it may happen to work. The reason is that leap second specification allows positive and negative leap seconds. As it happens, all leap seconds since 1980 GPS deployment have been cumulative. However, it's quite possible for future negative leap seconds to decrease the count. Remind me not to buy a Datum receiver. PGP key available from "http://users.erols.com/moore-cain/" Dave Moore ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #324 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 21 17:50:16 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA22287; Sat, 21 Aug 1999 17:50:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 17:50:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908212150.RAA22287@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #325 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Aug 99 17:50:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 325 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Canada's Yak Plan and the Canadian Telco System in General (Tony Toews) Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? (Tony Toews) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Alan Boritz) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Herb Stein) Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? (Alan Boritz) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Alan Boritz) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Speaker for the D00d) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Julian Thomas) Re: AT&T's Planned MediaOne Deal (Julian Thomas) Re: "A" Cell (Robert G. Schaffrath) Re: Inverse Multiplexer (John R. Levine) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers From Canada (Steven Sobol) Re: VISA Authorizations (Steven J Sobol) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (John R. Levine) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Canada's Yak Plan and the Canadian Telco System in General Organization: Me, organized? Not a chance. Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 18:55:17 GMT mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) wrote: > I seem to recall that in Canada there is even an unmetered evening > service for consumers. Correct. $20 per month gives you unlimited evenings and weekend calling anywhere in Canada. Here in Alberta it's called the Yak plan complete with advertising featuring the animal. Which greatly amused my sister in a different province until I explained that "yes, indeed, Telus, our provincial telco does indeed call it the Yak plan." I'm not on it as its prime time rate is higher per minute that my current rate. I have a residential line which I use mostly for outgoing calls to my clients or the Internet. So when talking to relatives, all of whom are on the plan, I just tell them to phone me. My grandfather died in June of last year. Some of my aunt and uncles evening phone bills alone talking to my grandmother were hitting $150 to $200 per month. When the Yak plan came in they immediately switched thus saving $130 to $180 per month. For the first few months sometimes you couldn't even get a dial tone but got a busy signal upon picking up the phone. However this may be due to a problem with one relative's cordless phone. From my own phone there were a number of times when I couldn't phone various relatives throughout Canada because I was getting a fast busy after dialing the number. I have not had a problem for the past six months or so. Now just to switch topics a bit. Just to help explain some of my experiences. I'm not up to date on the telco situation in Ontario, Quebec or the Maritimes as its been a decade or so since I've been out that way. My recent experiences with the Canadian telcos are limited to the Prairies and British Columbia. I've also spent only about ten days total in the U.S. entirely on business trips. I listen to all the American troubles with slamming, choosing long distance carriers, monopolized pay phones especially in airports and university campuses and the like, with a certain amount of disbelief. While I generally don't care for government ordered monopolies and other bureacratic nightmares I feel the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission) has done a decent job of regulating the telephone industry. We do have competition in long distance. Although I choose not to use any carriers as Telus, my provincial telco, has quickly matched, or near matched, the competitor's rates. We don't have the obscene pay phone rates you mention so often with obscene rates at airports or university campuses or prisons. Now our long distance rates are higher than the U.S. but given our extensive geography and lower population density I don't have a problem with that. One interesting difference, on the Prairies and B.C. anyhow, is that you can't dial into a payphone. They're outgoing calls only and specifically state so. I don't know that you've ever been able to do so. I would think this feature alone manages to cut down significantly on the use of the pay phone system by drug pushers. The telco also runs an ISP and has an impressive penetration both in customer numbers and coverage throughout the province. They have local phone call access everywhere throughout Alberta including remote, mostly native, communities of 250 population. The ISP service also extremely reliable. I seem to recall they had some problems with their local dial-in number being busy about six months ago. A year ago or so they had a problem for a weekend with no incoming messages on their newsgroup server. Whereas friends on competing services have now moved to Telus. They were reporting weekly problems. The service Telus offers is prompt, efficient, courteous and best of all, so reliable you never even have to think about it. I can usually talk to a human immediately after navigating a few voice response prompts and without being put on hold. And they fix problems. When I complained about a mistake on their part five years ago they credited my account for $60 instead of the $50 I figured they should. When I needed a new line put in at my home office it was in place within a week. (It was kinda funny to see the same installer three times in a year in a year as I was adding new lines. I live in a small town so it's not like they have a lot of people out here. The third time he asked me just what the heck I was doing with so many phone lines. Upon explaining it he was satisfied and then brought me his personal computer to fix the following weekend. I run into Danny every once in a while around town.) When I want to make a call I just pick up the phone and dial and it works. Dunno what else to say about Telus up here. I would also be greatly disappointed if George Petty, the president of Telus, decides they need to get the ratio of employees per telephone line down to some insanely low American driven number. I don't mind paying a little extra for good service. Which I currently have. Message posted to newsgroup and, if appropriate, emailed. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm VolStar http://www.volstar.com Manage hundreds or thousands of volunteers for special events. ------------------------------ From: ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Re: Those Internet Bill Paying Services, Why? Organization: Me, organized? Not a chance. Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 18:55:19 GMT larb0@aol.com (LARB0) wrote: > It seems that the whole premise of using internet bill paying services > relies on a trust of other people and automated processes with access > to your money. My highly respected and large bank has made four > errors in my account in the past three or four months. Yes - I am > looking for an alternative bank. But (1) I would never have > found/reconciled the errors without a paper trail and the ability to > sit down with a person face to face; and (2) if a reputable bank can > make errors, how can I trust an online, faceless interent company with > access to my accounts. Precisely why I don't care for any automated process including ATMs. But then I live in a small town where I can just walk to my bank. I'm also self employed and mostly work at home so I just drop by whenever I go for coffee. I also do not have a debit card with a PIN. I don't trust the banks security systems. Reckon I've read too many comp.risks articles. Hehehe BTW I've been a computer programmer for twenty years. I don't trust computers. And I'm in mellow laid back Canada. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm VolStar http://www.volstar.com Manage hundreds or thousands of volunteers for special events. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 10:26:56 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , John Willkie wrote: > I am a Sprint PCS customer and have been for the better part of a > year. On several occaisons, I have neglected to be timely in paying > my bill and had the service suspended. Each time this happened, I > would spend several hours (each way) traveling on transit to the > nearest San Diego county Sprint PCS office. Upon paying the bill (in > cash) the service would be immediately restored. > Last Friday (Aug 13) I repeated the process. When I got there, I was > informed that they were charging me $3.00 for the privilege of > receiving my payment. If I did not want to pay the three bucks, I > could use their "free" drop box, in which case I would not walk out > with a receipt. By a notice, this "feature" went into effect on > August 12, 1999, on orders of "Kansas City." Although Sprint is famous for their grossly mis-managed collections system, what you're describing is common practice for wireless operators. Bell Atlantic and AT&T have been doing it for years. However, (at least with AT&T Wireless) you have just about 30 days between the day the invoices are cut and mailed to the deadline on the snip notices. The snip notices are inevitable if your accounts payable department cuts checks only twice a year, like a few places where I've worked. However, Bell Atlantic got into a dispute with the City of New York a while ago when the City refused to pay ANY late charges on Bell Atlantic or Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile accounts. It seemed that Bell Atlantic was mailing the invoices ten or more days after they were printed, then trying to collect late charges for payment cycles significantly less than thirty days. Bell Atlantic-NJ continues that practice, since the postmark on the envelopes are rarely close to the posting date of the invoice inside. A Bell Atlantic invoice may be a week or more old before you even get a chance to open the envelope. BA (at least in NJ) is not charging late charges for balances carried forward, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a foolish way to do business. If the bills were mailed on the same day they were printed (as AT&T usually does), the payment cycles would be slightly better and BA's accounting department would show better performance (i.e. fewer customers showing past due balances). As far as I'm concerned, any vendor who doesn't mail their invoices within a day or two of the invoice posting date loses the right to charge late fees or suspend service. > I have never heard of an organization, particularly one with at least > partially regulated rates, charging for accepting cash, let alone > having the gall to call acceptance of funds a customer service. > As it was, I did not pay enough that day to reactivate the service. > Several days later I made sufficient payment to reactivate the service > and was charged another $3.00 for the acceptance of my payment. That's not a late fee, it's a handling fee, and a sleazy way of doing business. > I've been pretty busy (talking on the phone, among other activities) > for the past couple of days, but I plan to pursue this matter with > federal and state authorities and to review applicable sections of > federal and state statutory and case law. > My gut feeling is that what Sprint PCS is doing with the fee is > unlawful and is a material change in the terms of my service > agreement. I told the clerk that I believe it to be a surrogate > "reconnect fee." A "reconnect fee" may be a reasonable charge, but a surcharge for accepting cash is NOT. Especially since you can buy a money order for as cheap as 80 cents that is as good as cash. One thing to keep in mind, if you decide to deduct the usurious "cash-handling surcharges" and cancel your service contract early, Sprint is a notorious bad credit risk for collections, and quite a few collection agencies will not accept their business. In article , herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) wrote: > No doubt it's totally unreasonable for them to expect payment on time. > Deadbeats usually pay extra. > In article , Dave O'Shea > wrote: >> John Willkie wrote in message news:telecom19. >> 315.1@telecom-digest.org: >>> I am a Sprint PCS customer and have been for the better part of a >>> year. On several occasions, I have neglected to be timely in paying >>> my bill and had the service suspended. Each time this happened, I >>> would spend several hours (each way) traveling on transit to the >>> nearest San Diego county Sprint PCS office. Upon paying the bill (in >>> cash) the service would be immediately restored. > Herb Stein > The Herb Stein Group > www.herbstein.com > herb@herbstein.com > 314 215-3584 Wow, I didn't realize those of us who expect our vendors and service providers to issue timely invoices were "deadbeats." Exactly what business is the "Herb Stein Group" in, so I can be sure to NEVER be in a position where you might send ME an invoice? ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 15:09:12 -0500 I see nowhere in the message that the company that was owed the money failed to send an invoice. Come on folks, "I have neglected to be timely in paying my bill and had the service suspended." What's the problem? Not paying bills on time makes you a deadbeat. Alan Boritz wrote: > In article , herb@herbstein.com > (Herb Stein) wrote: >> No doubt it's totally unreasonable for them to expect payment on time. >> Deadbeats usually pay extra. > Wow, I didn't realize those of us who expect our vendors and service > providers to issue timely invoices were "deadbeats." Exactly what > business is the "Herb Stein Group" in, so I can be sure to NEVER be in > a position where you might send ME an invoice? ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 13:05:01 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Adam H. Kerman : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Since you mention Randy Suess, I will > tell about him to readers here who may not know of his role in the > history of networking. Randy started the very first computer BBS in > the world, in Chicago, in 1977. It was called "Ward and Randy's BBS" > and the Ward-person named therein was Ward Christianson who about > the same time developed an important protocol for file transfers > between computers. I think you've trivialized one of the most important computer technology developments since the floppy drive. Quite a few telecom applications wouldn't have existed without the Xmodem protocol, and the way in which it was licensed (or actually not licensed). In contrast, while we were moving files all over the world, and expanding our knowlege, some of my colleagues were struggling with how to move files between mainframes without using tapes and couriers and had never seen anything like Procomm before. > Is Ward and Randy's BBS still operating? It was > at the last time I happened to be at Randy's home, which was a number > of years ago on the northwest side of Chicago. The computer doing the > BBS was sitting there on the work bench right next to the computer > handling Chinet. If you were there a REAL long time ago, you could have been there when I dialed in as a user on both systems. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly did not mean to trivialize the Christianson XModem protocol, and yes, it was the first way of transferring files between computers. When I was there last, I suppose it would have been in the early 1990's. Once a year, there is a 'reunion' meeting for all the people from the old days of BBSing held at a restaurant on the far northwest side of Chicago. After that Saturday afternoon lunch, a few of us went over to Randy's home for a couple hours. You might very well have been online that day. PAT] ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 12:03:45 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Chris Griem wrote: > As I understand this situation, the software was supplied by AT&T's > Lucent labs, and MCIWorldcom was assured that proper shakedown testing > had been completed and all problems remedied. > If this is true, then the fault cannot be accurately placed unless somebody > pops their head up and says "yep, I'm the culprit!" No, no one needs to pop their head up. If the software was defective, then it's the producer's fault and they've got to make good. It's that simple. > MCIWorldcom is attempting the gargantuan task of integrating two > completely different types of networks (one based on dcs systems and > the other based on muxes), and the software and inventory disparities > inherent in this situation. like most ventures of this type, there > are problems in implementation. As a long time UUNet customer who's seen a LOT of how they implement systems and treat (or mis-treat) customers, I see a trend. It's gone from a snotty arrogant "we KNOW our business," to a snotty arrogant "you DON'T KNOW YOUR business." Geez, you're trying to convince people that you have such a gargantuan task integrating networks, yet you can't manage a simpler task of fixing your voice mail prompts so your customers can reach ANYONE on the phone at your office. I'd love to debate the merits of ATM and frame relay, but UUNet/Worldcom still thinks that their UUCP system is perfectly ok because they can PING it locally. > I work for MCIWorldcom, and I realize that I'm more sympathetic to the > situation than most, but the circumstances involved in the frame relay > problems have (so far) no obvious origin aside from "the software". I could be wrong, but from where I sit it looks like a huge chunk of responsibility should be placed on the shoulders of potentially unqualified "specialists" who have no real-world concept of how to maintain a service upon which people's income depend. ------------------------------ From: Speaker for the D00d Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 13:19:15 -0400 Organization: Martian Liberation Front Steve Winter wrote: > Bob Banks spake thusly and wrote: >> I hope you can help me. >> I'm a student and our Telecom teacher was asked why a 66 block is >> called that. He did not know and told us for extra credit find out >> what the 66 means. Two sixes, because three would be too obvious. ;^) >> I called AT&T and Ameritech yesterday and no one there could help me. >> If you could help I would really appreciate it, I hope you don't mind >> I've book marked your page; it looks like a great source of information. > When you find out, ask that same person why a 110 punchdown is called > a "110". "An inquiring mind is a terrible thing ..." And is it a "220" block, in Europe? Andrew wrote: > I heard it was because each contact is .66" apart. .66 _centimeters_, maybe. But certainly not a third of an inch. Brent Boyko wrote: > In article , Charles Gray > wrote: >> Thus, the terminal block with four screws that was mounted on millions of >> residential baseboards was a "C block". What happened to "A blocks", >> and "B blocks" I will never know. > The "A" block was in the CO, and the "B" block was on the pole outside > the residence. Residential area terminal boxes are still referred to > as "B boxes" by some. Especially as they often become nests for stinging insects. -- Speaker for the D00d Espousing the painfully irrelevant for over a quarter of a hour ... ------------------------------ From: jt5555@epix.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:30:02 GMT In , on 08/15/99 at 01:13 AM, kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) said: > We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us even > handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA > batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? Well, back in the days of battery operated tube radios, A batteries (1.5 or 6 v) lit the filaments, B (typically 90v) was plate voltage, and C was for bias. Was A the designation for a 1.5v dry cell (the ones that were about 2.5" in diameter and maybe 7" high)? These were widely used in early telephony in a 3 or 4 cell battery box to provide talking current; these were the magneto phones where a good crank raised the operator (and everyone else on the party line). Julian Thomas: jt 5555 at epix dot net http://home.epix.net/~jt remove numerics for email Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Murphy's Anachronism: disk failures occur immediately before backing up. ------------------------------ From: jt5555@epix.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: AT&T's Planned MediaOne Deal Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:02:54 GMT In , on 08/20/99 at 01:38 PM, Kevin DeMartino said: > Personally, I prefer to rent video tapes rather that to subscribe to > premium movie channels. Maybe, but for a decent selection we have to drive 20 miles each way. > Until now there has been no real competition for local telephone service. > With the acquisition of cable companies by AT&T and other developments, > this situation is rapidly changing. In the article cited above, the > position of consumer groups was paraphrased as: "AT&T has not proved it > can provide local phone competition". I don't want to sound like a > cheerleader for AT&T, but: Who do they think provided most of the local > phone service in this country for nearly 100 years? > Another issue is Internet access, where the cable companies are providing > real competition to the local telephone companies. Here in upstate NY we have: - phone service that has always been provided by an independent; - choice of 2 regional ISPs - but currently stuck at 28.8 (or 56 for those with good lines); - No cable within two miles, and TW which has the franchise for the town doesn't seem to be about to offer internet service. Hence the DISHNET to the rescue (with pay per view movies). Julian Thomas: jt 5555 at epix dot net http://home.epix.net/~jt remove numerics for email Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed. ------------------------------ From: Robert G. Schaffrath Subject: Re: "A" Cell Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 16:24:05 -0400 Organization: Totally Disorganized ABC News has an interesting page on battery designations at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/Geek/geek990607.html. Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX +1.516.759.4314 mailto:rschaffrath@acm.org http://www.schaffrath.net ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 1999 16:38:47 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Inverse Multiplexer Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > What is the term of of "Inverse Multiplexer" as used in > telecommunication system? A normal multiplexer uses a single fast line to send several slower signals. An inverse multiplexer uses several slower lines to send a single fast signal, usually to get mor capacity than any single line can offer. For example, you can (if your ISP cooperates) put two or three modems on your PC and use two or three phone lines to get the effect of a 150Kb download rate over dialup lines. A very notable example of inverse multiplexing was noted a month ago in the Digest: the downlink from the 1969 moon landing was inverse multiplexed through a bunch of European phone circuits to get from the base station in Spain back to the U.S. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada Date: 21 Aug 1999 20:42:40 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:53:30 -0700, mdesmon@us-one.net allegedly said: > Having worked in network operations in switching and translations, I > can tell you that not all toll free numbers have local numbers. They > can be pointed from the carrier switch to the customer PBX over a > dedicated T-1. We could add a local number in the translations in > case the T-1 went down, or for time and day routing however. Most > customers opted for this. Hey Mike! :) So how come AT&T got so flustered when I asked them to forward calls to my toll free numbers to my pager? I did so because at the time, I didn't have an office phone. The pager had a regular, local phone number associated with it. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org I am the president and sole shareholder of NSTC. Thus, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do represent the official opinions of the company :) ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 21 Aug 1999 20:43:46 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 20 Aug 1999 13:35:29 -0700, javier@mate.kjsl.com allegedly said: > cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) writes: >> The credit holds method wrecks havoc on users of the VISA "debit" or >> "check" cards. Imagine a consumer has $500 in their checking account. >> They make a purchase for $400 with their "check" card. They can then >> go to an ATM and overdraw their account, withdrawing $300. When their >> purcahse posts, their account will be -$200. > This is incorrect. I don't know that it IS incorrect. I've accidentally done this a couple times myself. (Fortunately, not for that large an amount.) North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org I am the president and sole shareholder of NSTC. Thus, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do represent the official opinions of the company :) ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 1999 16:46:26 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > There are also many, many, other businesses that have a defacto charge of > this sort. For example, all of you who still have a RBOC telco office (or, > for that matter, any other utility) in your neighborhood raise your > hands ... I count ... one ... two ... ? five? Me! Meee! Call on meee! My LEC is quite happy to have me come in and pay my bill in person. The office is three blocks from here, downstairs in the same building as the CO. They prefer if I bring my three-year-old along. Incidentally, just to left of the building is a LEC pay phone at which local calls cost 10 cents, pay when the party answers. I agree that down the road in Bell Awful territory things are not so great, although you can pay without hassles at any of their agents including a couple of all-night supermarkets. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #325 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 21 22:05:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA01104; Sat, 21 Aug 1999 22:05:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 22:05:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908220205.WAA01104@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #326 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Aug 99 22:05:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 326 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson A New Law Affects Innovation and Compatibility (Monty Solomon) New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs (Wayne V.H. Lorentz) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Coredump) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada (Al Iverson) UUNet/Worldcom Hanging Up On Customers - Literally! (Alan Boritz) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (Alan Boritz) Selective Calling Rate Change (BellAtlantic) (John Baldi) Cell Phones and Water (Bill Levant) Re: Help Needed - Is Phone Being Bugged? (John McHarry) Last Laugh! A Tragic Case of a Wrong Number (David Massey) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 20:08:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A New Law Affects Innovation and Compatibility Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 13:23:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Cyber Rights Subject: Article: A New Law Affects Innovation and Compatibility http://webreview.com/wr/pub/1999/08/20/platform/index.html [56]Platform Independent ______________________________________________________________________ A New Law Affects Innovation and Compatibility by [57]Andy Oram Aug. 20, 1999 The spat between America Online and Microsoft over instant messaging has led many to unfurl banners in support of open standards, product compatibility, and competition. People concerned with these policies should take a look at the proposed Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act, which would determine rules for the distribution of software and computerized information. Given final form earlier this month, it will now be submitted to all 50 state legislatures for approval. In the AOL/Microsoft controversy, Microsoft started innocently enough by using the open, published AOL standard to create a messaging service that could interoperate with AOL's to permit conversations between MSN and AOL users. But since then, AOL has repeatedly made changes to its service-and Microsoft has almost as quickly put out a new version of its product that restores compatibility. Although the July 24 {New York Times} said Microsoft used reverse engineering to achieve compatibility, a Microsoft spokesperson simply told me, "we used standard development procedures, lots of testing, trial and error." That was a smart answer to stave off charges of hypocrisy, because like many software companies (including Netscape) Microsoft licenses contain a clause saying "You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the software product ..." Whatever they did, the way Microsoft chased the AOL protocol round and round the mulberry bush remains a good reminder of how important it is to permit engineering practices that contribute to compatibility and interoperability. UCITA Puts the Shrink-Wrap on the License And thus one of the central controversies over UCITA. The goal of this [58]356-page draft is to improve the legal environment for software development on several levels: 1. It decrees that software and information products are licensed, not sold. We are all familiar with the "shrink-wrap licenses" that fall out of software packages or confront us when we download a plug-in; UCITA claims to eliminate ambiguities in the ways courts have accepted the licenses. 2. It provides a legal framework for technologies that enforce licenses, like digital signatures, ways to identify license violations, and "self-help" measures. (That last, innocuous-looking term refers to time bombs and other technical means a vendor can use to shut down software and perhaps even corrupt the data you've created with the software.) 3. It lays out a number of rules assigning responsibility for bugs or incorrect information. Mark Nebergall, Vice President and Counsel for the [59]Software and Information Industry Association, lauds UCITA and predicts, "Some states will rush to enact this: states that want to attract information industries." Not so fast. UCITA has developed one of the broadest opposition coalitions I have seen in the history of intellectual property. The [60]list of opponents reads like a directory of organizations in consumer rights, software development, entertainment, and information. UCITA didn't even make the [61]Federal Trade Commission happy. Originally the provisions were meant to be part of the Uniform Commercial Code that governs business regulation throughout the country, and were called UCC Article 2B. But one of the organizations responsible for developing the UCC, the American Law Institute, withdrew its support. So the other organization, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, completed the work and brought it to the states under the name UCITA. Revenge Upon the Nerds What gives all these opponents the shivers? UCITA has been criticized for: * Shielding software manufacturers from liability for bugs and misrepresentation. * Hiding important license information from users, and requiring customers to bear costs of returning software if they don't like the license. * Keeping people from transferring software to someone else, the way people commonly trade books or records. (This would also affect companies that sell business units or merge.) * Shifting the burden of accuracy from people contracting for technical work onto the writers performing the work. * Suppressing reverse engineering -- the topic of this article. The NCCUSL made changes in response to criticism, so that UCITA now states the importance of free speech, competition, and fair use. It also states that courts could overturn provisions that they see violating these principles or other compelling public policies. But many details are left up to precedents that will be developed over years of court cases. That's how the situation would be if UCITA didn't pass, too. The drafters of UCITA, of course, did not claim to be making social policy. But personally, I can't understand why a 356-page document had to leave the status of fundamental rights ambiguous, when the authors could spend dozens upon dozens of pages specifying what it means for a customer to "agree" to terms or how a company can prove that an agreement was broken. In defending UCITA, Nebergall claims it actually offers consumers more protections than [62]current precedent. For instance: * If you don't see the license until you've paid for the product, you can get your money back. * Businesses purchasing single copies of mass-market software get protection similar to individual customers. * The much-criticized self-help measures are hemmed in with lots of restrictions not found in current law. Reverse Engineering Not Protected But when it comes to reverse engineering, Nebergall says a prohibition in a shrink-wrap license would probably be binding under UCITA. In the absence of UCITA, according to software engineer and lawyer Cem Kaner, "No court has ever upheld a ban on reverse engineering for mass-market software." Like other provisions in UCITA, a prohibition could be overturned by law. But current law is not too strong. The flagship copyright law of the decade, the 1998 [63]Digital Millennium Copyright Act, permits reverse engineering "for achieving interoperability." Sounds good; if Corel wants to create a word processing product that accepts .DOC files, that's all for the benefit of interoperability, isn't it? But an aggrieved company could plausibly claim that reverse-engineered products constitute competition, not just interoperability-so a prohibition on reverse-engineering might stand. And as Kaner [64]points out, reverse engineering has many legitimate purposes that might be squelched by a shrink-wrap license. Reverse engineering raises many of the same questions as the [65]user interface or "look-and-feel" copyright suits ten years ago. Both issues raise the questions of what is the true intellectual property in software, and how important it is to promote new innovations or competition in comparison to protecting earlier innovations. Where your sympathies fall will determine whether you think UCITA is fair. _________________________________________________________________ Andy Oram, [66]andyo@oreilly.com, is an editor at O'Reilly & Associates and moderator of the Cyber Rights mailing list for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. This article represents his views only. References 56. http://webreview.com/pub/at/Platform_Independent 57. http://webreview.com/pub/au/Oram_Andy 58. http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/ucita/citam99.htm 59. http://www.siia.net/ 60. http://www.nwu.org/pic/uccorgs.htm 61. http://www.ftc.gov/be/v990010.htm 62. http://www.netlitigation.com/ecommerce.htm#about3 63. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/hr2281.pdf 64. http://www.badsoftware.com/reveng.htm 65. http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Copyright/copyright.html 66. mailto:andyo@oreilly.com CPSR Cyber Rights -- http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ To unsubscribe, e-mail: cyber-rights-unsubscribe@cpsr.org To reach moderator, e-mail: cyber-rights-owner@cpsr.org For additional commands, e-mail: cyber-rights-help@cpsr.org Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ------------------------------ From: waynelorentz@/THOUSHALLNOTSPAM/worldnet.att.net (Wayne V.H. Lorentz) Subject: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 00:39:15 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Just when I thought Southwestern Bell couldn't make things worse ... They have installed a new feature on my (and I assume everyone else's) line in Houston, Texas. When you call a number that is in use, instead of passing a busy signal you get a recording in English and Spanish offering to have the number ring you back for a 50-cent charge. It's similar to the leave-message-on-busy you sometimes get when calling from a payphone with AT&T. Here's the difference: With the AT&T version you hear a couple of busy signals, then get the recording. With Southwestern Bell's version, you never get a busy signal, just the recording. Of course, my U.S. Robotics modem doesn't understand English; it does understand busy signals. So dialing into my ISP (AT&T Worldnet), instead of hitting a busy and moving on to the next number in the series, the modem sits and waits and waits until timing out and I eventually get a Retry/Cancel message from the dialing software. I suspect they've also screwed up the hunt groups in the process because I get this message from numbers that haven't been busy in the four months I've used Worldnet. Customer service says there's nothing they can do about it until Monday and maybe I should have signed up for ISDN service if I was going to connect to the internet, anyway. Gee, thanks. For those interested, from my mobile phone I tested my home phone's call forwarding on busy/no answer, and that seems to work properly. Wayne V.H. Lorentz Television Producer "Runs with scissors." ------------------------------ From: coredump@NOxSPAM.enteract.com (Coredump) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 00:37:14 GMT Organization: Cores' Internet and Storm Door Company On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 13:19:15 -0400, Speaker for the D00d wrote: > Andrew wrote: >> I heard it was because each contact is .66" apart. > .66 _centimeters_, maybe. But certainly not a third of an inch. The one in my garage looks more like .66cm center to center, but it might be a bit more than that. I can't 'eyeball' it any closer on the CM scale on the ruler I'm using . Core coredump@NOSPAM.enteract.com http://www.enteract.com/~coredump Sidetracked on the Information Superhighway ------------------------------ From: radparker@radparker.com (Al Iverson) Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada Organization: See sig before replying Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 19:41:47 -0500 In article , sjsobol@NorthShore Technologies.net (Steven J Sobol) wrote: > On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:53:30 -0700, mdesmon@us-one.net allegedly said: >> Having worked in network operations in switching and translations, I >> can tell you that not all toll free numbers have local numbers. They >> can be pointed from the carrier switch to the customer PBX over a >> dedicated T-1. We could add a local number in the translations in >> case the T-1 went down, or for time and day routing however. Most >> customers opted for this. > Hey Mike! :) > So how come AT&T got so flustered when I asked them to forward calls > to my toll free numbers to my pager? > I did so because at the time, I didn't have an office phone. > The pager had a regular, local phone number associated with it. Probably because the AT&T rep was stupid, or they have some dumb anti- pager drug dealer related policy about it. The two 800 numbers at my work (Minnesota) just point to two different normal local (USWest) telephone numbers. Our LD carrier is MCI Worldcom. Al Iverson -- Web: http://al.radparker.com/ -- Home: Minneapolis, USA Visit the Radparker Relay Spam Stopper at http://relays.radparker.com. STOP! Include SWANKY99 in email replies or they may be tagged as spam. Send me no unsolicited advertising, as I will always return it to you. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: UUNet/Worldcom Hanging Up On Customers - Literally! Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 11:29:39 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE I called UUNet last week (800-900-0241 and 800-488-6384) about horrendous throughput on UUCP through a northern NJ POP. Navigated to the 24-hour NOC choice, and it prompted me for a password. No voice mail option would get me to the NOC. Just called a few minutes ago (800-900-0241), the voice mail options have changed (NOC no longer a choice), and choosing the operator caused UUNet's voice mail to hang up. Didn't realize until recently that their backbone had been in bad shape, too. I suppose the NOC must have made themselves unavailable because of all the unhappy customers calling to scream at them. With this kind of nonsense it's inevitable that the customers WILL scream at them, with UUNet being so deceptive. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 12:29:27 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , llambda@gmx.net wrote: > In TELECOM Digest V19 #313: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Quite a few folks avoid links to NYT >> for the same reason you mention which is the same reason I avoid them. >> There simply are too many other news sources which do not try to get >> personal data on netizens. PAT] > I have noticed that someone has been registering at web sites with a > user name of "cypherpunks" and a password of either "writecode" or > "cypherpunks". This interferes with the proper purpose of the web: > targetted advertising. You have a distorted perception of what "the web" is all about. Perhaps you should revisit the NCSA(?) web site to read about what creative activities were envisioned when the technology was implemented. > Like the web's version of "foo was here", this vandalism pops up in > all manner of unlikely places. Even the NYT site has a user > "cypherpunks" with password "cypherpunks". I urge your readers to > verify for themselves just how widespread this practice is. Where will > it end? Probably won't. As long as "targeted advertising" results in unsolicited commercial email, we'll be using any convenient names to foil the system. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 18:03:11 -0400 From: John Baldi Subject: Selective Calling Rate Change (BellAtlantic) I just read a notice on page two of my BellAtlantic (NJ) bill. I have (more accurately, "had") Selective Calling from my home to New Brunswick NJ, which gives (er, "gave") me 20 hours of calls there for a cost of $1.36 for the service + $2.47 for this town. The notice on my bill says the cost is going to increase by $2.00 and the hours are going to DEcrease from 20 to 8. They also gave a phone number in case I had any "questions or concerns." Ha. So I called and told them I wasn't terribly thrilled with paying approx 50% more for less than half the hours. To be fair, the woman was very pleasant. She claimed that the FCC is forcing them to raise the price and cut the hours, because the CLECs were complaining that with BellAtlantic being so cheap, they couldn't get any customers with Selective Calling away from them. Hmph. Another victory for me the consumer??? ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 18:35:55 EDT Subject: Cell Phones and Water > Are there experiences with mobile phones of other manufacturers? > Can you open and dry them, and they work again? Well, I once dunked a Sony/Qualcomm Sprint PCS phone in the toilet. No, not on purpose. Afterwards, once it dried out, it worked mostly ok, except that the on/off switch became exceedingly balky. After several days of fighting with it, I had my company get Sprint to swap the phone for our spare. But it did still work. Bill ------------------------------ From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: Help Needed - Is Phone Being Bugged? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:07:18 GMT On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 16:53:24 -0400, Jay W. Parsons wrote: > If you have five-digit dialing between the two systems, they are > connected by digital or analog trunks. Cross talk may occur on both > types of trunks. How on earth could you get cross talk between two digital trunks? I would think any interference between them would either increase the noise level, completely trash the intended circuit, or capture the interfering signal. The samples aren't even in frame synch after passing through a switch. Also, I think trunks are either digital or analog, no third option, so it doesn't matter how many digits you dial. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 19:24:32 -0400 From: David Massey Subject: Last Laugh! A Tragic Case of a Wrong Number A woman suspects her husband is cheating on her. One day, she dials her home and a strange woman answers. The wife asks, "Who is this?" "This is the maid," answered the woman. "We don't have a maid", said the wife. The maid says, "I was hired this morning by the man of the house. The wife replies, "Well, this is his wife. Is he there?" The maid replied, "He is upstairs in the bedroom with someone who I figured was his wife." The woman is fuming. She says to the maid, "Listen, would you like to make $50,000?" The maid asks, "What will I have to do?" The woman tells her, "I want you to get my gun from the desk, and shoot the jerk and the witch he's with." The maid puts the phone down; the woman hears footsteps and the gun shots. The maid comes back to the phone, "What do I do with the bodies?" The woman says, "Throw them in the swimming pool." Puzzled, the maid answers, "But there's no pool here." A long pause and the woman says, "Is this 832-4821?" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #326 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 21 22:46:16 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA03184; Sat, 21 Aug 1999 22:46:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 22:46:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908220246.WAA03184@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #327 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Aug 99 22:46:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 327 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson DOJ Proposes Secret Searches (Monty Solomon) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Robert G. Schaffrath) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (David Perrussel) Cash (was Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge)) (Mark Brader) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Art Kamlet) Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? (Art Kamlet) Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (Alan Boritz) Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs (Dave O'Shea) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 19:58:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DOJ Proposes Secret Searches Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: C D T P O L I C Y P O S T A BRIEFING ON PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES ONLINE from THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY Volume 5, Number 19 August 20, 1999 CONTENTS: (1) Justice Department Proposes Secret Searches of Homes, Offices (2) If the Government Wants Your Data, It Should Come to You For It (3) Proposal Also Sets Standards for Access to Escrowed Keys (4) Subscription Information (5) About the Center for Democracy and Technology ** This document may be redistributed freely with this banner intact ** Excerpts may be re-posted with permission of ari@cdt.org This document is also available at: http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_5.19.html _______________________________________________________________________ (1) JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PROPOSES SECRET SEARCHES OF HOMES, OFFICES The Justice Department is planning to ask Congress for new authority allowing federal agents armed with search warrants to secretly break into homes and offices to obtain decryption keys or passwords or to implant "recovery devices" or otherwise modify computers to ensure that any encrypted messages or files can be read by the government. With this dramatic proposal, the Clinton Administration is basically saying: "If you don't give your key in advance to a third party, we will secretly enter your house to take it if we suspect criminal conduct." The full text of the Justice Department proposal, a section-by-section analysis prepared by DOJ lawyers, and related materials are available at: http://www.cdt.org/crypto/CESA. The proposal has been circulating within the Clinton Administration since late June. On August 5, the Office of Management and Budget circulated it for final interagency review. In the normal course, after all potentially interested agencies have been consulted, the proposal would be transmitted to Capitol Hill, where it could be introduced by any Member, or offered as an amendment to pending legislation. _______________________________________________________________________ (2) IF THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOUR DATA, IT SHOULD COME TO YOU FOR IT The proposal is intended to eliminate a core element of our civil liberties. Normally, under the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights, when the government wants to search your home or office, the government must obtain a court order issued by a judge based on a finding of probable cause to believe that a crime is being committed AND the government must provide you with contemporaneous notice of the search -- show you the warrant and leave an inventory of the items seized. This notice requirement has ancient roots. It is based on the notion that the judicial warrant (issued on the basis of the government agent's untested assertions presented to a judge in private) does not provide adequate protection against abuse. Notice is important because it gives you the opportunity to observe the conduct of the government agents and protect your rights. If the agents are exceeding the scope of the warrant, for example, you can even rush down to the courthouse and ask a judge to stop the search. And after the search, you can exercise your rights for return of your property and otherwise defend yourself. Over time, our society has tolerated exceptions to this rule. For example, the government can enter secretly to plant bugs to pick up oral communications or to bug your phone, but that is quite rare. Most wiretaps do not involve entry into the home. A few courts in a few cases have allowed so-called "sneak and peek" searches, in which government agents can enter surreptitiously, provided they don't take anything. And in the name of foreign counterintelligence, the government has long conducted "black bag jobs," such as the one in which they searched the home and computer of CIA employee Aldrich Ames. The new DOJ proposal is a huge expansion of these previously narrowly defined exceptions. The proposal takes extraordinary cases at the fringes of the law and makes them routine, given the increasingly ubiquitous nature of computers. Thus, the encryption debate, which up until now has been about privacy and security in cyberspace, is becoming a struggle over the sanctity of the home. _______________________________________________________________________ (3) PROPOSAL ALSO SETS STANDARDS FOR ACCESS TO ESCROWED KEYS The proposal also includes detailed procedures for government access to keys and other forms of decryption assistance stored with third parties. Again, the essence of the DOJ proposal is government access to keys without the knowledge or cooperation of the crypto user. The DOJ claims that these key recovery provisions provide greater protection for lawful users of encryption, by making it clear that a third party holding a decryption key or other recovery information cannot disclose it or use it except in accordance with the procedures set forth in the Act. The DOJ-drafted procedures are complicated and unique, turning on unanswered questions of what is "generally applicable law" and what is a "constitutionally protected expectation of privacy." They fall far short of protections proposed by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) in the Electronic Rights for the Twenty-First Century (E-RIGHTS) bill, S. 854, described at http://www.cdt.org/crypto/legis_106/ERIGHTS/ In any case, few individuals use third party key recovery, and there seems to be little individual or corporate interest in key recovery for communications, so even the strictest procedures for access to escrowed keys would be vastly outweighed by the proposed secret searches of homes and offices. In the small comfort department, the DOJ proposal makes it clear that key escrow or third party key recovery would not be mandatory. _______________________________________________________________________ (4) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Be sure you are up to date on the latest public policy issues affecting civil liberties online and how they will affect you! Subscribe to the CDT Policy Post news distribution list. CDT Policy Posts, the regular news publication of the Center for Democracy and Technology, are received by Internet users, industry leaders, policymakers, the news media and activists, and have become the leading source for information about critical free speech and privacy issues affecting the Internet and other interactive communications media. To subscribe to CDT's Policy Post list, send mail to majordomo@cdt.org In the BODY of the message (leave the SUBJECT LINE BLANK), type subscribe policy-posts If you ever wish to remove yourself from the list, send mail to the above address with NOTHING IN THE SUBJECT LINE and a BODY TEXT of: unsubscribe policy-posts (5) ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY/CONTACTING US The Center for Democracy and Technology is a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, DC. The Center's mission is to develop and advocate public policies that advance democratic values and constitutional civil liberties in new computer and communications technologies. Contacting us: General information: info@cdt.org World Wide Web: http://www.cdt.org/ Snail Mail: The Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW * Suite 1100 * Washington, DC 20006 (v) +1.202.637.9800 * (f) +1.202.637.0968 End Policy Post 5.19 Aleksandr Gembinski Webmaster etc. Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street, NW 11th Floor Washington, DC 20006 (v) +1.202.637.9800 (f) +1.202.637.0968 http://www.cdt.org/ ------------------------------ From: Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:32:30 -0400 Organization: Totally Disorganized moore-cain@erols.com (Dave Moore) wrote: >> On Wed, 18 Aug 1999 08:25:29 PST, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard >> Erickson) wrote: >> David Perrussel writes: >>> Datum's fix is to count the number of leap seconds issued since GPS >>> satellites were put into service. From 7 January 1980 (day one as far >>> as GPS receivers are concerned), there have been 13 leap seconds >>> issued. The system is set so if there are more than 12 leap seconds >>> issued (the amount when the new firmware was written), the GPS >>> receiver thinks it is in the first epoch (0 to 1023). 12 or more and >>> it will know it is in the second epoch (1024 to 2047). >> And what will they do when the *next* rollover occurs (2047 by your >> figures above)? > Two things: > (1) The next rollover after this one is 6 April 2019. > (2) Datum's fix as described above is invalid, although it may happen > to work. The reason is that leap second specification allows positive > and negative leap seconds. As it happens, all leap seconds since 1980 > GPS deployment have been cumulative. However, it's quite possible for > future negative leap seconds to decrease the count. Remind me not to > buy a Datum receiver. Unless they have changed the design, the Datum product uses the Trimble Acutime Smart Antenna for its GPS information so it is not "technically" the receiver. I just watched the GPS rollover a little over an hour ago. I have a standalone Trimble Acutime II and it hiccuped after the rollover and lost track of the satellites. I knew this would happen from information on the Trimble web site. The fix was to cold start the receiver after which point it came back to life. Only problem now is the diagnostic tool thinks it is January 1980. This of course is not the fault of the GPS receiver. At this moment, all it knows is that it is week #0 at about 3800 seconds since the beginning of the week. It is the diagnostic program that has coded within it an epoch of January 6, 1980. Since I have the source code, I will have to change that to August 22, 1999 and it should work fine for another 19 years. Now that the WNRO has occurred, all new firmware released by these GPS manufacturers (including Datum) can simply code an epoch of August 22, 1999 and forget about January 6, 1980. Of course this will only hold until April 6, 2019. Personally I think Datum's solution is rather clever. If they had picked a leap second count of say six or any non-zero count, since it was zero on January 6, 1980, they probably could have covered themselves in the unlikely event the earths rotation speeds up. As I mentioned above, GPS only knows the week number and number of seconds since the current week rolled over. It has no clue as to the year and the satellites do not transmit anything else that could even be remotely construed as a year or epoch information. It is the job of the receiver to calculate the current date based on its knowledge of GPS epoch. So you really had to scratch your head to come up with some way to know when to automatically change your epoch reference. The only other solution I have seen posted is something akin to a Y2K solution (everything before 50 is 2000 + year, after 50 is 1900 + year) where all week numbers less than the date a particular unit was manufactured are considered to be after WNRO and higher week number pre-WNRO. Such a unit though will break well before the next WNRO. I am sure the debate will still be raging in 2019. Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX +1.516.759.4314 mailto:rschaffrath@acm.org http://www.schaffrath.net ------------------------------ From: David Perrussel Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:16:20 -0400 Reply-To: David Perrussel Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over > Datum's fix as described above is invalid, although it may happen > to work. The reason is that leap second specification allows positive > and negative leap seconds. As it happens, all leap seconds since 1980 > GPS deployment have been cumulative. However, it's quite possible for > future negative leap seconds to decrease the count. Remind me not to > buy a Datum receiver. And hence why we plan to replace ours with TrueTime brand receivers in the next few years ... (there are several reasons, but this GPS roll over problem is one of them.) But I have a feeling that most if not all of them plan on using leap seconds to determine what epoch they are in ... If not, I do wonder how they will determine which epoch they are in to correctly display time. You are 100% correct on the fact that leap seconds could be negative. I do not know exactly the cut off number that Datum is using -- but I think the number is 11 or 12. We tried 10 in the GPS simulator we were using and that's when we found the "funky" characters (high ascii and Greek symbols). And before anyone else reminds me -- the GPS week field is a TEN (10) digit field, not 8 as previously posted! > And what will they do when the *next* rollover occurs (2047 by your > figures above)? Hopefully then they will issue either a new firmware upgrade (based upon the number of leap seconds at that time) or they will be lucky enough that no one will use a receiver that is 25 years old! Dave ------------------------------ From: msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Cash (was: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge)) Date: 21 Aug 1999 20:12:07 -0400 Organization: - David Koltermann writes: > This trend seems to be slowly gaining ground all over. Here in > Canada, the CBC radio show recently had a segment on the protest put > up by a customer when his gas utility began refusing to accept cash. > They don't charge extra to handle it, they won't take it at all! And TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the United States at least, the law > provides that our currency is considered satisfactory payment of all > debts, 'public and private'. Lacking a contract in which you agree to > provide some other form of payment, your creditor may not refuse a > cash payment. ... And as far as I know, that's also true in Canada, so this utility case is surprising. On the other hand, I imagine they'd be within their rights to accept cash payments at, say, only one location in a province. > An exception allows that in the case of a debt greater than ten > dollars, the creditor is not obligated to accept 'the minor coins of > the United States'; i.e. pennies, nickles or dimes ... A similar rule in Canada is expressed in section 8 of our Currency Act . But this has come up from time to time in alt.folklore.urban, and the consensus there is that if there ever was such a law in the US, it was repealed years ago (perhaps at the time that silver was eliminated from the ordinary coinage). Can Pat or anyone cite a source for this "exception"? Mark Brader "Actually, $150, to an educational institution, Toronto turns out to be about the same as a lower amount." msbrader@interlog.com -- Mark Horton My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: 21 Aug 1999 19:52:57 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Scot E. Wilcoxon wrote: > So does MCI have their Lucent software licenses categorized as > liabilities? All I know is whatI read in the newspapers, which had Lucent spokespeople claim this software works just fine in other netwroks, and that MCI didn't install it correctly. From what I know of Lucent, they don't cast blame on others unless they are really really certain. So it seems as if Lucent software has been working well in other networks. Whether Lucent is right, and MCI installed it wrong, or whether Lucent didn't account for something in MCIs situation, I don't know. I am confident this has extremely high level attention of both MCI and Lucent at this point, and perhaps the two companies will issue a joint statement, approved by the lawyers and PR folk, to clarify what happened. > I wonder what MCI could have done if they had source code? Well, I suppose if they could have bought the source (maybe they could?) they would have had to have the extensive laboratories and simulated networks and network auxilliary equipment (SCPs & STPs and recording boxes and admin systems other stuff found in Lucent's labs) and a pretty large design and testing staff, and then couldn't point fingers at Lucent. Why do you ask? Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? Date: 21 Aug 1999 19:57:46 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Alan Boritz wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly did not mean to trivialize > the Christianson XModem protocol, and yes, it was the first way of > transferring files between computers. The first method I used was UUCP. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 11:19:43 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Joey Lindstrom wrote: > On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 05:31:42 -0400 (EDT), Monty Solomon wrote: >> The Federal Reserve Board votes unanimously to let banks make account >> statements available to customers through e-mail or the Web. >> http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5970,00.html > OK, am I misreading this, or does this mean that, up until now, US > banks have not been able to offer full-service banking on the > internet? It seems that being able to get an account statement would > be one of the most basic functions of such a service, and I've been > able to get that from the CIBC for the last couple of years, with no > legal impediments (it just took 'em that long to get the system > working to that point!) No, I think the point is that with entirely electronic banking a bank will probably be able to routinely charge you for providing a paper copy of your bank statement, as well as for sending back to you your cancelled checks. Eventually, you can expect charges for providing ANYTHING on paper, and a lot of charges for undocumentable items. Bottom line is that it adds very little value for the consumer and gives the bank a lot more opportunities to charge for items that cost them next to nothing. ------------------------------ From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs Organization: snaip.net Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 02:20:01 GMT Wayne V.H. Lorentz wrote in message news:telecom19.326.2@telecom-digest.org: > Just when I thought Southwestern Bell couldn't make things worse ... Their resourcefulness in this respect amazes me. After they hacked a cable here last week, they came out and sorta-fixed my POTS line, but killed my ISDN in the process. When called up to come and fix the problem, the recorded message informed me cheerfully that I can expect to have my problem looked at in seven days. Damn I'm glad I stayed away from SBC stock. > They have installed a new feature on my (and I assume everyone else's) > line in Houston, Texas. When you call a number that is in use, > instead of passing a busy signal you get a recording in English and > Spanish offering to have the number ring you back for a 50-cent > charge. It's similar to the leave-message-on-busy you sometimes get > when calling from a payphone with AT&T. This is second only to the pitch you hear every time you spend a buck to dial 411, informing that they can now also provide you with the wrong number nationwide. > Here's the difference: With the AT&T version you hear a couple of busy > signals, then get the recording. With Southwestern Bell's version, > you never get a busy signal, just the recording. Of course, my > U.S. Robotics modem doesn't understand English; it does understand > busy signals. So dialing into my ISP (AT&T Worldnet), instead of > hitting a busy and moving on to the next number in the series, the > modem sits and waits and waits until timing out and I eventually get a > Retry/Cancel message from the dialing software. I'd think that quite a few systems would respond with a "VOICE" error, and abort any redialing. At least that's what I used to run into when I was using modems. > I suspect they've also screwed up the hunt groups in the process > because I get this message from numbers that haven't been busy in the > four months I've used Worldnet. Did I mention the time they put free call waiting on the first line in my hunt group? Or the time they put in per-call conference calling (additional buck) without telling us? > Customer service says there's nothing they can do about it until > Monday and maybe I should have signed up for ISDN service if I was > going to connect to the internet, anyway. So you're the lucky devil who's getting his service fixed this week, eh? Considering that SWBell considers anything above 1200bps to be dangerously unstable and unsuited to their network, I would not expect much more. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #327 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Aug 22 17:47:23 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA05577; Sun, 22 Aug 1999 17:47:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 17:47:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908222147.RAA05577@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #328 TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Aug 99 17:47:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 328 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Ray Mereniuk) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (J.F. Mezei) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Dave Moore) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (J.F. Mezei) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (J.F. Mezei) Re: Cell Phones and Water (Pete Weiss) Re: Cell Phones and Water (Michael A. Desmon) Re: Worldcom's Customer Service (Christopher J. Pilkington) "Art" Imitates Life in the MCI/Worldcom Outage? (Tom Allebrandi) AT&T Settles Lawsuit; Fine, Changes Over Slamming (Monty Solomon) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Alan Boritz) Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (John David Galt) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Kim Brennan) Cell Phone Shopping (in DC) (Kim Brennan) How to Find the Owner of a Lost Cellphone? (Dave Anderson) Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers From Canada (M.A. Desmon) Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) (J.F. Mezei) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Raymond D. Mereniuk Organization: FBN Technical Services Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 20:23:32 -0800 Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) wrote: > While I generally don't care for government ordered monopolies and > other bureacratic nightmares I feel the CRTC (Canadian Radio and > Telecommunications Commission) has done a decent job of regulating the > telephone industry. We do have competition in long distance. Although > I choose not to use any carriers as Telus, my provincial telco, has > quickly matched, or near matched, the competitor's rates. I believe you are missing the point. We still do not have real unregulated telephone competition in Canada and we pay big-time because of that. The Canadian Telcos have done such a good job lobbying (corrupting) the CRTC and the powers that be in Canada that Canadians feel good about the shaft they are receiving. The Canadian Telcos have done no significant cost-cutting to enter this supposed age of competition. The telecommunication union lobby is probably to blame for this. Since we have been blessed with competition in the long distance area my local line access has increased from ~$18 to over $27 and they tell me more increases are coming to help pay the costs of competition in the long distance market. I figure the Canadian Telcos should be forced to cut their cost structure to maintain their profitability in a time of competition rather than lobbying (corrupting) the Canadian government and the CRTC for permission to milk more money from their residential subscribers. I realize the Canadian Telcos state that they are subsidizing residential rates but the solution should be for the Telco to cut their costs or take other actions to make residential service profitable at $20/month. Initially the Canadian Telcos thought that this would be the case and served notice on their unions that the gravy days were over. The unions lobbied (corrupted) the politicians and now all Canadians are continuing to subsidize an inefficient provider of goods and services. Great system if you like paying more for less service. The only real solution to making the Canadian Telcos an efficient provider of goods and services at a reasonable rate is to offer a real alternative to the Canadian Telcos. The only solution on the horizon for residential subscribes is the Cablecos. In the Vancouver BC area the Cableco is expected to start trial service of local dial-tone some time in 2000. Provided the Cableco is not corrupted by the politicians or the CRTC we may again have reasonable cost residential subscriber rates. As an incentive to the Cablecos to continue to innovate "I" figure we should allow the Cablecos to maintain their complete control in providing Internet over cable. If AOL or other ISPs want access to high-speed Internet access to residential subscribers they should get into to bed with ILECs or CLECs and come up with a real alternative to Internet over broadband cable. Letting AOL or other ISPs signup subscribers with cable modems is not real competition and would not truly serve the consumer over the long-term. It is a short-term fix for AOL and other ISPs to cover their own lack of vision and leadership in the market-place. I don't intend to insult anyone here with my rant but I get that funny feeling everytime I sit down after I get my telephone bill. And yes, I realize if you must talk to Rogers about cable TV service their service sucks. But, the Internet over cable people are trying real hard to be more responsive. They still have a bit more distance to go on the learning curve but they are getting better. Virtually, Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbn.bc.ca "The Ultimate Enterprise Security Experts" http://www.fbn.bc.ca/sysecurt.html ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:50:54 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the United States at least, the law > provides that our currency is considered satisfactory payment of all > debts, 'public and private'. But it does not prevent a vendor from charging you more for handling of your cash. If you buy a last minute air ticket with cash, be prepared to be searched, etc. etc. Some services are just not setup to handle cash. Large utilities may balk at cash because the payment cannot go through the normal channels for payment processing because there isn't a piece of paper (cheque). It is pretty standard for large companies/utilities to specify that cash payments may not be made by mail. How will e-commerce function in the USA if the law forces all merchants to find a way to accept cash in exchange for products/services? (Especially when dealing with international transactions). I suggest any law that forces a vendor to accept cash is outdated and probably dates from before the introduction of credit cards (in the 60's), debit cards (in the 80's) and now cash cards (stored value such as Mondex in Canada or VISA-CASH in Australia). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, credit cards have been around earlier than the 1960's. Both American Express and Diner's Club date back well before that. Diner's Club began as the 'in-store' credit card for Bloomingdale's Department Store in New York City in the 1940's; it was (at that time) a consolidation of a couple earlier pay-on-credit installment plans that Bloomingdale's had. About 1950 the Bloomingdale's in-store credit people thought of a new promotion to help their sales. They solicited several of the finer restaurants in Manhattan in a program which allowed holders of their card to eat in the restaurants and obtain some discount on the price of the meal. These members of the 'Diners Club of Bloomingdales' received that as a benefit of their use of the store's credit card. Around the middle 1950's it was spun off as a separate subsidiary, with offices on Columbus Circle in Man- hattan. Alfred Bloomingdale, the chairman of the board of the store was also the chairman of the board of the newly-founded Diner's Club, Inc. They began converting from all manual accounting procedures to a computerized process in the middle 1960's. American Express was around then also, as were the gasoline service station credit cards, which began in the 1920's or 1930's. My first recollection a 'cash station' ATM card however was 1973, when they were issued by a couple banks in Chicago. My first debit card was 1986. You may be thinking of VISA, which began its life under the name 'BankAmericard' in -- I think -- 1962. The San Franciso-based Bank of America offered its 'BankAmericard' on a purely local basis for a few years in the 1950's before going national with it a few years later. At some point after that -- I do not remember the year -- the Bank of America started 'VISA' as a national operation for the purpose of issuing franchises to other banks who wished to have their own 'co-branded' credit card programs. An early competitor was a card called 'Town and Country' which eventually became the national brand known as MasterCharge/MasterCard. But Diners, Amex and the oil companies all had their credit cards in existence long before that, with manual accounting operations of course. You can read more about this in the Telecom Archives history files, where Mark Cuccia has a report on the way the Standard Oil Trust successor companies operated their credit card inter-company billing operations. If you want to be very precise about it, Diners goes back to the late 1800's when Bloomingdale's first started selling on credit. Amex dates to about the start of the present century. VISA/MC/Discover are the 'new guys' in the business of credit granting. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 01:14:55 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) In article you write: > There are also many, many, other businesses that have a defacto charge of > this sort. For example, all of you who still have a RBOC telco office (or, > for that matter, any other utility) in your neighborhood raise your > hands ... I count ... one ... two ... ? five? Of course there are several local phone company offices in my area. These are COs not customer service offices, and many of them have a sign near the front door saying we do not accept payments at this location. I have heard that one day the utilities will prohibit check payments in the mail, and will require credit card. What about those of us who don't have credit cards? Direct debit! Do you really trust your bank's security, to allow direct debit? Sometimes I wonder. In a local bank (name withheld to protect the innocent), there was a crack in the glass and no one noticed it until I called the cops. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: moore-cain@erols.com (Dave Moore) Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 04:19:06 GMT On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:32:30 -0400, Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX wrote: > The only other solution I have seen posted is something akin to a Y2K > solution (everything before 50 is 2000 + year, after 50 is 1900 + > year) where all week numbers less than the date a particular unit was > manufactured are considered to be after WNRO and higher week number > pre-WNRO. A general solution requires the ability to manually input a start date for a cold initialization. After that the receiver stores the last week count in cmos memory. If the week count is less than the last valued stored, increment the epoch. This scenario would fail if the receiver was off for over 19 years 8 months or if the cmos battery dies. In that case, re-initialize the cold start procedure with a manual date. PGP key available from "http://users.erols.com/moore-cain/" Dave Moore ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 00:25:47 -0400 I am surprised that this GPS roll over made so much noise. Talk about HYPE. The message was very simple: If your GPS receiver was built before 1994, check with the manufacturer. I was outside with my GPS at 23:59:47 UTC on Saturday to celebrate the new millenium. And my GPS continued as if absolutely nothing happened. And this was the case with the vast majority of GPS receivers. I was saddened by the lack of a warning, bell, whistle or fireworks from my GPS unit. It is only when GPS units became affordable that they became so widespread. And this happened after 1994. The EOW has been discussed for a long time already. The Media saw an opportunity for hype only this week. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 01:02:09 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements In article was written: > However, Bell Atlantic got into a dispute with the City of New York a > while ago when the City refused to pay ANY late charges on Bell > Atlantic or Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile accounts. It seemed that Bell > Atlantic was mailing the invoices ten or more days after they were > printed, then trying to collect late charges for payment cycles > significantly less than thirty days. > Bell Atlantic-NJ continues that practice, since the postmark on the > envelopes are rarely close to the posting date of the invoice inside. > A Bell Atlantic invoice may be a week or more old before you even get > a chance to open the envelope. BA (at least in NJ) is not charging > late charges for balances carried forward, but it doesn't take a > rocket scientist to figure out that this is a foolish way to do > business. If the bills were mailed on the same day they were printed > (as AT&T usually does), the payment cycles would be slightly better > and BA's accounting department would show better performance > (i.e. fewer customers showing past due balances). In my opinion, this is a very bad way to do business. They can earn interest on money received from early payments. If the bills are late, they won't get very many early payments. > As far as I'm concerned, any vendor who doesn't mail their invoices > within a day or two of the invoice posting date loses the right to > charge late fees or suspend service. My calling card company closes my billing cycle on the 17th or 18th of the month and usually mails the bills on the 21st, and gives me until the 8th or 9th of the next month to pay. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:57:18 -0400 Alan Boritz wrote: > It seemed that Bell > Atlantic was mailing the invoices ten or more days after they were > printed, then trying to collect late charges for payment cycles > significantly less than thirty days. Bell Canada puts 25th of the Month on Envoy 100 bills. Their accounting department doesn't get the actual amounts until 2-3 BUSINESS days afterwards. I get the paper bills about 1.5 to 2 weeks later. The problem is that "invoice date" means "invoice period" and not "date invoice was printed". So the company doesn't really give you 30 days to pay. If their own accounting system is unable to provide you with the invoice amount on the date shown on invoice, I call this unethical. ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: Cell Phones and Water Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 09:42:04 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems >> Can you open and dry them, and they work again? I've been told to immediately "dunk" them again in clean water, preferrably distilled water. Pete ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 11:02:53 -0700 From: Michael A. Desmon Reply-To: mdesmon@us-one.net Organization: Imagine Telecom Subject: Re: Cell Phones and Water > Are there experiences with mobile phones of other manufacturers? > Can you open and dry them, and they work again? I managed to spill a super sized Coke on my Nokia a couple weeks ago. The display was wierd and none of the buttons worked, except for the power. I turned it off, popped the battery out and let it dry out for a few hours. It was good as new and I haven't had any problems with the phone since then. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remind me sometime to tell about the experience I had when I knocked over a paper cup of what I was drinking on the keys of a cordboard style switchboard I was working at. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) Date: 22 Aug 1999 05:59:44 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Worldcom's Customer Service I had a similar problem with my former employer. Sent certified mail disconnect orders to our local sales office. I recieved the green cards back as confirmation of receipt. I was told that they did not receive the disconnect orders. When I showed them "proof" that they had received them, I was conveniently told that such person that signed the receipt was no longer with the company. My solution: Certified Mail, restricted delivery with address confirmation to the Regional V.P. of Sales. This way, either our account gets properly disconnected, or they can the VP of sales to keep my account on. The account was disconnected (in 31 days.) Christopher J. Pilkington To reply, you know what to do. ------------------------------ Reply-To: tom@ytram.com From: tom@ytram.com (Tom Allebrandi) Subject: "Art" Imitates Life in the MCI/Worldcom Outage? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 22:48:45 -0400 Has anyone noticed the new MCI/Worldcom commercials for five cent long distance? They light up a big billboard which apparently draws so much power it shuts down everything else. Is it my imagination, or did these commercials start around the same time as the frame relay outage? Hmmmmmm ... Tom Allebrandi (tom@ytram.com) TA Software Systems Charlottesville, VA, USA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:06:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Settles Lawsuit; Fine, Changes Over Slamming By Max Jarman The Arizona Republic Aug. 21, 1999 AT&T agreed to pay $150,000 in legal costs and alter its marketing practices to settle a lawsuit brought by the Arizona Attorney General's Office over the company's alleged slamming practices. http://www.azcentral.com/business/0821ATT21.shtml ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:14:35 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , bugsy wrote: > OK, telecom experts can you please help me out here? I truly > believe this is a telecom problem. I'm a Pacific Bell customer. I have > two lines coming into my home; one for personal use and the other for > business. I have a computer with a modem but the computer is turned > off when not in use. I don't have a cordless phone and I don't have a > fax machine. I have a security alarm that is monitored. I have cable > tv that is somehow linked to my phone line. My phones are wired to the > wall. Either your alarm dialer or your cable TV is making the calls. Unplug one and see if the other is the culprit. It's very possible that one of the devices is programmed incorrectly and is dialling a "911" at the beginning of the dial command. I've done the same thing by accident, once dialing "9117" as the beginning of what should have been "1917," and had the local police pounding on my door in minutes. > ...I have three concerns: > 1) If someone is calling 911 and they are really in trouble, they are > not getting thru and something bad can happen. > 2) If it keeps up, the police may not respond a quickly in a real 911 > call from my house because, 'its that house again that gets the false > alarms'. > 3) It must be bugging the heck out of the police and I'm afraid that > someday they will kick down my door. You should have a fourth concern: 4) The local PD will charge you with filing a false police report and fine the hell out of you. If they hit and kill someone on the way to responding to a bogus 911 call at your house, they'll try to put you in jail. Those times when you thought your phone went dead may have been one of the dialers placing an outbound call. Did the phone seem to go dead on any of the days when you got a visit from the local PD? Set off your alarm on purpose and see who calls you first, the alarm service or the PD. If the PD calls, it would have to be because of a bogus 911 call, so fire the alarm company. If the alarm passes the test, then try triggering the cable box into dialing for whatever reason it needs to have a phone line connection and see if the PD call back. In article , Aunt Lilybet wrote: > It is also possible that a cordless phone dails 911 when the battery > dies. I supervise a 911 center and we get this all the time people > leave their phones off the charge. This was told to me by a telephone > company official. Not all cordless phones have this feature and I was > not given a list of the ones that do dial out. This was suppose to be > some type of safety feature for the elderly. There was a list published in the APCO Bulletin a while back, along with the details on the problem. ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 04:00:01 GMT Monty Solomon wrote: > The Federal Reserve Board votes unanimously to let banks make account > statements available to customers through e-mail or the Web. > http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5970,00.html I had the impression that BofA and Wells Fargo have been offering exactly that service for years -- and that one or both makes you use an insecure access code (your SSN?) and doesn't let you opt out, so if you bank with them, your data is insecure no matter what you do. I hope the Feds regulate this service enough that if the above is true, it will no longer be. John David Galt (an ex-customer of both) ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 22 Aug 1999 04:10:42 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming The fearless moderator pens: > Consider some mail I got Thursday. A lady writes me as follows: (details deleted for brevity.) Okay, let me go on the reverse side or your observations. With an email address of "Kim@aol.com" I get tons of email on a daily basis (more than 200 a day normally). More than 90% of it is not for me, though it is addressed to me. The types of mail that I get are spam (on the order of 20-30 pieces a day) or (almost all the rest) folks "cc'ing" themselves because their name begins with "Kim", not realizing that "Kim" isn't their email address; Sending mail to their daughter/wife/lover/friend whose name is "Kim" (although their email address is something quite different.) Finally there is mail that gets sent to me because AOL screen names can have a space in them (though for internet use the space should be ignored) and many mailing systems will send "kim branson@aol.com" to Kim@aol.com" Branson@aol.com" rather than "KimBranson@aol.com" (btw, the example is ficticious I hope.) Some of the "Spam" is someone else applying to a listserv, but putting MY email address on the listserv. (I recently got removed from one such list serv by the sysadmin who reported that 14 entries had been added in "my" name.) This last category is most annoying because some of the organizations that send mail to me are commercial partners of America Online (Preview Travel for instance) and do have a way of knowing which accounts sent the mail. Many folks with similar AOL screen names (Dave, Craig, John, Anthony, etc.) have similar tales of woe that make such addresses nearly unusable. I persist. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 22 Aug 1999 04:27:45 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Cell Phone Shopping (in DC) Since Sprint Spectrum is shutting down it's GSM service, my current service provider for my cell phone, I'm in the market for a new provider. The choices available (as far as I know) seem to be Bell Atlantic Mobile, Sprint PCS, AT&T, and Cellular One. Sprint PCS is out because thier coverage is considerably worse than my current coverage. I'm looking for something that 1) covers the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC, especially near Dulles Airport, 2) covers the Shenandoah Valley down to Harrisonburg, Va. and 3) covers Pendelton County West Virginia. Sprint PCS only covers item 1. Sprint GSM covered 1 & 2. Bell Atlantic Mobile seems to have a good rep, but while the 1 coverage is good and they cover more territory than Sprint PCS, they don't handle 2 & 3 very well. That leaves AT&T and Cellular One. Their coverage area seems identical (coincidence?) I'd prefer the handset to be one of the Motorola Startac models (which means I'd be able to continue using my existing GSM accessories), but the Startac models available aren't dual mode (which seems to be necessary to get coverage in West Virginia ... which has very spotty digital coverage, if any at all.) So what I'm asking for really, is opinions on dealings with AT&T's and Cellular One's mobile services. Billing problems, quality of service, etc. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 99 00:40:42 EDT From: Dave Anderson Subject: How to Find the Owner of a Lost Cellphone? My wife works at a public library, and a cellphone just turned up in their lost-and-found. There's got to be some reasonably simple way to get a message to its owner so he can come pick it up (and to verify that he is the owner when he does come in), but I can't think of one offhand. Suggestions, please! Thanks, Dave Anderson Software engineer seeking employment in the Greater Boston (Mass.) area. Experience in operating systems, networks, compilers, client/server, and more. Interest in databases and hardware design. Proven ability to learn new environments quickly. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Dial *611 on the cellphone, speak with the customer service people for that customer, give them the phone number and/or ESN and ask them to contact their customer. I am sure they will do so. I've had the same situation with VISA cards which I found a couple times where customers left them on a counter in the store, etc. Call the associated bank and ask them, 'would you please contact your customer and have them come back to the store to get their card.' Most are quite happy to help in that way. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:46:06 -0700 From: Michael A. Desmon Reply-To: mdesmon@us-one.net Organization: Imagine Telecom Subject: Re: Dialing "Blocked" US 1-800, 888, 877 Numbers from Canada On 21 Aug 1999 20:42:40 GMT, sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) wrote: > So how come AT&T got so flustered when I asked them to forward calls > to my toll free numbers to my pager? > I did so because at the time, I didn't have an office phone. > The pager had a regular, local phone number associated with it. There's no technical reason why they couldn't. AT&T is just being difficult. They can point an 800 number just about anywhere. We had situations where a customer would point their 800 number to their office during the day, and then after 5pm point it to the number of their answering service or other alternate number. We did that thru translations on our Siemens DCO. We would also get requests for people that were going out of town on vacation or business and needed their 800 number forwarded to the number they were going to be at. If there's one thing AT&T is good at, it's screwing up my AT&T Wireless bill just about every month. They seem to have perfected that. :) ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Last Laugh! (was Re: Deep Linking Proposal) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:27:37 -0400 If that movie studio insists nobody links to them, perhaps all search engines should be called upon to remove that movie studio's links completely. That will teach that movie studio a good lesson when nobody will go visit that site anymore. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #328 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Aug 22 20:43:10 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA11825; Sun, 22 Aug 1999 20:43:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 20:43:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908230043.UAA11825@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #329 TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Aug 99 20:43:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 329 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Leonard Erickson) Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (Louis Raphael) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: VISA Authorizations (Michael A. Desmon) Re: VISA Authorizations (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: VISA Authorizations (Christopher J. Pilkington) Re: VISA Authorizations (Tony Pelliccio) Re: VISA Authorizations (Orin Eman) Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest (Andrew) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Leonard Erickson) Re: How to Find the Owner of a Lost Cell Phone (Dave Miller) Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? (amp@pobox.com) Re: MyLine Service Discontinued (Stan Schwartz) Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Hrst Christian Wimmer-Rue) A New Poll Question - How Do You Answer Phone? (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Last Laugh! A Tragic Case of a Wrong Number (Steve Winter) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 11:50:48 PST Organization: Shadownet hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) writes: >>> We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us >>> even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA >>> batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? >> Sure, they are/were about 8" tall and 2" dia. 1.5 Volts. They used to >> be used in rural telco subscriber equipment, for talk battery among >> other things. >> I don't think they're made any longer. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can still get them in Radio Shack. >> They are also used to operate Western Union clocks. PAT] > And your local Elevator/COOP/Feed Store they are used to run > Electric Fence Chargers , usually used in threes they also > come in a large lantern battery style that is 3 A cells in a metal case. And they are still used as starting batteries for model airplane glow-plug engines. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: Louis Raphael Subject: Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle vert Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 05:51:07 GMT Sounds much like the typical Canadian banking experience ... charge for statement (fairly typical), charge for returning cancelled cheques (almost no exceptions), etc. The only benefit (cost-wise) of new technology has been to the banks, which can now profitably charge for every operation. Which is all why I'm proud to be a member of DUCA Community Credit Union (www.duca.com), branches in much of southern Ontario ... it's a shameless plug, but I would like to point out that even in this day of electronic impersonality and rapacious [Canadian] banks, there is still one institution where you don't get treated like a crook, charged through the nose, where statements come with a pencil check mark besides each returned cancelled cheque and where ordinary operations do not carry nasty charges. Highly recommended to Digest readers (and others) in the 416 and 905 area codes. Louis Alan Boritz wrote: > No, I think the point is that with entirely electronic banking a bank > will probably be able to routinely charge you for providing a paper > copy of your bank statement, as well as for sending back to you your > cancelled checks. Eventually, you can expect charges for providing > ANYTHING on paper, and a lot of charges for undocumentable items. > Bottom line is that it adds very little value for the consumer and > gives the bank a lot more opportunities to charge for items that cost > them next to nothing. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 00:57:43 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power In article is written: > By the time they *do* come through people's front doors, they will > have persuaded most law-abiding Americans to lay down their arms, the > 2nd Amendment notwithstanding, so that relatively few people will > be in any position to effectively resist. In my opinion the best way to fight is in court, by hiring a lawyer. In civilized societies your lawyer will do a far better job of defending you, than your gun ever would. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:50:27 -0700 From: Michael A. Desmon Reply-To: mdesmon@us-one.net Organization: Imagine Telecom Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations On 20 Aug 1999 13:35:29 -0700, javier@mate.kjsl.com allegedly said: > cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) writes: >> The credit holds method wrecks havoc on users of the VISA "debit" or >> "check" cards. Imagine a consumer has $500 in their checking account. >> They make a purchase for $400 with their "check" card. They can then >> go to an ATM and overdraw their account, withdrawing $300. When their >> purchase posts, their account will be -$200. > This is incorrect. I think that depends on your bank. I've done that a few times before when I didn't track my balance correctly and the bank would treat it like a bounced check. They would honor the Visa and ATM transactions and then charge me a returned check fee of $29. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 00:54:30 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations In my experience, with a debit card, the money is *not* immediately debited from the checking account when a purchase is made. In fact it takes some days. However, this problem is not caused by the "hold" or "authorization." During authorization the machine checks to see if the money is there. If there really was a real "hold" the money would be "frozen" until the transaction settles. But on a debit card it doesn't do a hold. Your mileage may vary. ------------------------------ From: cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) Date: 22 Aug 1999 05:59:45 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations My bank, Key Bank of Eastern New York, allowed me to do this. The "freeze" on your account only applies to purchases made on the MasterCard side. For some reason, they cannot freeze your actual money. They can only take your money after they get a settlement. I'm sure they have quite a few attempts of abuse when it comes to this. Does anyone know how they minimize their losses in this situation, other then just brute-force collection? Christopher J. Pilkington To reply, you know what to do. ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 18:50:31 GMT In article , javier@mate.kjsl.com says: > cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) writes: >> The credit holds method wrecks havoc on users of the VISA "debit" or >> "check" cards. Imagine a consumer has $500 in their checking account. >> They make a purchase for $400 with their "check" card. They can then >> go to an ATM and overdraw their account, withdrawing $300. When their >> purcahse posts, their account will be -$200. > This is incorrect. > In the example you set forth above, $400 of the customer's > balance will be frozen and unavailable to the customer right after the > merchant gets the authorization for the $400 chrge. So the maximum > amount the customer would be able to withdraw at that point would be > $100. Depends on the bank. If there's an outstanding check that presents for processing immediately after, the bank will hold the credit card transaction, cash the check and then the merchant is left hanging until funds are deposited. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: orin@wolfenet.COM (Orin Eman) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 22 Aug 1999 22:55:26 GMT Organization: Wolfe Internet Access, L.L.C Javier Henderson writes: > cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) writes: >> "check" cards. Imagine a consumer has $500 in their checking account. >> They make a purchase for $400 with their "check" card. They can then >> go to an ATM and overdraw their account, withdrawing $300. When their >> purcahse posts, their account will be -$200. > This is incorrect. It's going to depend on the bank. One bank I use has an overdraft limit which keeps sneaking up ... It's at $800 now. But they will charge $20 for _every_ withdrawal that takes you overdrawn, or while you are already overdrawn. I found this out when an ISP hit me with a large unexpected charge (not their fault unfortunately for me). It can also take them up to a week to clear a VISA debit transaction! So, in the above example, I'd expect to be able to withdraw the $300. If I didn't cover the extra $200, I'd expect to be $220 overdrawn once the $400 cleared. Orin. ------------------------------ From: andrew@3.1415926.org (Andrew) Subject: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest Date: 22 Aug 1999 23:02:35 GMT Organization: MaTech In a June 23rd posting to this group, Fred Goldstein asked us to guess the future name of the combined Bell Atlantic/GTE and to send the guess along with a $70 entry fee to the contest sponsors. Being a believer in minimalist URLs I entered ba-gte.com/net and gte-ba.com/net. Although it wasn't showing up in the whois database at the time, some fellow from the Phillipines had already guessed ba-gte.com in December of 98. Bell Atlantic aquired it from him last month. The contest I'm sponsoring is to guess how much, if anything, Bell Atlantic will offer me for ba-gte.net. The best guesser will have a donation in their name made to telecom-digest.org. Guesses may be sent to andrew@ba-gte.net. Andrew [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, thank you! Have you any idea what they paid the other guy for his version of it? That might give the folks an idea what sort of guesses are reasonable. Or is that part of the contest? Better still, I would be interested in finding out what would happen if you did *not* agree to release it on their demand. If you feel like having a little fun with this, when they contact you about it, try stalling them for a couple months, or saying it is not for sale, or whatever. If you are in the mood, pass along whatever demands they make, or correspondence from their attorney so we can all have a good laugh out of it. I am surprised in a way that they paid the other guy anything at all. Had they been doing their homework on this they would have realized that these days all that is required -- as America OnLine has taught us -- is to apply heavy pressure on the registrar and just kick the smaller site out of the way by taking its name. Best of luck with it either way, and thanks again for the kind thoughts. I am looking forward to receiving your contribution. PAT] ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 14:15:50 PST Organization: Shadownet Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX writes: > I just watched the GPS rollover a little over an hour ago. I have a > standalone Trimble Acutime II and it hiccuped after the rollover and > lost track of the satellites. I knew this would happen from > information on the Trimble web site. The fix was to cold start the > receiver after which point it came back to life. Only problem now is > the diagnostic tool thinks it is January 1980. This of course is not > the fault of the GPS receiver. At this moment, all it knows is that > it is week #0 at about 3800 seconds since the beginning of the week. > It is the diagnostic program that has coded within it an epoch of > January 6, 1980. Since I have the source code, I will have to change > that to August 22, 1999 and it should work fine for another 19 years. > As I mentioned above, GPS only knows the week number and number of > seconds since the current week rolled over. It has no clue as to the > year and the satellites do not transmit anything else that could even > be remotely construed as a year or epoch information. It is the job > of the receiver to calculate the current date based on its knowledge > of GPS epoch. So you really had to scratch your head to come up with > some way to know when to automatically change your epoch reference. Well, from your description, I'd say that what nedds to be done is to have the unit contain some NVRAM, say an EAROM or EEPROM (neither nedds batteries and their 10,000 to 100,000 write lifetime is *more* than adequate). And then incorporate an algorithm similar to the one below. Either upon completion of the unit, or upon a "cold start", the unit would obtain the time, including week number. It would then prompt the user for the year (and have an input validation algorithm that checks to be sure the year checks against the week). Then it would display the current date and ask for confirmation. Upon confirmation the week number and at least the year, would be written to the NVRAM. After this, at startup you check the week number against the stored value. If the current week number is *less* than the stored week number, assume you are in the next epoch and update the NVRAM with the new week number/year pair (easily calculated). This will only fail if the unit is unused for more than an epoch. And since it's writing to the NVRAM only at cold-starts or epoch changes, even NVRAM that has fairly severe limits on the lifetime total number of writes would last longer than the GPS unit. Though adding a checksum to the data to catch "used up" NVRAM wouldn't be a bad idea. If any manufacturer wishes to use the above, go for it. You have my permission. If you make handheld units, it'd be nice if you sent me one, but I won't require it as a condition of the "license". :-) Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: Dave Miller Subject: Re: How to Find the Owner of a Lost Cellphone? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 16:41:24 -0700 Dave Anderson wrote in message news:telecom19. 328.17@telecom-digest.org: > My wife works at a public library, and a cellphone just turned up in > their lost-and-found. There's got to be some reasonably simple way to > get a message to its owner so he can come pick it up (and to verify > that he is the owner when he does come in), but I can't think of one > offhand. Suggestions, please! Call 611 on the phone and have them notify the owner. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 06:53:11 -0500 From: amp@pobox.com Reply-To: amp@pobox.com Subject: Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? > In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Alan Boritz : >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly did not mean to trivialize >> the Christianson XModem protocol, and yes, it was the first way of >> transferring files between computers. > The first method I used was UUCP. What about Kermit? Didn't that predate Xmodem? I recall having versions of Kermit for just about every system I connected with, including HP-3000 Series 68 and Vax 11/770 minicomputers. It was slow, but everyone seemed to support it. amp ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Re: MyLine Service Discontinued Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:05:49 -0400 In TELECOM Digest V19#319, Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is not a question of 'taking any > new orders'; the entire thing is being shut down according to the > voicemail I got today from someone at their office. As of September 1 > it is dead. I certainly am pleased with the two week notice I got. > This really is not a surprise. They've made little or no effort to > market it for quite a long time, despite what a good service it is. > I don't know right now where I will get the same kind of service. I > may not even bother with it any longer to be honest. PAT] Pat, I spoke with a customer service rep at GST on Friday who told me that the service will be continued by the original developer, and a letter is currently being drafted. Currently being drafted? With service changing hands on September 1st?? Geez! I asked as many ways as I could, but I was assured that MyLine service will be maintained. After you recommended it here in the Digest, I subscribed and I've been very happy with it for about six or seven years! Besides the callback and calling features, I don't know of another service that provides a tenacious wake-up call. For those who don't know, if you set a 'wake-up call' in MyLine, it will call you at the requested time and number and ask you for your PIN. If you sleep through it, or if an answering machine picks up, it will call you back after a few minutes asking for the code again. This will go on a few times unless you wake up and enter a PIN. Almost as good as Mom!!! - Stan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I will see if there is anything new left in my voicemail from them in the next couple days. The last thing I got was a message in voicemail from a woman in their office on Thursday last who told me it was being discontinued September 1 and to call if I wanted to 'make arrangements'. I do not know what 'arrangements' to make at this point so I have not called back. Let me be honest and forthright here: I first got aquainted with them when it was first mentioned here in the Digest six or seven years ago. They were generally pleased with the quality and quantity of response they received as a result of my mention, and at a later point made a financial contribution to the Digest. Not a heavy-duty contribution, ie. the kind that keeps the Digest in publication sent by one of my Patrons such as ITU, Mr. Gates, Mike Sandman or others in the past, and not a 'reader-sized' twenty dollar contribution either; but it was very decent of them to say the least. Whatever I 'owed' them as a result has long since been met, but I still must say they are about the finest service of their kind I have ever seen. Extremely useful, extremely inexpensive, extremely responsive to customer service. Its just that for whatever reason, they never seemed much interested in promoting it in any business-like way. I got a message from them a few months ago saying they were not 'really' going to continue to support the MyLine product; but then I heard nothing more until this past week. My thinking was if they were to put up a web site where users could program their service and review their billing the service would be even better. If they were to add some kind of 'net phone' type service to it as well, allowing users on line to place/recieve calls via their computer in combination with MyLine and voicemail, just imagine what a powerful product that would be ... I really do not know what is happening with them; I hope what you say is true, that they will be continuing the service itself, even if under new ownership or management. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Hrst Christian Wimmer-Rue From: Hrst Christian Wimmer-Rue Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 22:17:56 GMT Organization: @Home Network Steven J Sobol wrote in message news:telecom19.324.3@telecom-digest.org: > On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:39:54 -0500, chris.griem@wcom.com allegedly > said: > The reason I ended up hollering at several Verio employees was not > because there were technical issues, but rather because there were > communications issues between Verio corporate and Verio Ohio, and > between Verio as a whole and myself. I have an even better one for you re: LDDS. I was doing tech support for a large credit card company (no names :>) whose WAN ckts were provisioned by LDDS. We had a DS-3 that connected the entire western half of the US (beyond the Miss. River) to HQ. The ckt went down during prime-time shopping hours (when there were many millions of credit card auths) and I was alone with my co-worker. He was talking on the phone to some complete moron from LDDS. *My* phone rang, and this *second* LDDS tech started asking me questions. I said, `Do you work with so-and-so?' He said, `Yeah, he's in the cubicle right next to me!' I replied, `And your channels of communication are so piss-poor that you both independently have to gather the *same* information from two different people over here, and you still can't get it right?' He then huffed and puffed about not being able to read minds and hung up on me. Needless to say, my manager gave his manager a very nasty call and he got the axe. It appalls me that a COMMUNICA- TIONS provider has such lousy internal communications itself. Charity starts at home, y'know? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 18:26:00 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: A New Poll Question - How Do You Answer Phone? This week's poll question is: How do you answer your BUSINESS telephone when it rings? Your choices are with your name, your company or department name, only by number, etc. As they say in the Chicago elections, vote early, and often, and cast a vote for your deceased family members and friends as well. Well, you can try it, anyway. Last week's poll question asked how your phone is answered in your absence. The results were: 55 percent of you use an answering machine. 32 percent of you use some voicemail system. 7 percent of you have your calls forwarded to you, i.e. a cellphone. 5 percent of you just let it go with no answer at all. 1 percent of you said the phone is always answered live by someone. Thanks for voting! To cast your vote, and view the results as they accumulate, please direct your browser to http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html PAT ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Tragic Case of a Wrong Number Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 17:25:35 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com David Massey spake thusly and wrote: > A woman suspects her husband is cheating on her. One day, she dials > her home and a strange woman answers. That was very sad. I use a DCS phone that only a handful of people know the number of. Since it has caller ID, I know when it is a wrong number. I started getting a bunch of them sooo ... One of them went something like this (I used my deep "official" voice). Ring ... Me: Hello, wrong number how may I help you. Lady: Who is this? Me: This is the wrong number, how may I help you? Lady: Is Terry there? Me: Of course not, this is the wrong number. Lady: WHAT KIND OF COMPANY IS THIS? Me: Why, this is the wrong number, how may I help you? Lady: WHAT? Me: This is the "wrong number", we are the ones you get when you push the wrong buttons. Lady: WHAT? Me: Puts phone back in pocket. "Caller ID, it's a beautiful thing." Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had a phone number about twenty years ago for outgoing modem calls only which had a similar problem. From among my closet full of ancient electronics I pulled out an old answering machine with a twenty second outgoing message for which I had no other use and put it on the modem line to answer incoming calls with the message, "You have reached a WRONG number, repeat, a WRONG number. Hang up and dial again, correctly this time." (click). In my evil, sick mind, I wanted the message to be just long enough to insure that the call supervised and they lost the coins they had deposited in the pay phone or that they got billed for it if it was a long distance call. I had previously been letting the modem answer the line with its squeals and hisses, but that was not good enough for some people who persisted in dialing it again and again thinking that somehow, the line was out of order and if they only dialed again, things would be okay that time. I had one lady who even turned me in to repair service, telling them she wanted to report that a number she was trying to reach was out of order. An Illinois Bell technician called me on my other line and told me about her. She had insisted to Bell that she wanted a call- back letting her know when the line was working correctly so that she could place her call again. Oh, and she also wanted a refund sent to her for the four quarters she had lost in the payphone on her four attempts to reach the number. That was the frosting I needed for my cake; I put the answering machine on the next day and let them start arguing with Bell about 'why was I charged for reaching a number that is not in service; it said it was a wrong number when it answered'. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #329 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 23 01:38:24 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA21988; Mon, 23 Aug 1999 01:38:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 01:38:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908230538.BAA21988@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #330 TELECOM Digest Mon, 23 Aug 99 01:38:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 330 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? (Alan Boritz) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Alan Boritz) Dial Pulse Relay Systems (Bill Wiseman) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (llambda@gmx.net) Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (Matt Ackeret) Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (Javier Henderson) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Neal McLain) Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs (Christopher Pilkington) Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs (John R. Levine) Re: Cell Phones and Water (John Nagle) Re: VISA Authorizations (Javier Henderson) Phone Situation in Turkey (Spyros Bartsocas) Last Laugh! Dial XXX: Bank Typo Connects Callers to Sex Line (M. Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: The Recent MCI Fiasco: Who Was at Fault? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 12:58:19 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: > In article , Scot E. Wilcoxon > wrote: >> So does MCI have their Lucent software licenses categorized as >> liabilities? > All I know is whatI read in the newspapers, which had Lucent > spokespeople claim this software works just fine in other netwroks, > and that MCI didn't install it correctly. > From what I know of Lucent, they don't cast blame on others unless > they are really really certain. You mean the same Lucent who does end runs around telecom managers to get CEO's or other higher management types to buy their products or services when the telecom guy says no? > So it seems as if Lucent software has been working well in other > networks. Whether Lucent is right, and MCI installed it wrong, or > whether Lucent didn't account for something in MCIs situation, I don't > know. I am confident this has extremely high level attention of both > MCI and Lucent at this point, and perhaps the two companies will issue > a joint statement, approved by the lawyers and PR folk, to clarify > what happened. No one who wasn't working on the project will know for sure, but I would assume that UUNet/Worldcom customers will probably pay for it in the end. They usually do. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 13:39:29 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: > In article , Charles Gray > wrote: >> Thus, the terminal block with four screws that was mounted on millions of >> residential baseboards was a "C block". What happened to "A blocks", >> and "B blocks" I will never know. > Not really related, but ... > We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us > even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA > batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? Yes, I do. I replaced the A and B batteries in a Potomac AM field strength meter a few years ago, and replaced the same batteries in a similar meter about ten years before that. I still have a couple of portable tube AM radios (much simpler than a field strength meter, but same vintage) that also use A and B batteries. I probably won't be replacing these, though, since the batteries have become way too expensive for casual use. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 20:04:01 -0700 From: Bill Wiseman Subject: Dial Pulse Relay Systems I have some surplus stepping relays from a telephone and would like to build a small dial telephone system to use as a Boy Scout project. There is no manufacture name on the units only the following information SK 811 or it could be SK B11 and H 87935. If I can find a connection/schematic diagram it would be of great help. Thanks, Bill Wiseman ------------------------------ From: llambda@gmx.net Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 03:33:56 +0200 Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration Alan Boritz wrote: > In article , llambda@gmx.net wrote: >>This interferes with the proper purpose of the web: >>targetted advertising. > You have a distorted perception of what "the web" is all about. It was tongue-in-cheek, in the spirit of our editor's characterisation of commercialization of the web. However, when newspapers put their articles on the web for free, they must justify it by making up for lost sales. Many sell banner ads. The value of banner ads is much higher if they are targetted. By putting in false information, you may be making a choice between a larger quantity of spam which is irrelevant to you, and a smaller amount of advertising that is relevant to your interests. Or you could use www.telecom-digest.org/secret-surfer.html and Junkbusters, which I have mentioned before (free from www.junkbusters. com) to skip the commercials. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The service I provide for the net at http://telecom-digest.org/secret-surfer.html does generally manage to catch and eliminate pop-up window advertising as well as disguise the true network address of the visitor. But there really is no need to use services such as the {New York Times} at all when you stop to consider how many totally free services are available which do not require registration. If you have visited the news site I provide for the net at http://telecom-digest.org/news (and several other pages in that department) you will have found literally hours of reading in the form of news reports and feature stories which are updated daily. Some of my suppliers in that service do have advertising, but it is all pretty inoffensive and modest. I now also there have the AP news ticker with a link to their site, a half-dozen or so audio/video news feeds, and several other web-based publications which are all happy to have you come 'as you are' to read their daily reports without you as netizen having to worry if you need to shut off your javascript or your cookies, etc to keep from being hassled. If you get an anonymous email address at http://telecom-digest.org/postoffice and use secret-surfer to go into our own news section here, you will not leave a trail anywhere. That's how I like it, and that's how I have it fixed. I intend to do a lot more for telecom-digest.org as time and resources permit, and it will always stay totally free for the net, and totally anonymous; that's how the web was intended to be. I may not be able to repair the damage done to the rest of the net as a result of the misuse and abuse of the web by so many large commercial sites, but I will do my best to try and make my own efforts a credit to the net, assuming readers, sponsors and my Patrons continue to assist me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) Subject: Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking Date: 22 Aug 1999 18:45:38 -0700 Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article , Joey Lindstrom wrote: > On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 05:31:42 -0400 (EDT), Monty Solomon wrote: >> The Federal Reserve Board votes unanimously to let banks make account >> statements available to customers through e-mail or the Web. >> http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5970,00.html > OK, am I misreading this, or does this mean that, up until now, US > banks have not been able to offer full-service banking on the > internet? It seems that being able to get an account statement would I cannot comment on the legal aspects of this, just as a user. Even with electronic banking (as I've said earlier, I pay any bills that I can't pay via credit card via online banking, saving time and money). I use a credit card for the bonus points. But even with this I still get a monthly paper statement. I could live without it, and will sign up for electronic statements (or just not have a statement at all unless I request it). Even more annoying than the bank statements is the paper statements I get every time I make a trade through my broker. Jeez, these sure pile up. It would be so much easier to just do it all electronically after I have signed something realizing that email could bounce, etc. (I already get trade _notifications_ via email which clearly state: This is not a trade confirmation. You will receive paper confirmation(s) through the mail. Hopefully there can be legal changes made so that I don't _have_ to receive the paper confirmations. -- mattack@area.com ------------------------------ From: Javier Henderson Subject: Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking Date: 22 Aug 1999 21:30:55 -0700 Organization: Completely Disorganized John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) writes: > I had the impression that BofA and Wells Fargo have been offering > exactly that service for years -- and that one or both makes you use > an insecure access code (your SSN?) and doesn't let you opt out, so if > you bank with them, your data is insecure no matter what you do. > I hope the Feds regulate this service enough that if the above is > true, it will no longer be. It is partially true. Wells Fargo makes you use your SSN as your "username" but you also need a password (which you choose, and can be quite long and different from your ATM card pin). They also use SSL (alas, they'll allow keys as short as 40 bits, though they mandate 128 bit keys to use their bill paying service). -jav ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 21:55:22 -0400 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming In TELECOM Digest 19:328, kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) wrote: > Many folks with similar AOL screen names (Dave, Craig, John, > Anthony, etc.) have similar tales of woe that make such > addresses nearly unusable. Or maybe the false messages are coming from people who use Microsoft EXCHANGE or OUTLOOK. These programs get addresses mixed up if one of the names is just a one- word screenname. In my computer at work: - The "personal address book" (where I, as the user, am supposed to store internet e-mail addresses) includes the e-mail addresses for a Mike Norton and a Tom Christy. - The "postoffice address book" (where the network administrator assigns internal e-mail addresses using first names only) includes a Mike and a Chris. You guessed it: If I want to send an *internal* e-mail message to fellow employee Mike, EXCHANGE changes it into an internet e-mail message for Mike Norton. If I want to send an "internal" e-mail message to fellow employee Chris, EXCHANGE changes it into an internet e-mail message for Tom Christy. The only reliable way to prevent this from happening is to make sure that no "personal address book" entry is spelled the same way as any "postoffice address book" entry. So now my internet mail to Tom Christy goes to Tom C hristy. Neal McLain nmclain@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: cpilkingt@aol.com.trash (Christopher J. Pilkington) Date: 23 Aug 1999 03:29:04 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs Bell Atlantic in parts of LATA 132 allow override of this service by *03 preceding each call. Maybe you'll get lucky ... Christopher J. Pilkington To reply, you know what to do. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Aug 1999 00:43:28 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > They have installed a new feature on my (and I assume everyone else's) > line in Houston, Texas. When you call a number that is in use, > instead of passing a busy signal you get a recording in English and > Spanish offering to have the number ring you back for a 50-cent > charge. According to NANPA if you dial *03 before the call, that should turn off that particular useless service for the next call. It also says *02 toggles it on and off for that phone line. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Cell Phones and Water Date: 23 Aug 1999 04:17:18 GMT Organization: Netcom pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) writes: >>> Can you open and dry them, and they work again? > I've been told to immediately "dunk" them again in clean water, > preferably distilled water. A wash in distilled water won't hurt most electronics, although there are a few components, such as some speakers, that have problems. The last step in board manufacturing is a trip through what is essentially a dishwasher. Use only distilled water. Avoid anything with dissolved solids, especially iron, or you'll leave solids in the unit when it dries. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: Javier Henderson Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 22 Aug 1999 21:34:47 -0700 Organization: Completely Disorganized Jonathan D Loo writes: > However, this problem is not caused by the "hold" or "authorization." > During authorization the machine checks to see if the money is there. > If there really was a real "hold" the money would be "frozen" until > the transaction settles. But on a debit card it doesn't do a hold. > Your mileage may vary. Apparently so, because according to my bank (Wells Fargo), they do place a hold on the funds as soon as the merchant gets the authorization for the charge. This according to the customer service rep I just spoke to. -jav ------------------------------ From: Spyros Bartsocas Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 20:21:11 +0300 Subject: Phone Situation in Turkey [I hope no strange characters appear this time.] Here in Greece, the news from Turkey has been the first news item on TV since the day of the earthquake. Tonight the TV showed telephone company technicians trying to restore service to payphones. These were booth type payphones (the ones you do not see any more in the States). A man who was obviously a repairman was holding a phone which I assume had just been connected (it was much cleaner than the anything in the vicinity). The voice over said: Even if the glass of the payphone has been broken the technicians of the Turkish telephone company are trying to restore service, as least to the public phones). Spyros Bartsocas [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your transmission came through fine this time, thank you! No eight-bit characters as so often happens on mail I get from countries with somewhat different alphabets than our own in the USA. Please continue to send reports on the telecom situation in Turkey as you can. I again invite readers in that part of the world to send along reports of interest from Turkey as they now begin the laborious task of putting things back together again, and I encourage **all readers** to get in touch with your local chapters of the Red Cross or the Red Crescent organizations to make donations so that the relief agencies which are working so hard now on location in Turkey can continue their work unimpeded by lack of supplies or financial resources. Those poor people deserve every bit of support which can be mustered. Imagine if something that awful occurred in your community and how you would feel about it, and how welcome it would be when the rest of the world immediatly came to your assistance as in going on now in Turkey. And there are places in the USA which have gone through tragedies like that so you know quite well what I mean. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 01:16:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Last Laugh! Dial XXX: Bank Typo Connects Callers to Sex Line by Bill Burke/bostonherald.com Monday, August 16, 1999 A misprint on a car payment coupon book has left a Lynn bank red-faced and a North Andover woman the recipient of a risque proposition. http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/lonw/sexline08161999.htm ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #330 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 23 16:03:17 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA19127; Mon, 23 Aug 1999 16:03:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 16:03:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908232003.QAA19127@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #331 TELECOM Digest Mon, 23 Aug 99 16:03:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 331 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #196, August 23, 1999 (Angus TeleManagement) The Internet Auditing Project (John Eichler) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Tom Bennett) Re: SprintPCS Surcharge Not Just For Late Payers - All Pay (Barry Margolin) Re: Cell Phones and Water (Steve Winter) Re: Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC (Markus) Re: "Art" Imitates Life in the MCI/Worldcom Outage? (Ben Bass) Re: Cell Phone Shopping (in DC) (Eric Morson) Re: Phone Situation in Turkey (M. Erdi Cinar) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 11:33:01 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #196, August 23, 1999 ************************************************************ * * * TELECOM UPDATE * * Angus TeleManagement's Weekly Telecom Newsbulletin * * http://www.angustel.ca * * Number 196: August 23, 1999 * * * * Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by * * generous financial support from: * * * * AT&T Canada ............... http://www.attcanada.com/ * * Bell Canada ............... http://www.bell.ca/ * * Lucent Technologies ....... http://www.lucent.ca/ * * MetroNet Communications ... http://www.metronet.ca/ * * Sprint Canada ............. http://www.sprintcanada.ca/ * * Telus Communications....... http://www.telus.com/ * * TigerTel Services ......... http://www.citydial.com/ * * * ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** 18 Companies Want Broadband Wireless Licenses ** Telus Names Toronto-Based Execs ** Futureway CLEC Tariff Approved, With Dissent ** Bell Nexxia to Offer "Local Access Diversity" ** Cisco Opens Kanata Research Center ** 61% of Small Businesses Now on Line ** Nortel Closing Speech Recognition Lab ** Iridium in Canada -- "Business as Usual" ** NWT Government Plans Videoconferencing ** Sault PUC Allies With O.N.Tel ** Lucent Buys Excel Switching ** Gateway Offers SS7 to Competitors ** Free Internet Long Distance Announced ** RIM Intros Wireless E-Mail Device ** MTT to Provide Home Security ** Canada Puts Schools, Libraries on Line ** SaskTel to Expand Internet Backbone ** Ericsson Opens Integration Center ** Canadian Phone Rates Below U.S. ** Financial Results: Worldwide Fiber ** Changes in the Executive Suite ** Telemanagement Reprints on Line ============================================================ 18 COMPANIES WANT BROADBAND WIRELESS LICENSES: Industry Canada has received 18 applications from organizations which want to participate in the 24 GHz and 38 GHz spectrum auction in October. The department has not yet determined whether all 18 are qualified. The applicants, and the deposit amounts they submitted, are: ** 3537951 Canada Ltd.: $9,630,000 ** 3645908 Canada Inc.: $9,630,000 ** 3645932 Canada Inc.: $9,630,000 ** ABC Allen Business Communications Ltd.: $7,500 ** AT&T Canada Telecom Services Company: $9,630,000 ** BC Tel Mobility Cellular Inc.: $9,630,000 ** BCE Nexxia Inc.: $2,000,000 ** Call-Net Technology Services Inc.: $2,500,000 ** Firstmark Communications Canada Inc.: $4,815,000 ** Gateway Telephone Limited: $180,000 ** Northwestel Mobility Inc.: $10,000 ** Skycable Inc.: $1,530,000 ** Stream Intelligent Networks Corp.: $4,000,000 ** TD Capital Group Limited: $3,700,000 ** Teligent Canada Inc.: $2,490,000 ** Videotron Telecom Ltd: $720,000 ** WaveCom Electronics Inc.: $125,000 ** Wispra Networks Inc.: $4,815,000 TELUS NAMES TORONTO-BASED EXECS: Telus has named three executives to lead its move into Central Canada. They are: ** President: Cynthia Lewis, formerly VP Worldwide Business Integration at Xerox; ** Senior Vice-President, Sales: Mark Ethier, formerly VP Sales and Marketing, BCE Media; ** Senior VP Marketing and Operations: Ingrid Raypold, formerly Senior VP Customer Service, Telus Communications. FUTUREWAY CLEC TARIFF APPROVED, WITH DISSENT: The CRTC has approved, with modification, Futureway's terms and conditions for interconnection with other service providers. Commissioner Stuart Langford disagreed, saying approval should have been withheld until Futureway files a tariff for unbundled local loops and Central Office co-location. Otherwise, he says, Futureway may end up with a local monopoly. http://www.crtc.gc.ca:80/internet/1999/8045/04/o99-0807.htm BELL NEXXIA TO OFFER "LOCAL ACCESS DIVERSITY": Bell Nexxia plans to offer its Toronto-area customers "local access diversity" through an alliance with Stream Intelligent Networks, which operates a fiber network in Greater Toronto. Stream is also an applicant for the 24/38 GHz wireless broadband auction. CISCO OPENS KANATA RESEARCH CENTER: On September 1, Cisco Systems will officially open a 140-employee research and development center in Kanata, Ont. 61% OF SMALL BUSINESSES NOW ON LINE: The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says that 61% of small businesses in Canada now use the Internet, up from 44% in 1998. NORTEL CLOSING SPEECH RECOGNITION LAB: By year-end Nortel Networks will close its speech recognition lab in Montreal, eliminating 130 jobs and transferring 156 employees to St- Laurent. IRIDIUM IN CANADA -- "BUSINESS AS USUAL": Infosat Communications, which sells Iridium services in Canada, says that service will not be affected by Iridium's financial troubles. Infosat President Brian Nixon expressed confidence that Iridium would emerge stronger from bankruptcy protection. NWT GOVERNMENT PLANS VIDEOCONFERENCING: The government of the Northwest Territories plans to spend $1.2 Million to acquire a frame relay-based videoconferencing system linking dispersed government offices. The equipment will be provided and installed by Lucent Technologies and Science Dynamics. SAULT PUC ALLIES WITH O.N.TEL: Sault Ste. Marie's Public Utilities Commission is partnering with Ontario Northland Telephone to install and maintain a 60-km fiber optic network in the city. LUCENT BUYS EXCEL SWITCHING: Lucent Technologies has agreed to acquire Excel Switching Corporation, a maker of programmable switching systems, for shares valued at US$1.7 Billion. GATEWAY OFFERS SS7 TO COMPETITORS: Gateway Telephone, a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier based in North Bay, Ontario, says it is building Canada's first alternative Signaling System 7 network, and will offer it on a wholesale basis to other carriers. FREE INTERNET LONG DISTANCE ANNOUNCED: Toronto-based Innofone.Com is offering free Internet-based long distance service. Callers with PCs can use "Hotcaller" to call any telephone in the world after viewing advertisements on the Web. RIM INTROS WIRELESS E-MAIL DEVICE: Research In Motion (Waterloo, Ont.) has introduced BlackBerry Internet Edition, a wireless e-mail device. RCN Corporation, a U.S. Internet Service Provider, will be the first company to offer the product to end customers. MTT TO PROVIDE HOME SECURITY: MTT is partnering with Voxcom to offer home alarm services in Nova Scotia. Prices start at $25.95/month. CANADA PUTS SCHOOLS, LIBRARIES ON LINE: The Federal Government says that every Canadian public school, First Nations School, and public library which wanted to be connected now has Internet access. Industry Minister John Manley says that Canada, the first country in the world to accomplish this, will extend the connections to every classroom by March 31, 2001. SASKTEL TO EXPAND INTERNET BACKBONE: SaskTel is expanding its provincial Internet backbone, using Cisco routers and switching equipment. ** SaskTel is the first Canadian carrier to deploy a Nortel interface which provides direct connection between DMS switches and optical networks. ERICSSON OPENS INTEGRATION CENTER: Ericsson Canada has opened a $7-Million Integration Centre in Montreal. The facility will allow Ericsson customers to test new equipment configurations in a live network environment. CANADIAN PHONE RATES BELOW U.S.: A Yankee Group study says that Canadian consumers pay from $9 to $71 less per month for local, long distance, and other telecom services than U.S. consumers. The study says that Canadian telcos "are leading the pricing game in North America." FINANCIAL RESULTS -- WORLDWIDE FIBER: Worldwide Fiber Inc, the former telecom division of Ledcor, had revenues of $81 Million in the three months ended June 30. Net income for the quarter was $10.6 Million. CHANGES IN THE EXECUTIVE SUITE: ** Bob Mahood, former President and CEO of Telus Advanced Communications, is joining Offsite Data Services as Chairman and CEO. ** Canadian Satellite Communications has named Richard Stursberg as President and CEO, and Duncan McEwan as Executive VP and COO. ** John Hylton, former CRTC Commissioner and a partner at the law firm Borden & Elliot, has been named Chair of the School of Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson Polytechnical University. TELEMANAGEMENT REPRINTS ON LINE: Some of the most-requested articles from past issues of Telemanagement are now available for free on Angus TeleManagement Group's Web site. The articles are in PDF format, which preserves all the original formatting and graphics. http://www.angustel.ca/reports/reports.html ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca/update/up.html 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should contain only the two words: subscribe update To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should say only: unsubscribe update [Your e-mail address] =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER: All contents copyright 1999 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 225. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: John Eichler Subject: The Internet Auditing Project Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 07:50:52 -0500 Pat, Some of your readers might be interested in this which was in the WINDOWS NT MAGAZINE SECURITY UPDATE on the 18th of the month. * THE INTERNET AUDITING PROJECT Liraz Siri has released an interesting report titled "The Internet Auditing Project." Siri and some colleagues scanned more than 36 million hosts on the Internet to see how many of the hosts were vulnerable to 10 well-known security risks. The results are astounding. More than 450,000 hosts showed serious security problems that would let an intruder walk right into that network. The report findings are accented by the fact that the scan checked for only 10 vulnerabilities. Had the scan incorporated a more thorough probe, the reported numbers would be even more staggering. The report points out other interesting details as well. For example, during the scanning work, Siri received several complaints and legal threats from various network operators, and at one point even had a sophisticated cracking tool penetrate part of his own network. Siri gives details on how he engineered the scan and what software he used to perform the scans. He even provides the scanner software as a free download to anyone who wants a copy. http://www.ntsecurity.net/go/2c.asp?f=features.asp?IDF=119&TB=f It's a long report but one, in IMO, worth reading. John ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Date: 23 Aug 1999 06:13:48 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 22 Aug 1999 04:10:42 GMT, kim@aol.com allegedly said: > The fearless moderator pens: > >> Consider some mail I got Thursday. A lady writes me as follows: > (details deleted for brevity.) > Okay, let me go on the reverse side or your observations. With an > email address of "Kim@aol.com" I get tons of email on a daily basis > (more than 200 a day normally). More than 90% of it is not for me, > though it is addressed to me. Pat mentioned that that was the reason he'd never use Majordomo to run TELECOM Digest. To me, that's a bit of a non-sequitur. Majordomo works fine for me. I just enforce a rule that any list I host must use subscription confirmations. Yes, I've still gotten people saying they never subscribed. It happens, for the reasons below, among others. > The types of mail that I get are spam (on the order of 20-30 pieces a > day) or (almost all the rest) folks "cc'ing" themselves because their > name begins with "Kim", not realizing that "Kim" isn't their email > address; Sending mail to their daughter/wife/lover/friend whose name > is "Kim" (although their email address is something quite different.) > Some of the "Spam" is someone else applying to a listserv, but putting > MY email address on the listserv. (I recently got removed from one > such list serv by the sysadmin who reported that 14 entries had been > added in "my" name.) Confirmations would solve that. It irritates me that people refuse to use confirmed subscriptions because their subscribers would whine. I've been forge-subscribed before. It's not pretty. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org I am the president and sole shareholder of NSTC. Thus, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do represent the official opinions of the company :) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I use 'subscription confirmations' also. When you are added to the list here, a group of files go out to you automatically. One letter welcomes you; another is the telecom newsgroup FAQ. The catch is, majordomo cannot tell when people are playing games and harassing someone else ... I can. I know the approximate volume of subscriptions I will get from one day to the next. If I all of a sudden get five or ten 'subscription requests' in a single day all phrased exactly the same way -- as though a script had sent them by picking email addresses at random -- majordomo would just fill all the requests .. I won't fill them. If a subscription request comes in which has information in the envelope header totally different than the name and email address in the text or the 'From:' line majordomo would fill the request no questions asked ... I ask questions. The difference is, you see, that in a very large commercial mailing list, as is very prevalent on the net these days, you can afford to treat the subscribers in that sort of impersonal way. By comparison, I only have about three to four thousand names at any given time on my list, and there is no reason at all to not give the list as much personal attention as possible. My list is 'semi-automated' in the sense that I do not literally put the list in emacs and edit it each time someone is added or removed (although I used to do it that way years ago). I have two short scripts of my own devising which I use called 'add' and 'delete'. Each takes an argument in the form of an email address which is $1 and "A. Realname date" which is $2. Here is what the 'add' script looks like; it is quite short. set -x ADDR=$1 NAME=$2 echo $1" ($2)" >> telecomlist #not its real name of course LOL echo `cat z | wc -l` "names now on list" cat new.users/new-users | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 sleep 2 echo "sent new.users.letter" cat latest.issue | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 sleep 2 echo "sent latest.issue" cat new.users/donations | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 sleep 2 echo "sent donations.letter" cat new.users/archives.help.file | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 echo "sent archives.help.file" In this example, we see that when I do "add $1 '$2 082399' " at my shell prompt it appends the new name to the bottom of the list, reports the total number of names on the list, and pipes a few introductory files through sendmail out to the name just added. Now when a request comes to be removed from the list, the 'delete' script is a bit more involved, but still simple enough: #!/bin/sh set -x echo "Removing '$1' from mailing list" echo "`wc -l < telecomlist` names on list to start with" grep $1 telecomlist >> tmphold grep -v $1 telecomlist > swapfile echo "`wc -l < swapfile` names on revised list" echo "Now removed" `cat tmphold` cat tmphold >> removals mv swapfile telecomlist #not its real name in this example, LOL cat new.users/delete-letter | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org "`cat tmphold`" rm tmphold exit What we do here is take the email address to be removed, grep the mailing list looking for it, when found, take it exactly as it appears on the list and hold it aside. Now we copy the list over without the name in question (grep -v says find everything *but* that name); place the removed name in a reference file of same where it is kept for several months or a year; have the new list which was created (minus the deleted subscriber's name) copied over to where it belongs and finally take the name exactly as we found it on the mailing list and use it as an argument for sendmail in sending out a little note saying 'removed as requested'. In both of the above scripts, note the use of -f with sendmail. This tells sendmail that instead of referring to me on outgoing mail as 'ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu' it should refer to me as 'subscriptions@telecom-digest.org' Normally the -f flag is restricted in use to root or the superuser, unless there exists a file with names of 'trusted users' at the site allowed to make that manipulation. This worked fine years ago, and it still works okay usually, but sometimes causes my mail to be categorized as likely spam. These are both very simple scripts, not very elegant at all, but they make managing the mailing list quite easy. The correspondence from the person in which they to be added or deleted goes into a file where I keep it for a month or two as a reference. Although I cannot show you how you asked to be added to this list ten years ago, I can show you how you asked to be added or deleted two or three weeks ago. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Bennett Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:25:50 -0400 Organization: ECDC Unisys Corp. Tredyffrin Maybe this will help: Start->Settings->Control Panel->Mail->Addressing - order your address lists the way you like them. Neal McLain wrote in message news:telecom19. 330.7@telecom-digest.org: > EXCHANGE or OUTLOOK. These programs get addresses mixed up if one of > the names is just a one- word screenname. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: SprintPCS Surcharge Not Just For Late Payers - All Must Pay Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 15:32:16 GMT In article , E. Cummings wrote: > I have been a charter customer of SprintPCS for about two years, and > simply prefer to pay my bill at the nearby local store in cash, in > advance. Last weekend I stopped by and noticed a new sign at the > retail counter indicating that *all* in-store bill payments would cost > an additional $3.00. Apparently SprintPCS is trying to alleviate the > problem of lines of bill-paying customers at the counter as their > customer base increases with this "payment disincentive plan." If > SprintPCS needs to hire more (or more efficient) employees to handle > normal bill payments, then I feel this is the cost of doing business > that should not be foisted soley upon those good customers who simply > prefer to pay their bills in person with cash. So the rest of the customers should subsidize you? The money has to come from somewhere. > If economics is the issue, the fact should be noted that SprintPCS > pays a 2% to 3% surcharge to credit card companies each time a > customer pays their bill over the phone by credit card, but that when > a cash payment is received there is no such hit on the company's > revenue. But there is overhead. Let's suppose the clerk's time is valued at about $50/hour and it takes them 5 minutes to process your payment. That's a cost of about $4. Your bill would have to be $150 to break even against the 3% credit card surcharge. Why do you think companies are so willing to pay those surcharges? What about paying by mail? Don't they let you mail a check with your bill, like most other companies? Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two problems here. First of all, no clerk I know of is paid (or valued at) anywhere close to $50 per hour. They get paid $7-8 per hour and adding in non-cash expenses like insurance, social security tax, etc it comes to maybe $10 per hour. Secondly, there also has to be a clerk (valued at the same cost) who handles the credit card payments does there not? So if a $7 per hour clerk riffles credit card papers all day long or endorses checks all day long or counts cash and puts it in a cash register all day long, what is the difference? PAT] ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Cell Phones and Water Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 17:49:13 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) spake thusly and wrote: > A wash in distilled water won't hurt most electronics, although > there are a few components, such as some speakers, that have problems. > The last step in board manufacturing is a trip through what is > essentially a dishwasher. Generally that is done without the board being powered, though, eh? :-) (just one more consideration) Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: Markus Subject: Re: Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 00:15:57 +0100 Organization: Ericsson AXE Research and Development, Stockholm, Sweden Thanks Kevin! SDH/Sonet = OSI Layer 1 protocol ATM = OSI Layer 2 protocol HDLC = OSI Layer 2 protocol Hence, both ATM and HDLC frames are embedded in SDH frames. Indeed, ATM and HDLC are always embedded in either PDH or SHD frames, since this is our only way of transmission? ATM is just for pure switching? Please correct me if I am wrong! Cheers, Markus > In V19 #304 Marcus asked: >> What is the difference between the three standards SDH-ATM-HDLC? Where >> are they preferably used? Why is ATM embedded in SDH? etc. ------------------------------ From: bbass@bluemoon.net (Ben Bass) Subject: Re: "Art" Imitates Life in the MCI/Worldcom Outage? Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:18:14 GMT Tom Allebrandi (tom@ytram.com) wrote: > Has anyone noticed the new MCI/Worldcom commercials for five cent long > distance? They light up a big billboard which apparently draws so much > power it shuts down everything else. > Is it my imagination, or did these commercials start around the same time > as the frame relay outage? Did you notice that Wile E. Coyote flips the switch for the billboard? That explains it. If Wile E. is involved, its likely the billboard and frame relay were supplied by The Acme Company. They were destined to malfunction. :-) Ben Bass, N2YDM ben@broadcast.net ------------------------------ From: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric Morson) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 10:22:51 -0400 Subject: Re: Cell Phone Shopping (in DC) Kim, By all means DO re-look at Bell Atlantic. First of all, they do have the dual mode Motorola StarTac, and it's fantastic. Second, look at their coverage map again. If the "home" area does not go down as far as Harrisonburg, see if the JMU area is covered bay an "extended home area" in which you pay home rates while roaming there. Same may hold true for the portion of WV that concerns you. I would avoid AT&T digital service because the TDMA bandwidth they use tends to jam up in big usage areas more frequently than the CDMA signals used by Bell Atlantic. Let me know if I can help further. Eric B. Morson Co-Webmaster AreaCode-Info.com EMail: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com ------------------------------ From: M. Erdi Cinar" Subject: Re: Phone Situation in Turkey Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 12:31:46 +0300 Organization: Ulusal Akademik Ag ve Bilgi Merkezi Dear Pat, I could not know how I could thank to you when I read your message. This shows great humanity values. I send you one website address for helping which is http://deprem.ulakbim.gov.tr/foreign.html As soon as possible I will inform you about the damaged telecommuni- cation infostructure. Thank you very much. Sincerely, M. Erdi Cinar [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your kind note. So, please everyone, let's review the link noted above and do whatever is possible. If you only have one twenty dollar bill to spare this week or this month, give it to the Red Cross earmarked for Turkey, and let your donation to this site go until another time. I've always managed to survive and probably always will survive. But that donation may well provide some badly needed food or medical supplies for someone living outside on a street corner in Turkey right now wondering where they should go or what they should do next. Thank you for reading this! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #331 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 24 00:42:22 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA08764; Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:42:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:42:22 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908240442.AAA08764@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #332 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Aug 99 00:42:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 332 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T to Terminate 500 Number Service by November 15 (Jeffrey Carpenter) 500 Numbers Gone Forever? (John Landwehr) Wiring Second Telephone Line? (toller@frontiernet.net) Why I'm Moving (was Real Competition in the Local Loop) (Stanley Cline) Re: VISA Authorizations (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Cell Phone Shopping (in DC) (Travis Dixon) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (David A. Jensen) Re: Selective Calling Rate Change (Bell Atlantic) (Daniel Meldazis) VTech DSS (takmel@stratos.net) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Ian Angus) Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? (Leonard Erickson) New Portugal Numbering Plan (egoni@zfm.com) Don't Forget to Vote (Early and Often) (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:52:02 -0400 From: Jeffrey J. Carpenter Subject: AT&T to Terminate 500 Number Service by November 15 I received a letter from AT&T concerning the termination of the AT&T Easy Reach 500 number service. I know many people did not feel this service was useful and had too many problems for them to utilize it, but it has worked well for my purposes, and this termination with less than three months notice will leave many of us who utilize the service scrambling for a replacement and to try to notify people of my new number. Unfortunately, this is the phone number I have published in the Baltimore and DC phone books, and there is no way that can be updated by November 15. A copy of the letter I received is below. Jeffrey J. Carpenter P.O. Box 471 Glenshaw, PA 15116-0471 Phone: +1 500 488-4800 Fax: +1 500 488-4802 Email: jjc@pobox.com Web: http://pobox.com/~jjc/ ----- Letter from AT&T: Jeffrey Carpenter P.O. Box 471 Glenshaw, PA 15116-047 AT&T Easy Reach 500/700 500—488—4802 Dear Jeffrey Carpenter, AT&T would like to take this opportunity to notify you, a valued AT&T customer, that on November 15, 1999, AT&T Easy Reach 500/700 service will be discontinued. This was a service that provided optional features and in no way will affect the other AT&T services to which you subscribe. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. The FCC will normally authorize such a proposed discontinuance of service unless it is shown that customers would be unable to receive service or a reasonable substitute from another carrier or that the public convenience and necessity is otherwise adversely affected. If you wish to object to this discontinuance, you should file your comments within I5 days after receipt of this notification. Letters should be addressed to the Federal Communications Commission, Washington, DC 20554, referencing Section 63.71 Application of AT&T Corp. Your comments should include specific information about the impact of this proposed discontinuance upon you or your company, including any inability to acquire reasonable substitute service. We know AT&T Easy Reach 500/700 services have helped you stay connected by allowing people to reach you at different places. The good news is that now we have a more complete way for you to stay connected, AT&T Personal Network. AT&T Personal Network includes an AT&T personal 800 number so the important people in your life can ring directly to your home, anytime, at no cost to them. You can also get great rates on your AT&T residential long distance, calling card, and wireless calls. You can even get an award-winning Internet connection through AT&T WorldNet Service. An AT&T Personal Network offers everything you need to stay connected. Again, we regret any inconvenience discontinuing Easy Reach 500/700 may cause. If you have any questions, or want to learn more about AT&T Personal Network or other AT&T services like personal 800 that can meet your communications needs, call 1 800 982-8480. Thank you for using AT&T. We look forward to serving all of your communication needs. Sincerely, William Stonehocker Easy Reach Marketing Manager ------------------------------ From: visacard@pacbell.net (John Landwehr) Subject: 500 Numbers Gone Forever? Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 15:25:58 -0700 Organization: SBC Internet Services AT&T just informed me that they are cancelling their 500 number service. The beauty of a 500 number was the ability for the owner to have "one number for life" and the caller pays. The only downside was that you have to remain with that carrier for your long distance network. While an 800/888/877 number can provide you with one number for life, the owner pays - not the caller. Why is the 500 number going away? Technical problems? Political problems? FCC? Is anyone else going to provide 500 number services? (caller pays, number for life, etc) John Landwehr ------------------------------ From: toller Subject: Wiring Second Telephone Line? Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 17:11:05 -0400 Organization: Frontier GlobalCenter Inc. I just got a second telephone line, and hooking it up to the wiring is not as simple as I expected. The company wire comes out of the ground and goes to a box with five terminals, the center one being a ground. Nothing seems to come out! I am "guessing" it goes directly though the wall and is not visible. In the house there is a box with 20 rows of six pointy things that hold telephone wire. The middle two pair of pointy thing are jumpered on all but one of the rows. Six of the telephone wires come into the the left side, one set's green wire to the first row, the red to the second row, etc. The right side is jumpered so that all odd rows are connected, as are all even rows. The black and yellow wires are not connected to anything. Now, I am "guessing" that the top set of wires comes from the outside connection, and that I have to hook all the black and yellow wires up the same way to get the second line out into my house. Does that seem right? Unfortunately there is no room for another box like the one the red and green wires are hooked to; what should I use? Sorry to be so long winded about such a simple thing, but it was not what I expected, and I want to make sure I don't ruin something? What is the voltage of the telephone wires? I touched one of the pointy contacts with a screw driver and was surprised to get a shock. I thought it was very low voltage. ------------------------------ From: sc1@roamer1.org (Stanley Cline) Subject: Why I'm Moving (was Real Competition in the Local Loop) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 21:52:43 GMT Organization: by area code and prefix (NPA-NXX) Reply-To: sc1@roamer1.org There was a discussion in the Digest awhile ago about the state of local phone (and cable, high-speed net access, etc.) competition, particularly in apartment buildings. Unfortunately I missed most of the discussion since I was busy with work and other things. It turns out that this is going full-circle for me at least; basically, I have decided to move mostly because of the results of the lack of real competition -- i.e., competition for individual residents/customers instead of competition for access rights -- in the apartment marketplace, and because BellSouth loves SLCs, and because of Atlanta's infamous traffic, too. Background: I live in a large (~700 unit) apartment complex in a northwestern suburb of Atlanta. Here, phone service is currently provided by BellSouth (the complex has a *MARKETING* agreeement with BS [the "ReservIt" program]; I could get service with a CLEC such as MGC if I wished), and cable is provided by Time Warner, soon to become MediaOne as the result of a system swap (then to become AT&T, it looks like.) I work for a large national ISP who is about to start marketing ADSL using BellSouth and Covad "DSL dialtone", and who is also a major proponent of open ISP access to cable systems. The problem: I would like high-speed Internet access (I currently use a 56k modem) especially since I work for the ISP and will be dealing with high-speed net access equipment regularly (my opinion is that the best way to learn about things is to experience them first-hand. That's how I learned about all things telecom! :) ), but I cannot get it and thus am moving. Here's why: ADSL: I can't get ADSL because all phone lines in this complex (as is common with BellSouth) are provided by SLCs, which of course can't handle DSL "yet". BellSouth has told me they might be able to install DSL equipment in the SLCs in "two to three years". That's too long to wait! :( Even with the ReservIt agreement, which I would think would give BellSouth an incentive to upgrade SLCs serving participating apartment complexes to do DSL early, they're still taking their time. (Yes, I understand that "DSL through a SLC" is still in the early stages.) Cable: Time Warner/MediaOne doesn't offer cable modem service (RoadRunner) here yet. They are planning to once their upgrade is complete later this year (they have already upgraded this complex, but still have other areas to upgrade) -- BUT I may not have TW/M1 for long since my complex's new management has a "national contract" with a "private cable" company, LyncStar. I have been unable to find out if/when TW/M1 will be thrown out and replaced by LyncStar, but given the national contract it's likely to happen sooner or later. I spoke with LyncStar and was told that they didn't have any plans to provide high-speed net access. Besides, even if I *could* get RoadRunner or whatever, if anything, LyncStar decides to offer, I would rather have service provided by *MY ISP*, who cannot get access to TW/M1's cable plant! (They would probably have an easier time convincing a private cable company like LyncStar to provide access, but it's unlikely they'd do so simply because of the very limited number of subscribers to which they'd have access.) ISDN: I *can* get ISDN and connect to my ISP, but it's so expensive (no-thanks to BellSouth) and so slow compared to DSL or cable that it is not an option. I figured that (assuming I can get a [smaller] apt. for about the same rent I'm paying now, which I'm almost certain to be able to do) it actually be CHEAPER to move and get ADSL -- *even if I opt to break my lease early* -- than to stay and pay for ISDN. (This doesn't even take into account that a) since I work for the ISP I may be able to get ADSL for free or for a reduced rate (they can't do that with ISDN), and b) savings on gasoline and my time since my commute would be far shorter [only 3-4 miles instead of 22 miles.]) I know quite a few other people who have made decisions on where to live at least partly on phone (and not just the classic "Bell vs. GTE/Alltel/Sprint" type situations), cable, and Internet access issues. I can't figure out why ILECs, cable companies (especially the small "private cable" companies. A few of the large ones such as OpTel have announced plans for "cable" modem service but most of the smaller ones have remained silent about Internet access), and (most of all) apartment owners are so blind to what consumers are trying to tell them. Here in Atlanta, those that want high-speed net access or decent cable (well -- MediaOne isn't exactly "great") are learning to move intown and deal with individual landlords instead of the ever-growing corporate apartment conglomerates and the SLCs that BellSouth installs to serve their properties. I've told MANY people that "BellSouth and private cable are the best advertising intown, individual landlords have ..." Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 23 Aug 1999 06:18:05 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:50:27 -0700, mdesmon@us-one.net allegedly said: > I think that depends on your bank. I've done that a few times before > when I didn't track my balance correctly and the bank would treat it > like a bounced check. They would honor the Visa and ATM transactions > and then charge me a returned check fee of $29. That's what my bank does too ... They can't *not* honor the transaction after the merchant was given an approval. That's the thing. Honoring the transaction and charging the NSF charge is, in my opinion, the correct thing for the bank to do in this case. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org I am the president and sole shareholder of NSTC. Thus, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do represent the official opinions of the company :) ------------------------------ From: Travis Dixon Subject: Re: Cell Phone Shopping (in DC) Organization: None of Your Business Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:36:24 GMT Kim Brennan wrote: > So what I'm asking for really, is opinions on dealings with AT&T's and > Cellular One's mobile services. Billing problems, quality of service, > etc. I've overall been pretty happy with Cell one except for an ongoing problem that they refuse to investigate. I have service with Cell-one of Balt/Wash. I've had service for about four years now. The problem that I'm having with them now is specific to one particuar cell in the neighboring Cell-one of Frederick. This happens to be the cell where I live to make matters worse. Whenever I try to place a call to a land-line from this cell The call (prior to when ringing would normall start) gives a burst of static and hangs up the call. Calls to the "611" like or ever 800-CELL-ONE *always* go thru so I don't thing it's a coverage issue. Of course, last week I was going to go into the retail outlet that is apparently in the same cell but a final test while sitting in the car parked outside of the store failed to reproduce the problem. ------------------------------ From: David A. Jensen Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:44:24 -0500 PAT wrote: [history of credit] > If you want to be very precise about it, Diners goes back to the > late 1800's when Bloomingdale's first started selling on credit. Amex > dates to about the start of the present century. VISA/MC/Discover are > the 'new guys' in the business of credit granting. My mother had a charge card issued in the early fifties that was sponsored by almost all of the downtown Milwaukee stores of the day. I assume that the billing was administered by one of the local banks. The charge card appeared to be a metal Addressograph plate. I expect that programs like these were a closer precursor to the MC/Visa programs of today. David Jensen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think the name of that program was 'Mercantile Systems'. There was one in Chicago also, but mostly it covered a lot of stores on the northwest side in the Jefferson Park business area. Their credit limit was something like $200-300 per customer. It never included any of the big, downtown stores, or the branches of the big stores that were in the neighborhoods. I think that Mercantile was a national, franchised operation but the cards were only good at the local merchants in your area. The one on the northwest side of Chicago was run by a loan company, I think it was possibly General Finance. If $200 seems like a rather low line of credit, remember we are talking 1950's money. The very first time I applied for an American Express card, the application stated that it would not be approved 'unless your verifiable income is at least $6000 per year'. Yes, six thousand dollars per year. But my first full time job in 1959 (the summer before my final, senior year of high school) was at the University of Chicago, and they paid me $300 per month, based on a 40 hour work week, working evenings and weekends as a switchboard operator. When I got out of high school and worked another year or so for UC strictly on the midnight shift in the phone room they upped it to $350 per month. But bear in mind that rent was $125 per month for a nice, three room furnished apartment with all utilities paid, maid service and switchboard service (five cents each per outgoing call) in a fashionable apartment hotel near the campus. Their dining room/bar had very delicious dinners for about $2.00 except on Sunday when there was an 'all you can eat buffet, please do not take any food away from the dining room for later consumption' for $1.75 and drinks were extra. Since I did not like the idea that the snoopy switchboard operator where I lived might possibly listen to calls, I had a private line in my apartment in addition to the switchboard phone, and Illinois Bell charged $6 per month for that, and my rent was increased $1 per month for 'switchboard maintainence fee' since I had the option of using my own phone if I chose instead. I never did have a Mercantile Systems credit card but I had one of their check guarentee cards; those enabled you to pay with a check at participating merchants as long as they got a phoned-in approval code for Mercantile at the time the check was presented. I think Mercantile also had a collection agency, not only for their own card, but for bad checks, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Daniel Meldazis Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:41:23 -0500 Subject: Re: Selective Calling Rate Change (Bell Atlantic) John Baldi wrote: > So I called and told them I wasn't terribly thrilled with paying > approx 50% more for less than half the hours. To be fair, the woman > was very pleasant. She claimed that the FCC is forcing them to raise > the price and cut the hours, because the CLECs were complaining that > with BellAtlantic being so cheap, they couldn't get any customers with > Selective Calling away from them. Hmph. Another victory for me the > consumer???" Please do not ever accept anything Bell Atlantic tells you to be the truth. A CLEC that would complain to the FCC or the NJ Board of Public Utilities that BA rates are too much of a bargain for their customers would be laughed at. You can imagine the argument, "Bell Atlantic charges too little for their service. Please make them raise their rates." More likely, BA does not want to, for whatever reason, continue to provide the service. So they will make modifications to the structure and pricing until either no one takes the service or the few customers left will be grandfathered. Unless BA is providing the service below their cost, there is not much other carriers can do. Dan Meldazis My Own Thoughts [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, he is not automatically wrong on the above. Does anyone remember about fifteen years ago when long distance rates were typically in the 15-20 cents per minute range? AT&T lowered their rates one cent per minute less than what MCI was charging at the time (which had been a half cent or so less than AT&T's) ... and MCI went to the FCC to file a complaint that AT&T's new rates were 'predatory' and that AT&T was trying to put them out of business once again, as they had tried to do before. They asked the FCC to force AT&T to raise its rates back to what they had been. Those were the days when AT&T and MCI were constantly suing each other for one thing or another. There was a mention of it here in this Digest at the time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: NOtakmel@stratos.netSPAM Subject: VTech DSS Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:00:16 GMT Organization: NetSet Internet Services, Inc. Hi! I know this might be subjective but does anyone know how good the sound quality of VT-1711 (900Mhz Digital Spread Spectrum) is? TIA. R ------------------------------ From: ianangus@angustel.ca (Ian Angus) Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:39:00 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. > ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) wrote: > We still do not have real > unregulated telephone competition in Canada and we pay big-time > because of that. The Canadian Telcos have done such a good job > lobbying (corrupting) the CRTC and the powers that be in Canada > that Canadians feel good about the shaft they are receiving. > The Canadian Telcos have done no significant cost-cutting to enter > this supposed age of competition. I don't often post to newsgroups, but I can't let this message stand unchallenged. There are many things wrong with the Canadian telephone companies, but high prices are not one of them. Despite the increases in local rates produced by "rate rebalancing" (Canada's term for reducing the long distance to local subsidy) Canada has some of the lowest telephone rates in the world -- local and long distance. A recent study by the Yankee Group divided consumers into light, medium and heavy users of telephone service, and then determined what their total phone bills would be in various U.S. and Canadian cities. The ranges they found for large cities are shown below (all figures in U.S. dollars): Light Users U.S. $29.87 - $41.90 Canada $24.06 - $26.42 Medium Users U.S. $73.85 - $79.85 Canada $46.26 - $53.52 Heavy Users U.S. $125.17 - $145.91 Canada $ 74.53 - $ 86.46 In every case, telephone service in the most expensive Canadian city was less than in the least expensive U.S. city. Mr. Mereniuk argues that the telcos should be forced to reduce costs so that they can offer local service profitably at $20/month (ie at about U.S.$13/month. He says (correctly) that encouraging competition will force the telcos to reduce their costs. What he doesn't say (and I suspect doesn't know) is that every new entrant in local service in Canada argues that the phone companies' rates for residential service are much too low, and that it is impossible for new entrants to make a profit at those price levels. Ian Angus Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 01:23:05 PST Organization: Shadownet amp@pobox.com writes: >> In article , TELECOM Digest > Editor noted in response to Alan Boritz : >>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly did not mean to trivialize >>> the Christianson XModem protocol, and yes, it was the first way of >>> transferring files between computers. >> The first method I used was UUCP. > What about Kermit? Didn't that predate Xmodem? I recall having > versions of Kermit for just about every system I connected with, > including HP-3000 Series 68 and Vax 11/770 minicomputers. No, Kermit dates from the early 80s. XMODEM dates from the late 70s. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: egoni@zfm.com Subject: New Portugal Numbering Plan Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:15:25 -0300 All the information is available at the ICP website : http://www.icp.pt/numeracao/indexuk.html and more specifically (including all area codes) in http://www.icp.pt/numeracao/pnnuk.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 16:17:05 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Don't Forget to Vote (Early and Often) This week's poll question asks how you answer your business telephone when it rings; with your name, your company name, by saying 'hello' or whatever. Visit http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html to participate. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #332 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 24 04:13:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id EAA14617; Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:13:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:13:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908240813.EAA14617@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #333 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Aug 99 04:13:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 333 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Joseph T. Adams) Re: "Art" Imitates Life in the MCI/Worldcom Outage? (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (John R. Levine) Re: The Internet Auditing Project (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: A New Poll Question - How Do You Answer Phone? (Stuart Friedberg) Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Water Damage To Phone (Dave Robnett) Re: MyLine Service Discontinued (Michael W. Gardiner) Re: MyLine Question -- Who Owns the 800 Number (Paulo Santos) Re: 500 Numbers Gone Forever? (John R. Levine) Re: FCC to Probe Fees? (Randall Johns) Re: Visa Authorizations (Bill Levant) Re: Last Laugh -- Dial XXX (Bill Levant) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power Date: 23 Aug 1999 20:27:37 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE Jonathan D Loo wrote: > In article is written: >> By the time they *do* come through people's front doors, they will >> have persuaded most law-abiding Americans to lay down their arms, the >> 2nd Amendment notwithstanding, so that relatively few people will >> be in any position to effectively resist. > In my opinion the best way to fight is in court, by hiring a lawyer. > In civilized societies your lawyer will do a far better job of > defending you, than your gun ever would. Tell that to the millions of people in prison for (at worst) possession of a substance of which the government didn't approve. Or hundreds of thousands of Gulf War vets and their families with GWS. Or maybe the handful of people from Waco who weren't gassed, burned, or shot to death. How about the tens of millions of unarmed Black men and women who were brought here against their will. Or the tens of millions of unarmed Jewish men and women in Germany who were forced into death camps. When you suggest that these human beings, each one unique and irreplaceable, had no inherent right to resist those who imprisoned, enslaved and murdered them, you are really saying that they had no right to live. A more despicable viewpoint can hardly be imagined. Those who hold it should NEVER be allowed in any kind of position of public power or influence, and those who have such power and influence and abuse it in this fashion should be put down by any means necessary. I am sorry that much of the world seems determined to re-learn, the hard way, the difficult, painful and violent lessons that taught our founding fathers why the 2nd Amendment was necessary. But please be assured that there are a very large number of us at least here in the U.S., and probably elsewhere, who are equally determined not to. Joe ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: "Art" Imitates Life in the MCI/Worldcom Outage? Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:11:44 GMT In article , bbass@bluemoon.net says: > Tom Allebrandi (tom@ytram.com) wrote: >> Has anyone noticed the new MCI/Worldcom commercials for five cent long >> distance? They light up a big billboard which apparently draws so much >> power it shuts down everything else. >> Is it my imagination, or did these commercials start around the same time >> as the frame relay outage? > Did you notice that Wile E. Coyote flips the switch for the billboard? > That explains it. If Wile E. is involved, its likely the billboard and > frame relay were supplied by The Acme Company. They were destined to > malfunction. :-) Hey -- I resemble that remark. I am the owner of Acme Aerospace, Inc and we once had a domain called space.acme.net. :^) == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Date: 24 Aug 1999 00:19:08 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 23 Aug 1999 06:13:48 GMT, sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net allegedly said: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I use 'subscription confirmations' also. > When you are added to the list here, a group of files go out to you > automatically. One letter welcomes you; another is the telecom newsgroup > FAQ. The catch is, majordomo cannot tell when people are playing games > and harassing someone else ... I can. So you do manual confirmations? That's up to you. I prefer auto confirmations. > The difference is, you see, that in a very large commercial mailing > list, as is very prevalent on the net these days, you can afford to > treat the subscribers in that sort of impersonal way. I beg to differ. Ask my subscribers how I treat them. I really honestly don't think this kind of thing is a function of the mailing list software. I think it's a function of the mailing list operator. :) I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org I am the president and sole shareholder of NSTC. Thus, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do represent the official opinions of the company :) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my comments a couple issues ago. I use a semi-automated system. My adding or deleting a name to the mailing list triggers a mailing to the person automatically. I send out an FAQ and other things. It is very rare I get back word saying it was a forgery. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 23 Aug 1999 20:21:57 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA Moderator Pat whined and opined: > The catch is, majordomo cannot tell when people are playing games > and harassing someone else ... I can. You might be surprised. My majordomo sends a message saying "someone claiming to be you asked to subscribe to this list. If it was really you, send this response. If it wasn't you, ignore this message and you won't hear from us again." So a bad guy sends in a bunch of fake requests, the victims may each get one "was this you?" but that's it, no subscription bombing. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You also, please see my comments on this earlier. My manual typing at the shell prompt of "add email.address 'Real Name thisdate' " adds it to the list and sends out the essence of a confirmation letter. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:01:07 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: The Internet Auditing Project Is there a way to do these tests interactively on only one host at a time? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:09:26 PDT From: Stuart Friedberg Subject: Re: A New Poll Question - How Do You Answer Phone? Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. In article TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > How do you answer your BUSINESS telephone when it rings? "Hello, <>" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So don't tell me about it; go to the highly scientific, well-audited and secure polling site and cast your vote for the answer which best fits the above. Every vote counts. http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:15:12 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Fed Smooths Way for Electronic Banking I like paper statements and canceled checks. I hope they stay free. One time I had an account at a bank which provided not only a paper statement and canceled checks, but also canceled deposit slips. In this case it actually benefited the bank and not me. At that time I didn't balance my checkbook carefully, but I did call the bank occasionally and find out what my balance was, in order to avoid writing bad checks. Well, I was surprised when my bank balance began to rise much faster than usual. I had a low-paying on-campus job and I didn't have direct deposit, so I immediately knew that something was up. So, I waited until the statement came in the mail. Then I looked in the statement and examined the canceled deposit slips. Two of the deposit slips had my bank's routing number encoded and my own account number hand-written. There was a space for the name to be written on the deposit slip and someone else's name was there. I decided to go to the bank and return the two incorrect deposit slips. They immediately deducted the money from my account. To this day I wonder what would have happened if I had remained silent. Since then, that bank has been swallowed up by a larger bank which charges nasty fees to anyone who doesn't keep a minimum balance. I've switched banks. If the same thing happened today, I would have a much harder time tracking it down, because no bank that I know of returns deposit slips to customers any more. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If the bank puts money in your account which is not yours, and you keep the money, then you get arrested for bank fraud, sent to prison for years and years, and when it is reported here in the Digest I will opine in a note saying, 'the poor guy ... I wonder what made him turn out so bad like that' and in a sidebar there will be interviews with your former school teachers and classmates who will recall how as a child you were always trying to steal candy bars in the store and bullied the younger children and tortured small animals. John Markoff in the {New York Times} will write about his role in uncovering a 'hacker on the Internet who had tricked the bank out of money' and Bill Levant will write me to insist that the government would not have put you in prison for several years before they got around to having a mock trial for you if you had not been guilty in the first place, because the government doesn't do that kind of thing. No sir-ree. Now on the other hand, if the bank takes money out of your account which is not theirs and keeps it, and proceeds to treat you like a leper when your checks begin bouncing all over the place and forces you to fill out seven different forms in quintuplicate in order to instigate an investigation of what went wrong which may take up to three months to complete since they have to order records that are more than a couple months old from the warehouse and in the meantime we are going to report you to the credit bureau as a deadbeat and have the first ATM which sees your cash card swallow it and keep it according to our security procedures, you have the right to whine about it if you wish, or even send an email letter of protest to the president of the bank, assuming his secretary allows him to read his own email without intercepting it first to make sure there is nothing in it that might upset him or cause him distress, such as a complaint letter sent by a customer. After I print in this Digest a copy of the letter you sent to the bank president asking his help, and add an Editor's note in which I opine with a whine of my own, I will receive a reply from the Baker Family expressing their regrets that I am a Bitter, Frustrated, (and possibly Dirty) Old Man who for lack of accomplishing anything in his own life now finds it necessary to pick on banks, government authorities and other Pillars of Society who have never once had anything but the best interests of the Community they serve at heart and that goes for the Internet commun- ity as well. Is all that perfectly clear, dear Jonathan? Sorry for lack of time today I cannot be more specific. Tomorrow I will try to spell out the exact procedures in more detail. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:42:41 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! In article was written: > 4) The local PD will charge you with filing a false police report and > fine the hell out of you. If they hit and kill someone on the way to > responding to a bogus 911 call at your house, they'll try to put you > in jail. > Those times when you thought your phone went dead may have been one of > the dialers placing an outbound call. Did the phone seem to go dead > on any of the days when you got a visit from the local PD? Set off > your alarm on purpose and see who calls you first, the alarm service > or the PD. If the PD calls, it would have to be because of a bogus > 911 call, so fire the alarm company. This might be illegal, depending on the state you're in. To be on the safe side, call your local police station's business line during business hours and explain that you are testing your alarm system, before you perform the actual test. You could also call the non-emergency number to explain before testing, but in many counties the non-emergency and emergency calls are answered at the same place. Nevertheless, you should *memorize* your local non-emergency police number for future reference. As I said before some police departments have a False Alarm Reduction Unit which investigates owners of faulty burglar alarms. If they are nice you might want to talk to them; however, if they are nasty then anything you tell them can and will be used against you in a court of law. > If the alarm passes the test, then try triggering the cable box into > dialing for whatever reason it needs to have a phone line connection > and see if the PD call back. One more thing, is that if you have isolated the cause and it is in the phone company's network but they refuse to do anything about it, send a certified letter to the president of your local phone company's operating subsidiary in your state. 911 problems are urgent and require thorough troubleshooting. ------------------------------ From: Dave Robnett Subject: Water Damage To Phone Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:08:40 -0700 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Is the voltage a phone line carries enough to cause a phone to short out if it is connected to a wall jack which gets wet? If so would it require an incoming call? I've never heard of any precautions to be taken about phones and water, only about phones and electrical storms. TIA Dave [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There was a tariff in the old days which forbade telco from installing anything *but* a wall phone in a kitchen or bathroom, and then the cord from the receiver to the instrument mounted on the wall could only be a couple feet long, and it was not to be mounted in such a way that the receiver could accidentally be dropped in a basin or tub full of water. It had to be on the opposite wall, etc. While telco concurred that it was indeed unfortunate when the incessant ringing of the instrument required the subscriber to abdicate his throne, holding up his trousers as he hurriedly stumbled along into the other room so that he could give a cordial greeting to the latest tele-sales-person or wrong number caller, they said it would be even more of a misfortune if a desk type phone which was ringing accidentally fell into the subscriber's bath water, while the subscriber was still seated in said tub of water. While a phone that is off hook is not a ringing telephone, a receiver that slipped out of your hands and fell in the tub of water where you were sitting would not cause you to have the happiest day in your life either. Water conducts electricity quite well and in fact amplifies it to some extent. So the compromise was to wall mount it preventing it from going anywhere, and make the cord very, very short. The subscriber could reach over and answer it, or merely step out of the shower to answer, but go no further with the reciever. Pop quiz: select the right answer from the multiple choices given below ... that tariff was started because: 1) The Mother Company always acted in the best interest of the subscribers, knew what was best and did not want to see anyone getting hurt. 2) It was during the war, when Western Electric had been nationalized for the duration of the war, and phones were in short supply. All the phone man had on his truck were wall phones with little two foot cords on them. 3) The Mother Company was sick of getting sued by subscribers who were 'shocked' to find out that after they had accident- ally dropped the receiver in the (take your pick) bathtub of water, toilet bowl, kitchen sink, they could not just reach in and take it out without getting the thrill of a lifetime in the process. If you picked choice three, then you pass on today's tutorial, and may proceed to the next lesson. ------------------------------ From: mwg@mail.msen.com (Michael W. Gardiner) Subject: Re: MyLine Service Discontinued Date: 24 Aug 1999 01:17:51 GMT Organization: Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, MI. Stan Schwartz (bigstan@bigfoot.com) wrote: > I spoke with a customer service rep at GST on Friday who told me that > the service will be continued by the original developer, and a letter > is currently being drafted. Currently being drafted? With service > changing hands on September 1st?? Geez! I asked as many ways as I > could, but I was assured that MyLine service will be maintained. Ameritech is discontinuing SmartLine and SmartPager service, which are re-marketed AccessLine products. AccessLine is taking over direct operation of these services. MyLine may be in a similar position, I figure them to be seperate services as AccessLine lists no wake-up call service. It might be worth stressing your providers about who they bought the service from, you might be able to scontinue service direct from the original servicer. Mike Gardiner |"The game is never over, Doctor, and the prize is mwg@mail.msen.com | never won. Broken doors, broken dreams, it's all mwg@pobox.com | the same thing. A doors' purpose is to conceal mwg@wwnet.com | the contents of a room, and dreams are the doors http://www.msen.com/~mwg | of the mind." - Mysterious Figure, _Broken Doors_ Unsolicited commercial E-mail subject to $500 processing charge. Sending such messages constitutes agreement to pay. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have some of the details on how/where MyLine came from dating back a few years ago. I know that a few years ago there was a company in New York marketing MyLine at the same time as the people were doing it there, which was before GST got involved. I know that at that time, the 'developer' of MyLine was in the same office as the people who were then marketing the service. It seemed at the time to be a slightly incestuous relationship, but I have so little actual knowledge of it I will not say any more. Today I received email from someone there who tells me they are definitly NOT going out of business; just changing things around a little. The email said 'we note you are under the impression that MyLine is going out of business ...' well hey, when I call the lady tomorrow as she requested, the first thing I will do is play back for her the voicemail message (I still have it) from last week. If a message saying 'the service is terminating on September 1 is not the same thing as 'the service is ending in two weeks' then I don't know what else it would mean. In the original message I was told 'if you do not call back, then your 800 number will be put in the pool of vacant numbers for reassignment' ... what does that mean, when coupled with the earlier statement 'terminating on September 1' ?? None the less, I will call tomorrow and let them explain what is going on, then make a report here later. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paulo Santos Subject: Re: MyLine Question -- Who Owns the 800 Number Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 16:46:57 -0400 Organization: Lucent Technologies > I advise my clients that if portability is an issue, check > subscribership before signing on with a service company for an 800 > number. Judith, How do I check who is the subscriber of record for my two 800 numbers? Where are the subscribership records kept? Paulo Santos ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: 500 Numbers Gone Forever? Date: 24 Aug 1999 01:01:14 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The beauty of a 500 number was the ability for the owner to have > "one number for life" and the caller pays. The problem with 500 numbers was that they were in practice 900 numbers, with high and unpredictable charges to the caller. If I want to call you, I'm happy to pay 7 cpm to my own long distance carrier, but I am not happy to pay AT&T 25 cpm and I am really not happy to pay some unpredictable overpriced international rate if you happen to have it forwarded out of the country. PBX managers, who pay more like 4 CPM and whose users tend not to care when an in-band announcement says "this call is being forwarded to Burkina Fasso at $4.37/minute" were really, really unhappy to find 500 charges on their bills and routinely blocked 500 numbers, just as they block 900. > Is anyone else going to provide 500 number services? (caller pays, > number for life, etc) Plenty of companies make follow-me services, often in conjunction with cellular or PCS. If you want the caller to pay, hang it on a POTS number. If you move, don't change your number, just change what it's forwarded to. Note that the life of a POTS number, particularly if you get it in an area that already has overlays so the area code won't change, is likely to be considerably longer than the life of a 500 number. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Reply-To: rgjohns@dallas.net From: Randall Johns Subject: Re: FCC to Probe Fees? Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 21:43:01 -0500 I just got a surprise in my phone bill today for my second (computer) line: GTE long distance now is imposing a $3.00 minimum monthly fee also. When I had the line installed (GTE local service) two months ago, I specifically asked their customer service person if GTE Long Distance imposed a minimum monthly fee, to which she answered, "No." I thought, "Great. No monthly fee, and I can have only one company to deal with." I didn't care about their per minute rates, because I only use this line to connect to the systems at work via a toll free number, and to the internet via a local number in Dallas. Since the company I work for pays for the second line, and because I make no long distance calls from my computer, I promptly called GTE this evening and told them to switch my line to no prefered long distance carrier. Are there any long distance carriers who don't charge a monthly minimum anymore? Has the FCC said anything else about their probe into long distance companies charging a minimum monthly fee? ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 20:30:05 EDT Subject: Re: Visa Authorizations > The "freeze" on your account only applies to purchases made > on the MasterCard side. At my credit union, I have a Visa debit card that does three things: It's an ATM card (at MAC, PLUS, NYCE and other networked cash machines), it's a POS purchase card (at appropriately-equipped merchants) and it's a Visa card (anywhere they take Visa). In the first two instances, my balance is "held" automatically at the moment the transaction is authorized; in the last, it isn't, because the transaction clears through the Visa network, which isn't on-line in real time. My checking account is also linked to a $5,000.00 overdraft line (REQUIRED by the credit union in order to have this card); according to their literature, your credit limit at any given time is the balance in your checking account, PLUS the unused portion of your credit line, LESS authorizations given but not yet settled. Pending Visa transactions don't prevent access to the checking account balance at all. As an aside, the ONLY time I use the card for POS is when I need cash too; the merchant can generally put through a POS transaction for $50.00 more than your purchase and give you the change in cash. It's a neat way to save on "foreign" ATM charges ... On the other hand, I think the Credit Union counts POS transactions against the 10 free ATM withdrawals allowed each month ($.50 each beyond 10). Visa transactions DON'T count against that limit, and if it wasn't for the "cash back" option, there'd be NO reason to use the card for POS transactions (in the old days, they also gave a monthly 1% rebate on Visa charges, making POS transactions even less worthwhile.) Bill ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 20:46:35 EDT Subject: Re : Last Laugh -- Dial XXX > A misprint on a car payment coupon book has left a Lynn bank > red-faced and a North Andover woman the recipient of a risque > proposition. Well, it beats giving away toasters. Seriously, back when I was in college, I worked as a bank teller at a small bank (that no longer exists) in Philadelphia. The manager had a private line on her phone, which was 215-XXX-4547. A massage parlour in Philadelphia ran a full page ad in a local paper (which also no longer exists). Their number was 215-XXX-5447, but it got misprinted. For about a week, she got a stream of calls intended for the massage parlour. It actually got to be fun ... she'd put the call on hold, and inquire of the branch at large "... what does it mean to 'wash windows' ?" I never did find out exactly what 'washing windows' meant, but it was one of the more entertaining weeks I had there. Bill ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #333 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 24 17:28:02 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA12683; Tue, 24 Aug 1999 17:28:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 17:28:02 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908242128.RAA12683@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #334 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Aug 99 17:28:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 334 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Digital Subscriber Lines Are the Latest Internet Wave (Monty Solomon) Starting a Mobil Phone Service? (Markus) Are You Ready For a 'Personal TV System'? (Monty Solomon) Consumers Hooked on Caller ID, Etc. (Mike Pollock) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Craig Williamson) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Orin Eman) Re: Cable and Wireless Update: Portugal Renumbering (John David Galt) Re: US to Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Charles B. Wilber) Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs (Terry Knab) Re: Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC (Kevin DeMartino) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Alan Boritz) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 05:52:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Subscriber Lines Are the Latest Internet Wave DSL Digital Subscriber Lines Are the Latest Internet Wave, But Baby Bells Aren't Making the Connection Quickly By Shu Shin Luh Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 23, 1999; Page F05 Over the past year, small and mid-sized businesses have begun embracing a high-speed Internet option called digital subscriber lines, or DSL, and in the Washington area, industry analysts say, this trend comes at the expense of Bell Atlantic Corp., the region's dominant local phone company. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/23/027l-082399-idx.html ------------------------------ From: Markus Subject: Starting a Mobil Phone Service? Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 09:24:36 +0100 Organization: Ericsson AXE Research and Development, Stockholm, Sweden Hello all! Does anybody have a decent understanding of what is required to start a mobile phone service? Many new telcomoperators are popping up as the telecom has been deregulated and I am very interested in getting a further understanding of how I should go about it if I decided to start a little company that will provide mobile phone services. My understanding about telecom in general is quite broad, but I really don't know what I would need to provide my own services. As I understand it, I would have to rent capacity from the company that owns the switches and basestations, but do I need to get any own equipment such as switches? What are the major things I need to consider? If anybody could provide a little information I would be very thankful! Maybe somebody else has the same thaughts? Cheers, Markus ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 05:56:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Are you ready for a 'Personal TV System'? And is TiVo ready for you? By Gary Krakow MSNBC Aug. 20 - TiVo is a very good idea, but it's a tough device to explain. Philips proclaims that TiVo is a "groundbreaking new product and service that represents a revolution in television history." We'll discuss that in a minute. But, if you buy that premise, is TiVo right for you? http://www.msnbc.com/news/302351.asp ------------------------------ From: Mike Pollock Subject: Consumers Hooked on Caller ID, Etc. Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 11:06:38 -0400 Organization: It's A Mike! By KALPANA SRINIVASAN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Rebecca Ryen hears the ring, ring of the telephone and lunges for the receiver eager to hear a friendly voice at the other end of the line. But then she pauses and checks her Caller ID box to find out if it will be a friendly voice after all. ``When 'unavailable' comes across, it's either a phone company or a bill collector,'' said Ryen of Bethesda, Md. ``And that means I don't answer it.'' She is among millions of phone users hooked on technology that gives them information before, after and during calls. A study of consumer behavior by Arbitron NewMedia found that Caller ID customers have quadrupled over the past four years. ``It's a never-ending source of amazement how much customers love these things,'' said Terry Yarbrough, senior director of product management at BellSouth, where more than 40 percent of the company's customers have Caller ID and 35 percent either use or subscribe to Call Return, activated by dialing 69 to trace the last incoming call. SBC Communications' Southwestern Bell, the main provider of local phone service in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, boasts an even higher Caller ID rate: More than half of their customers have the feature, with 70 percent subscribing in Laredo, Texas. Phone companies are responding to demand by developing new features. The latest example: Bell Atlantic's Call 54, which enables people to find out the name and address that corresponds to a local phone number, as long as both the name and address are listed. To get the information, a person calls 555-5454 and then dials in the phone number. A recorded voice reads the name and address, and even offers to spell them. This service is a response to the growth of Internet and CD-Rom search services, say company officials. With Call 54, consumers can look up three listings for one 75-cent call. Since its introduction in 1995 in New Jersey -- followed by rollouts in Maryland, West Virginia and parts of northern Virginia -- more than ten million addresses have been handed out. The service leaves out all non-published information. Others can request that their information be removed from the database. Privacy groups say these phone features can put those who want to safeguard their home numbers and addresses at a disadvantage. ``Some of these services can be extremely problematic to people who have to protect their security in their home,'' said Beth Givens, director of the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. With some features, the burden is on the callers to ``opt out'' of being identified by blocking their number or calling through an operator, privacy advocates point out. ``These services show how users of all kinds of communications systems need to be aware of what they are unwittingly consenting to,'' said Jim Dempsey, senior staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based privacy group. The cat-and-mouse technology game can get harried: To dodge the Caller ID system, a caller can activate a feature to block the number and have it show up as ``Unavailable'' or ``Anonymous.'' Phone users can one-up the clever caller by blocking calls from certain numbers. BellSouth, for example, offers a message rejecting blocked calls but inviting callers to ring again without a blocked number. Ameritech's Privacy Manager, introduced last year, intercepts unknown callers and asks for identification. The recipient then can hear a recording identifying the caller and opt to accept or decline the call and have the Privacy Manager tell the caller not to call again. Even Call Waiting, the veritable grandfather of phone features, is getting a makeover: A deluxe version lets people use Caller ID in conjunction with Call Waiting. Other phone carriers offer a version for Internet users that flashes the incoming number on the computer screen. With a point and click, customers can opt to disconnect from the Internet and take the call or send the call into voicemail. Such advances could redefine what consumers consider phone must-haves. In ``deprivation'' studies conducted by SBC, customers in focus groups revealed their dependency when their phone services were taken away. ``A lot of people just felt like they had no friends'' because they didn't know who had called, said B.J. Mamuzic, senior director of consumer marketing. ``Some of them felt insecure.'' Ryen admits she's addicted to her Caller ID. She once pulled the batteries out of her fire alarm to keep the gadget running. ``I wanted to get it because everybody else had it,'' said Ryen. ``Now I can't live without it.'' Copyright 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved. ------------------------------ From: Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Craig Williamson) Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Organization: NCR Date: Tue, 24 Aug 99 18:03:55 GMT In article , Tom Bennett wrote: > Maybe this will help: > Start->Settings->Control Panel->Mail->Addressing - order your > address lists the way you like them. > Neal McLain wrote in message news:telecom19. > 330.7@telecom-digest.org: >> EXCHANGE or OUTLOOK. These programs get addresses mixed up if one of >> the names is just a one- word screenname. I do that and then I have to manually pick addresses out of my personal list. If something matches in the global list (when it is default) then it doesn't even look in your personal list for a match. It has been this way for a long time and I just have to live with it since MS decided that was what I wanted. :-( "If you let your hair down, you might -Craig Williamson be surprised by what you find in it." Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM - Balki Bartokomas craig@toontown.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (home) Perfect Strangers ------------------------------ From: orin@wolfenet.COM (Orin Eman) Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Date: 24 Aug 1999 18:07:55 GMT Organization: Wolfe Internet Access, L.L.C As the current list admin for the diy_efi list which uses majordomo, it may be that Pat isn't familiar with the later versions. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I use 'subscription confirmations' also. > When you are added to the list here, a group of files go out to you > automatically. One letter welcomes you; another is the telecom newsgroup Majordomo sends out an intro letter for us. I really hate it when these bounce! > FAQ. The catch is, majordomo cannot tell when people are playing games > and harassing someone else ... I can. I know the approximate volume > of subscriptions I will get from one day to the next. If I all of a > sudden get five or ten 'subscription requests' in a single day all > phrased exactly the same way -- as though a script had sent them by > picking email addresses at random -- majordomo would just fill all the > requests .. I won't fill them. If a subscription request comes in which > has information in the envelope header totally different than the name > and email address in the text or the 'From:' line majordomo would fill > the request no questions asked ... I ask questions. Neither of these cases are true the way we have majordomo set up. For every subscription request, a message is sent to me for approval. If it looks good, I send it back with the appropriate password and the subscription is processed. Like Pat, if I get a whole bunch of requests, I get suspicious. Unfortunately, I don't get to see all the headers of the original request, majordomo reports a sender, but I've never bothered to work out exactly what address it uses. Unsubscribes are allowed unless the sender doesn't match the address being unsubscribed in which case I have to approve it. We used to allow subscribes unless the sender didn't match, but we were hit by some malicious subscribes and hence the change. Orin ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: Cable and Wireless Update: Portugal Renumbering Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 05:57:40 GMT Michael Hartley wrote: > All subscriber numbers will always be 9 digits long (up to 15 digits > will be possible for certain services - area codes 941, 943, 944) This is the first case I've heard of any country violating the ITU's 15-digit limit on international numbers (including the country code) since the limit was increased from 12 digits at "Time T" in October 1997. Does ITU plan to increase the limit again anytime soon? Does any of the three pager services with those area codes really expect to have more than 1,000,000,000 customers (the number each could have without exceeding the limit) in the forseeable future? John David Galt ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1999 09:51:16 EDT From: Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber) Reply-To: Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber) Subject: Re: US to Seek New Computer Surveillance Power Joseph T. Adams wrote: > Tell that to the millions of people in prison for (at worst) > possession of a substance of which the government didn't approve. > Or hundreds of thousands of Gulf War vets and their families with GWS. > Or maybe the handful of people from Waco who weren't gassed, burned, > or shot to death. > How about the tens of millions of unarmed Black men and women who were > brought here against their will. Or the tens of millions of unarmed > Jewish men and women in Germany who were forced into death camps. > I am sorry that much of the world seems determined to re-learn, the > hard way, the difficult, painful and violent lessons that taught our > founding fathers why the 2nd Amendment was necessary. But please be > assured that there are a very large number of us at least here in the > U.S., and probably elsewhere, who are equally determined not to. Unfortunately, Joe makes a valid and frightening point. We are witnessing an attack on our right to defend and protect ourselves unlike anything that has come before in the history of our country. It has happened before in history, however. It happened in Nazi Germany. The inhumane atrocities that followed the removal of firearms from the hands of all except those in power opened the door for the treatment of millions of subsequently helpless human beings as nothing more than farm animals, to be penned up and slaughtered at will. Just think how much more resistance six million *armed* Jews could have put up. The present administration, led by someone who has had no military experience, has never had to defend his family and who left his country rather than fighting for it when called upon to do so, is now rabidly removing legal, legitimate firearms from the hands of as many private citizens as possible. Assisted by a liberal press (who would stand for no such infringement of their own 1st Amendment rights!), Clinton uses every means at his disposal to further his goal of a completely unarmed and defenseless population. Neither legality, morality nor common sense will divert him from his course. If he is allowed to continue, all of us will be dependent on often overworked, usually understaffed and occasionally renegade and unpredictible law enforcement agencies to "guarantee" our domestic safety and on a gutted, ineffective and incompetent military to protect us from foreign threats. I have lived through a number of wars and participated in one of them. It is clear to me that our country is rapidly losing the ability to defend itself from foreign threats. Even today our armed forces would be hard-pressed to prevail against a trained, equipped and determined military opponent such as Russia, China or North Korea. History suggests that this will eventually find us unable to defend our own soil and will likely be given the opportunity to try. CBW [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Bear in mind also that one of the biggest, if not the biggest perceived threats the government faces right now is the Internet. Not that everyone on the net thinks the same way or acts in the same way, by no means at all. But it is the ability of people using the net to bypass all the old, established ways of doing things -- whatever their stripe or agenda -- that has so many people and institutions 'deeply concerned'. We no longer need the print or broadcast media; the people will talk among themselves without the traditionally sanitized presentations given to them in the past, thank you. We no longer need large chunks of the entertainment industry; the people will entertain and amuse each other without the ticket office cashier getting in the way, thank you. We no longer need an agent who promises to promote our book or our music or our art or our other talents while in actuality tossing it in a trash can unreviewed. We will put our music, art, writings and other skills directly on display where others can see it, thank you. Making Money Fast on the net isn't going to come from spam-ridden newsgroups and chain letters offering bogus business opportunities, but it will come from the ability of average, everyday people being able to do their own thing while bypassing so many of the institutions which have controlled their lives all these years. And that has left the government in a bit of a quandry. It is getting harder and harder to regulate the activities of the citizens in any sort of effective and effecient way. In the past, people obeyed all the laws for one of two reasons: because they wanted to, or because they knew they had to. After all the free speech-making, the flag waving, the Usenet newsgroup postings were over and done with, everyone understood the gun was back there waiting for its turn, so let's just cut to the chase and get to the bottom line. Just as the only reason that prisons exist at all is because of the voluntary compliance of the prisoners, the only reason the United States government exists is because of the voluntary compliance of the citizens, and it would appear fewer and fewer volunteers are stepping forward. Yes, we all know the gun is waiting if (in the goverment's opinion) worst comes to worst, but this recent innovation called the Internet-thing has turned everything topsy-turvey in our society and made it easier and easier for all of us to be more disobedient and willful than ever before. Before too long, after all their logic has failed them and their attempts to humor citizens into thinking they are part of a democratic society has been found to be in vain, i.e. if you don't like it then vote for someone else; then watch for them to cut to the chase, can the crap, and give the gun its chance to straighten things out. With regard to their logic (faulty to say the least) and their attempts at good humor, the internet is just making their control problem worse. Me personally? I hate guns. I despise them, I am frightened by them, and I become ill and depressed when I think of all the ways in which they have been misused. I do not think I would ever want to have one in my home for any reason. But I would never dream of telling those of you who are comfortable with guns that you ought to give them up; in fact I sincerely hope you don't. You are probably the one reason the US government has not already 'cut to the chase' and gotten to the bottom line with the one Big Write Off that I feel we are destined to face eventually in this country, a write-off that make the Civil War of the 1860's seem like a small skirmish by comparison. Thanks for reading this! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 09:12:58 GMT From: tknab@nyx.net (Terry Knab) Subject: Re: New SW Bell Service Makes It Hard To Dial ISPs Organization: The Home Office Wayne V.H. Lorentz wrote: > Just when I thought Southwestern Bell couldn't make things worse ... > They have installed a new feature on my (and I assume everyone else's) > line in Houston, Texas. When you call a number that is in use, > instead of passing a busy signal you get a recording in English and > Spanish offering to have the number ring you back for a 50-cent > charge. It's similar to the leave-message-on-busy you sometimes get > when calling from a payphone with AT&T. Southwestern Ding-Dong also rolled out this most useless service in Missouri and Kansas. To get rid of it, you have to call them and have it removed. Needless to say, I did so. This from a company who -refuses- to provide ISDN in St. Joseph, MO because they say the town is too small?? Yeah right. ------------------------------ From: Kevin DeMartino Subject: Re: Differences Between SDH-ATM-HDLC Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 11:52:02 -0400 In V19 #331, Marcus wrote: > SDH/Sonet = OSI Layer 1 protocol > ATM = OSI Layer 2 protocol > HDLC = OSI Layer 2 protocol > Hence, both ATM and HDLC frames are embedded in SDH frames. Indeed, ATM > and HDLC are always embedded in either PDH or SHD frames, since this is > our only way of transmission? ATM is just for pure switching? Please > correct me if I am wrong! Marcus, you are mostly correct, but there are some nitpicking distinctions to consider. ATM does not fit neatly into the OSI model. Neither do TCP or FTP for that matter. ATM cells are usually embedded in SDH/SONET frames, which provide pointers to the starting points of the cells. ATM cells could be carried by some other layer 1 (physical layer) protocol, but there may be a problem in determining which byte is the first byte of the cell. HDLC provides a certain bit pattern that allows you to determine the beginning and end of the HDLC frame. Thus, an HDLC frame can be embedded in a PDH (T1 or T3) frame structure or can be carried by some other layer 1 protocol. For example, an Internet connection may involve TCP/IP over PPP (an HDLC variant) over some modem protocol like V.34. In this case there is no framing at layer 1. ATM can be used to switch data through a network, which is why some people would argue that ATM is a layer 3 (network layer) protocol. Some HDLC variants, such as PPP and the X.25 layer 2 protocol, are not designed to be used for switching. However, other HDLC variants, such as the frame relay protocol, can be used for switching. This makes frame relay a viable alternative to ATM for carrying IP packets through a network. Kevin DeMartino Dynamics Research Corporation ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 06:48:13 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Jonathan D Loo wrote: > In article was written: >> 4) The local PD will charge you with filing a false police report and >> fine the hell out of you. If they hit and kill someone on the way to >> responding to a bogus 911 call at your house, they'll try to put you >> in jail. >> Those times when you thought your phone went dead may have been one of >> the dialers placing an outbound call. Did the phone seem to go dead >> on any of the days when you got a visit from the local PD? Set off >> your alarm on purpose and see who calls you first, the alarm service >> or the PD. If the PD calls, it would have to be because of a bogus >> 911 call, so fire the alarm company. > This might be illegal, depending on the state you're in. To be on the > safe side, call your local police station's business line during > business hours and explain that you are testing your alarm system, > before you perform the actual test. This may cause more problems than it's worth, depending upon the state in which you live. Calling a non-emergency number won't do any good unless if the same dispatcher answers the phone. After all, you could be a perpetrator calling in order that a subsequent intrusion could be ignored. Unscheduled alarms can be an excellent way to see if there's anyone REALLY monitoring. > As I said before some police departments have a False Alarm Reduction > Unit which investigates owners of faulty burglar alarms. If they are > nice you might want to talk to them; however, if they are nasty then > anything you tell them can and will be used against you in a court of > law. You're mistaking a bogus 911 call with a false alarm generated by a monitored alarm system. A monitoring service should be calling a pre-arranged phone number to confirm whether or not to call the PD. The former should be followed up with a criminal complaint against the alarm company (so they pay the fines associated with their mistake). The latter should be followed up by firing the alarm monitoring company, whether they have a contract or not. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #334 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 24 22:31:34 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA24493; Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:31:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:31:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908250231.WAA24493@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #335 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Aug 99 22:31:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 335 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (Leonard Erickson) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Leonard Erickson) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (73115.1041@compuserve.com) Re: VISA Authorizations (Joey Lindstrom) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Joey Lindstrom) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Jonathan D Loo) Re: VISA Authorizations (Jonathan D Loo) Certified Telecom Professional? (DJ Bennett) Job Opening (Your Name) Syphilis Outbreak Traced To Internet Chat Room (Monty Solomon) Internet 'Television' Programs For You (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:12:11 PST Organization: Shadownet Jonathan D. Loo writes: > In article you write: >> There are also many, many, other businesses that have a defacto charge of >> this sort. For example, all of you who still have a RBOC telco office (or, >> for that matter, any other utility) in your neighborhood raise your >> hands ... I count ... one ... two ... ? five? > Of course there are several local phone company offices in my area. > These are COs not customer service offices, and many of them have a > sign near the front door saying we do not accept payments at this > location. And there are still stores that act as payment stations for utilities. About a mile and a half from here is a drugstore where I can pay my electric, phone, and cable bills. If I had gas, I could pay that too. > I have heard that one day the utilities will prohibit check payments > in the mail, and will require credit card. What about those of us who > don't have credit cards? Direct debit! Do you really trust your > bank's security, to allow direct debit? Sometimes I wonder. In a > local bank (name withheld to protect the innocent), there was a crack > in the glass and no one noticed it until I called the cops. It won't happen. For one thing, there are more people than you might think who not only can't get a credit card, but can't get a checking account either. I know someone who got into a mess when he lost a job a few years back. He wound up owing back taxes that he couldn't pay then. With the result that the state tax people garnished his bank account. This caused a bunch of checks to bounce. Because of which his bank not only closed the account, it reported him to some sort of agency the banks use with the result that until that report is pulled, or "rolls off" in *seven years* he *cannot* get a bank account. Checking *or* savings. The bank says that they *never* pull such reports once they submit them. He's looking into his legal options. But the simple fact is, a *lot* of poor folks don't have accounts either (Why do you think check cashing services are so "popular"?). And the utilities *cannot* require that they do. J.F. Mezei writes: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the United States at least, the law >> provides that our currency is considered satisfactory payment of all >> debts, 'public and private'. > But it does not prevent a vendor from charging you more for handling > of your cash. > If you buy a last minute air ticket with cash, be prepared to be > searched, etc. etc. Some services are just not setup to handle cash. > Large utilities may balk at cash because the payment cannot go through > the normal channels for payment processing because there isn't a piece > of paper (cheque). Unlikely. You usually have to return *another* piece of paper in addition to the check. At the earlist practical stage in processing, that piece of paper gets the amount paid noted on it, and it and the check go in different directions. When I pay at the payment station in a local drug store, the phone bill has that piece of paper removed, and my payment noted on it. And it gets sent on to the phone company. Though they also enter my payment and account number on a terminal, much like a credit card terminal. For the power bill, they do things differently. If there's a piece of paper that goes to the power company, it get generated by the folks at the drugstore. Any need for a "piece of paper" is *seperate* from the presence or abscence of a check. Checks have to be seperated as soon as possible and sent to the bank. And "paper" for processing is something else. > It is pretty standard for large companies/utilities to specify that cash > payments may not be made by mail. Yes, to ensure that their mail doesn't get stolen. > How will e-commerce function in the USA if the law forces all merchants > to find a way to accept cash in exchange for products/services? > (Especially when dealing with international transactions). I'm pretty sure that it's a requirement for "face to face" transactions. > I suggest any law that forces a vendor to accept cash is outdated and > probably dates from before the introduction of credit cards (in the > 60's), debit cards (in the 80's) and now cash cards (stored value such > as Mondex in Canada or VISA-CASH in Australia). It dates from sometime in the 1800s if not earlier. At that time individual banks issued their own paper currency (which is where the term "banknote" comes from). There were times when the "greenback" was not terribly acceptable, due to excessive inflation. So the law was passed *requring* it to be accepted, and at face value. Credit cards aren't affected. It does not say that you may *only* accept cash. You are free to accept anything you wish. It just says that if US currency is presented, it *must* be accepted. "Presented" pretty much makes it "face to face", but I suspect that the old clause about "face value" (originally intended to prevent a surcharge from being charged for US notes as opposed to gold or some local banks notes) *can* be used to prevent the "surcharge for cash". It may not be immediately obvious, but the US government has a *strong* vested interest in making sure that US currency is the "common currency" for transactions in the US. This includes making sure that there are no surcharges associated with using it. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:34:00 PST Organization: Shadownet > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I use 'subscription confirmations' also. > set -x > ADDR=$1 > NAME=$2 > echo $1" ($2)" >> telecomlist #not its real name of course LOL > echo `cat z | wc -l` "names now on list" > cat new.users/new-users | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f > subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 > sleep 2 > echo "sent new.users.letter" > cat latest.issue | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 > sleep 2 > echo "sent latest.issue" > cat new.users/donations | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f > subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 > sleep 2 > echo "sent donations.letter" > cat new.users/archives.help.file | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f > subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 > echo "sent archives.help.file" > In this example, we see that when I do "add $1 '$2 082399' " at my > shell prompt it appends the new name to the bottom of the list, reports > the total number of names on the list, and pipes a few introductory > files through sendmail out to the name just added. "082399"??? I hope none of your scripts use that date for anything. :-) Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sorry Leonard, I don't really get your point here. Those six digits are whatever the date happens to be when the person is added to the mailing list. The only my script does -- other than mailing out confirmation and other files -- is append the line I type in to the bottom of the existing list. Prior to an issue of the Digest getting mailed out, the list itself is sorted beginning with the first character to the right of the '@'. What is the problem with the date I used as an example? PAT] ------------------------------ From: 73115.1041@compuserve.com Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:41:53 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Craig Williamson) wrote: > I do that and then I have to manually pick addresses out of my > personal list. If something matches in the global list (when it is > default) then it doesn't even look in your personal list for a match. > It has been this way for a long time and I just have to live with it > since MS decided that was what I wanted. :-( Not if you following the directions in the previous poster's message. You control which lists are checked (personal contacts, team contacts, company global address, etc.) and in which order. This presumes that you are using Outlook in Corporate / Workgroup mode. I don't know how Internet Only mode works. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 05:13:27 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations On Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:42:22 -0400 (EDT), Steven J Sobol wrote: > On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:50:27 -0700, mdesmon@us-one.net allegedly said: >> I think that depends on your bank. I've done that a few times before >> when I didn't track my balance correctly and the bank would treat it >> like a bounced check. They would honor the Visa and ATM transactions >> and then charge me a returned check fee of $29. > That's what my bank does too ... They can't *not* honor the > transaction after the merchant was given an approval. That's the > thing. Honoring the transaction and charging the NSF charge is, in my > opinion, the correct thing for the bank to do in this case. This reminds me of a particular sequence of Dilbert strips, in which he gets into yet another dispute with his bank, the "Bank Of Ethel". He's angry because the bank dinged him for being a day late with his credit card payment while not offering any way to have it automatically transferred from checking to CC. The teller's response is that they're not into the "customer service craze" and "prefer to set little traps" for customers. And that's exactly what I've seen described here. No Visacheck or ATM transaction should ever "overdraw" your account (unless your account is set up to allow overdrafts), because there should ALWAYS either be an immediate withdrawal or a HOLD on the money you've committed your bank to paying the merchant. That's the end of it. Either the money is there or it is not at the time of purchase, and once you punch in your PIN number and the bank approves it, the money is NO LONGER AVAILABLE for another purpose - unless, of course, you and the merchant agree to cancel the transaction and/or let the authorization expire without settlement. Any bank that allows you to withdraw money already committed to a merchant (either by accident or on purpose), then penalize you with a $29 fee when that merchant's settlement comes in, has "set little traps" for you, and you should be hightailing it to another bank as soon as possible. They don't want your business, they want to SCREW you. Granted, some would argue "yeah, and this would be unusual... how, exactly?", but like anything in the free market, you gotta vote with your wallet. Move your account and tell them how you feel about their "little traps" and that you've moved to another bank that chooses to treat customers fairly. In the Dilbert scenario above, Dilbert keeps arguing until finally the teller fines him $100 for bothering her. :-) From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU For the first time in my life, I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet's censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked, contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything---you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. -- John Lyle, "If This Goes On--" (Robert Heinlein) ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 05:32:04 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power On Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:13:06 -0400 (EDT), a left-winger named Joseph T. Adams wrote: >>> By the time they *do* come through people's front doors, they will >>> have persuaded most law-abiding Americans to lay down their arms, the >>> 2nd Amendment notwithstanding, so that relatively few people will >>> be in any position to effectively resist. >> In my opinion the best way to fight is in court, by hiring a lawyer. >> In civilized societies your lawyer will do a far better job of >> defending you, than your gun ever would. > Tell that to the millions of people in prison for (at worst) > possession of a substance of which the government didn't approve. > Or hundreds of thousands of Gulf War vets and their families with GWS. > Or maybe the handful of people from Waco who weren't gassed, burned, > or shot to death. > How about the tens of millions of unarmed Black men and women who were > brought here against their will. Or the tens of millions of unarmed > Jewish men and women in Germany who were forced into death camps. > When you suggest that these human beings, each one unique and > irreplaceable, had no inherent right to resist those who imprisoned, > enslaved and murdered them, you are really saying that they had no > right to live. > A more despicable viewpoint can hardly be imagined. Those who hold it > should NEVER be allowed in any kind of position of public power or > influence, and those who have such power and influence and abuse it in > this fashion should be put down by any means necessary. > I am sorry that much of the world seems determined to re-learn, the > hard way, the difficult, painful and violent lessons that taught our > founding fathers why the 2nd Amendment was necessary. But please be > assured that there are a very large number of us at least here in the > U.S., and probably elsewhere, who are equally determined not to. Read it again. He said "best way", not only way, based on today's society -- and I think the implication is pretty clear that he was talking about TODAY, not the 18th century or even the time when the Nazis are in power. Today. And, as I said, he specifically said "best way". He does not rule out the use of guns if the circumstances so dictate, he just said that in TODAY'S SOCIETY, AS IT IS CURRENTLY STRUCTURED, the use of the lawsuit is far more effective at protecting yourself (in the scenarios illustrated). And that's all he said. You read far, far more into it than was actually there, and likely were projecting your own biases. Have you been taking Goudreau lessons? By reacting like this, you do the people who suffered these injustices a great disservice and shoot yourself in the foot. I'm reminded, once again, of another great Dilbert strip: in this one, Dogbert has decided to become a doctor. His patient is sitting on a bed, and Dogbert whacks his (the patient's) knees with that little hammer. The patient cries out, "Save the whales! Tax the rich! Crime is society's fault!", then immediately clamps his hand over his mouth. Doctor Dogbert's diagnosis: "you're a knee-jerk liberal. You can live a normal life, but you'll be annoying at parties." Before accusing someone of evil things, make damned sure you're on solid ground. You're not, and like Mr. Goudreau before you, you owe Jonathan Loo an apology. From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU How young can you die of old age? --Steven Wright ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 05:35:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power In article you write: > When you suggest that these human beings, each one unique and > irreplaceable, had no inherent right to resist those who imprisoned, > enslaved and murdered them, you are really saying that they had no > right to live. Please re-read my post. I did not say that people have no inherent right to resist oppression. What I stated was that in my opinion it is better to use a lawyer than to use a gun. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 21:26:53 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations In article you write: > Apparently so, because according to my bank (Wells Fargo), > they do place a hold on the funds as soon as the merchant gets the > authorization for the charge. This according to the customer service > rep I just spoke to. In my experience, customer service reps are often wrong. TOO often wrong. Sometimes you call three times and get three different answers. I'm not knocking a particular company; I'm talking about customer service reps in general. ------------------------------ From: D.J. Bennett Subject: Certified Telecom Professional? Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 02:11:45 -0500 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. I was told today that there is some kind of "online university" that offers a program called the "Certified Telecom Professional" program. I was wondering if you've ever heard of it, and if so, how might I find them on the internet or via telephone? I've tried various internet search mechanisms and I have not been successful so far. Thanks in advance. Kindly respond to bennett2001@earthlink.net if you are able to. I appreciate your assistance. ------------------------------ From: J.P. Gleason Subject: Employment Opportunity: Telecom Professionals Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 17:38:13 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Reply-To: JPGleason@worldnet.att.net We have multiple long-term contract openings in northern and central NJ for telecommunications professionals with expertise in data networks systems engineering, performance, and operations. Our client is a major telecommunications equipment manufacturer and systems integrator. Would you be interested in considering this? Or, perhaps you may know someone who may be interested in such a position. Job description is pasted below FYI. Joe Gleason, VP Technical Services The KOHL Group, Inc. 973-984-2214 www.kohlgroup.com JOB DESCRIPTION: Telecommunications - Data Systems and Design Engineers A major Telecommunications manufacturer based in New Jersey, is looking for data systems engineers and design engineers to develop network equipment for the large telecommunications Service Provider market. Candidates should have strengths in one or more of the following areas: 1. Digital Subscriber Loop technology and related standards (e.g., T1 413). Experience with ATM and Voice over IP, ADSL/XDSL, DSLAMs. 2. Data protocols experience to develop and write detailed interface specifications for data networks including SONET and ATM. 3. Routers and LAN/WAN performance issues and optimization. Experience with communications protocols, particularly TCP/IP. 4. Data Network Operations, including TL1 messages and SMNP, to develop OM&P (Operations, Maintenance, & Procedures) requirements. Our client is a systems engineering group working on voice and data products for the "last mile." The access system is a global platform supporting POTS, specials and xDSL services. Our work entails working with marketing, product management, customer teams and customers to define new features; writing detailed specifications; supporting hardware and software development and system verification; writing customer documentation with support from technical writers; supporting initial deployment; and responding to RFPs and customer requests. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 05:35:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Syphilis Outbreak Traced To Internet Chat Room SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Health officials tracking an outbreak of syphilis cases have followed the virus into cyberspace, identifying an Internet chat room as ground zero for infection. http://news.lycos.com/stories/Technology/Internet/19990824RTNET-TECH-SYPHILIS.asp ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Internet 'Television' Programs For You Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:00:00 EDT Quite a large number of organizations and people producing 'made for internet viewing' videos now work together in a syndicated way to make their presentations available on the net. You can see these netcasts at this site on the page "Internet Television - Where Netizens Know Best!" located at http://telecom-digest.org/television.html Like the many items and audio files at http://telecom-digest.org/news these netcasts are automatically replaced by their producers when newer shows become available. All you have to do is click the button for the newest edition of the show from time to time. The ones there right now are usually replaced weekly; a couple of them are daily shows. The longer ones run for about 50 minutes; the shorter ones are three to five minutes in length. These are *not* Hollywood productions; they are just average netizens with interesting points of view, mostly 'talk show' type things; often times on subjects that network television would frown on talking about with people they would I hope you like http://telecom-digest.org/television.html and will express your feedback not only to me but to the people who put the netcasts together. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #335 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 02:42:29 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA03139; Wed, 25 Aug 1999 02:42:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 02:42:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908250642.CAA03139@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #336 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 99 02:42:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 336 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: MyLine Question - Who Owns the 800 Number (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: MyLine Service Discontinued (Mark Brukhartz) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (danny burstein) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Leonard Erickson) Re: VTech DSS (Steve Winter) Re: AT&T to Terminate 500 Number Service by November 15 (John McHarry) Re: Wiring Second Telephone Line? (Steve Winter) Re: US to Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Herb Stein) Re: Syphilis Outbreak Traced to Internet Chat Room (James Gifford) Re: Syphilis Outbreak Traced to Internet Chat Room (Steven J. Sobol) Code Letters on Imperial Cables, 1927 and 1928 (David Cainer) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 09:34:07 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: MyLine Question - Who Owns the 800 Number Paulo, good question! Each RespOrg is responsible for maintaining its own subscriber records, and that information is proprietary to the RespOrg. However, many only maintain billing records -- even though the billing party may in fact not be the subscriber of record. RespOrg/carriers often do not remove billing records, either, with a subscriber ports a number out, even once you've contacted them to tell them you've left. (That is your responsibility.) Which is why you may continue to be billed -- and why the larger RespOrgs had a difficult time, at best, complying with the FCC's mandate to contact the 888 set-aside subscribers to see if they still wanted those 888 numbers. They simply couldn't tell who their subscribers were. Is there a pin number attached to your MyLine 800 number? If there is, it probably belongs to MyLine. Your service contract with MyLine should specify if they, or you, are the subscriber of the 800 number. Patrick mentioned in this issue, receiving an email from a MyLine representative. Perhaps he can get back in touch with them, or ask when he calls, who 'owns' the 800 numbers they provide with their service -- MyLine or the subscriber. Of course, if you have a way to contact them, do so as well. Also ask who the RespOrg is. Judith Oppenheimer http://icbtollfree.com http://800consulting.com http://whosells800.com 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 PS If you could get subscriber info (do a 'whois') for yourself, wouldn't that be a spiffy utility ... the SMS only contains who the RespOrg is, and you have to be a RespOrg to communicate with the SMS ... perhaps someone other than me might suggest to the 800 Gods, a more practical and subscriber-accessible system ... after all, "the Toll Free Service End-User Subscriber has the ultimate right to control its Toll Free Service, and its reserved, active, or assigned Toll Free Service numbers." (Toll Free Industry Guidelines, Issue 11, January 1999, Section 2.2.1.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In a phone conversation today with someone at GST/MyLine I was advised they are **not** shutting down MyLine, merely transferring its ownership and operation to another company. They will have more details in a few days, and I was told that a full press release would come to my attention here when it was all finalized. Watch this space for details, but in any event, the changes will be transparent to users. Furthermore, September 1 is 'not exactly' the day it is guarenteed to happen. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark.Brukhartz@wdr.com (Mark Brukhartz) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:26:26 -0500 Subject: Re: MyLine Service Discontinued Ameritech Cellular has a private Access Line system in a Chicago area cellular POP. The system requires an upgrade for Year 2000 compliance. Rather than upgrade, Ameritech Cellular sold their subscriber base to the Access Line company. Access Line will bill its customers directly. Prices are guaranteed stable for a year after the transition. Access Line has one unique feature: ``meet me'' paging. It will place a caller on hold and page you. When you call in to Access Line, it'll connect you with the waiting caller. Access Line holds a patent for this nifty feature. I don't know if they license it to other vendors. Is anyone aware of other systems with ``meet me'' paging? Mark ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: 24 Aug 1999 22:51:13 -0400 In shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes: > And there are still stores that act as payment stations for utilities. > About a mile and a half from here is a drugstore where I can pay my > electric, phone, and cable bills. If I had gas, I could pay that too. As I mentioned in my earlier note, _some_ of these places take your payments for free (well, at least to you ... they do get some sort of kickback from teh utility) while others hit you with a service charge. Oh, and the latter may also take a couple of days, or more, to hand the money over. I went to a half dozen places here in Manhattan for comparison. Four of them charged for taking a Bell Atlantic payment, generally 75 cents, and the only one that could answer me about the delay said "three business days" to make the transfer. I think three charged for Con Edison (the electrical utility). Again, a three day delay. They also took payments for cable tv and some similar high-profile utilities. Two of them had notices up listing the charges they added - I don't know about the others. Oh, I also passed by one similar outfit in NJ. They had a poster listing some that were free while others that had fees. [snip] >> I suggest any law that forces a vendor to accept cash is outdated and >> probably dates from before the introduction of credit cards (in the >> 60's), debit cards (in the 80's) and now cash cards (stored value such >> as Mondex in Canada or VISA-CASH in Australia). > It dates from sometime in the 1800s if not earlier. At that time > individual banks issued their own paper currency (which is where the > term "banknote" comes from). There were times when the "greenback" was > not terribly acceptable, due to excessive inflation. So the law was > passed *requring* it to be accepted, and at face value. > Credit cards aren't affected. It does not say that you may *only* > accept cash. You are free to accept anything you wish. It just says > that if US currency is presented, it *must* be accepted. Again, this is a common misconception. Walk over to your local Fedex office. The vast majority of them will _not_ accept cash. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:21:33 PST Organization: Shadownet J.F. Mezei writes: > Alan Boritz wrote: >> It seemed that Bell >> Atlantic was mailing the invoices ten or more days after they were >> printed, then trying to collect late charges for payment cycles >> significantly less than thirty days. > Bell Canada puts 25th of the Month on Envoy 100 bills. Their > accounting department doesn't get the actual amounts until 2-3 > BUSINESS days afterwards. I get the paper bills about 1.5 to 2 weeks > later. > The problem is that "invoice date" means "invoice period" and not "date > invoice was printed". > So the company doesn't really give you 30 days to pay. If their own > accounting system is unable to provide you with the invoice amount on > the date shown on invoice, I call this unethical. It gets better. Some companies (like the local cable company) use bulk mailing permits rather than metered mail for sending bills. There's this one catch, which I learned when I used to help a friend with bulk mailings. The post office checks the submitted "permit" mail against the balance in the account. When the next item in the stack will exceed the balance in the account, the rest of the mailing sits there until more money is added to the account. They don't notify you about this either (unless is sits there for weeks). So I've gotten "you have 10 days to pay" notices the day before they are due. And since there's no postmark on the bulk mail items, it's useless to try proving anything. I note that the *other* utilities use metered mail. I suspect that this is because the *lack* of a postmark has blown up in their faces in court at some time in the past. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: VTech DSS Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 01:30:27 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com NOtakmel@stratos.netSPAM spake thusly and wrote: > I know this might be subjective but does anyone know how good the > sound quality of VT-1711 (900Mhz Digital Spread Spectrum) is? We don't sell them, but I have used Vtech phones and found them to be generally good. Most of the modern phones have pretty decent sound quality. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: AT&T to Terminate 500 Number Service by November 15 Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 01:33:28 GMT On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:52:02 -0400, Jeffrey J. Carpenter wrote: > I received a letter from AT&T concerning the termination of the AT&T > Easy Reach 500 number service. I know many people did not feel this > service was useful and had too many problems for them to utilize it, > but it has worked well for my purposes, and this termination with less > than three months notice will leave many of us who utilize the service > scrambling for a replacement and to try to notify people of my new > number. Unfortunately, this is the phone number I have published in > the Baltimore and DC phone books, and there is no way that can be > updated by November 15. Send them a fanbelt and terminate all other services. ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Wiring Second Telephone Line? Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 01:37:46 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com toller spake thusly and wrote: > The company wire comes out of the ground and goes to a box with five > terminals, the center one being a ground. Nothing seems to come out! I > am "guessing" it goes directly though the wall and is not visible. I would guess that you are looking at two pair and a ground. > In the house there is a box with 20 rows of six pointy things that hold > telephone wire. The middle two pair of pointy thing are jumpered on all > but one of the rows. Six of the telephone wires come into the the left That's a lot of rows of pointy things for a house. How big is the house? > The black and yellow wires are not connected to anything. I would guess that is your second line. > Now, I am "guessing" that the top set of wires comes from the outside > connection, and that I have to hook all the black and yellow wires up > the same way to get the second line out into my house. > Does that seem right? Err ... I dunno... > Unfortunately there is no room for another box like the one the red > and green wires are hooked to; what should I use? Sorry to be so long > winded about such a simple thing, but it was not what I expected, and > I want to make sure I don't ruin something? You might want to call your phone company ... > What is the voltage of the telephone wires? I touched one of the pointy > contacts with a screw driver and was surprised to get a shock. I > thought it was very low voltage. It is. That's why you're still here. You really really might want to call your phone company. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: US to Seek New Computer Surveillance Power Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 01:49:01 GMT This is highly off-topic, but read this: Name that country ... * 709,000 regular (active duty) service personnel * 293,000 reserve troops * Eight standing army divisions * 20 Air Force and Navy Air Wings with 2,000 combat aircraft * 232 strategic bombers * 13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with 3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles * 500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads * Four aircraft carriers, and 121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus all the support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed to sustain such a naval force. Is this country Russia? No. Red China? No. Great Britain? Wrong again. USA? Hardly. Give up? Well don't feel too bad if you are unable to identify this global superpower because this country no longer exists. It has vanished. These are the American military forces that have disappeared since the 1992 election. Sleep well America. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Reply-To: gifford@nitrosyncretic.com Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Subject: Re: Syphilis Outbreak Traced To Internet Chat Room Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:12:21 -0700 Monty Solomon wrote: > SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Health officials tracking an outbreak of > syphilis cases have followed the virus into cyberspace, identifying an > Internet chat room as ground zero for infection. That's what happens if you don't have the latest McAfee update. | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press - gifford@nitrosyncretic.com | | See http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Robert Heinlein FAQ | | and information on "Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion" | ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Syphilis Outbreak Traced To Internet Chat Room Date: 25 Aug 1999 04:33:00 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET And you thought computer viruses were a big problem ... North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org I am the president and sole shareholder of NSTC. Thus, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do represent the official opinions of the company :) ------------------------------ From: David Cainer Subject: Code Letters on Imperial Cables, 1927 and 1928 Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 06:17:55 +0100 I am tracing my family history and need help in understanding two items of evidence. They are two Post Office Telegrams via Imperial Cables sent from Sydney Australia and received in Leeds UK. Both are on the official forms. On one, dated 3rd June 1927 the message is printed in upper case on narrow strips of paper which are glued to the form. On the other, dated 5th June 1928, the message is written in pencil. On each, the first line contains information about the time and place of handing in which corresponds with an explanatory note on the printed form. The second line gives the name and address of the addressee. It is preceded on the 1927 telegram by the letters DL T (the space is intentional) and on the 1928 telegram by LCO. The letters immediately precede the surname of the recipient but I do not think they are the recipiant's initials. They look more like codes. Can anyone please tell me what they mean? Thanks in advance for any clues you can give me. Kind regards, David Cainer Knutsford UK Dcainer@perceptions.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #336 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 06:03:22 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id GAA08609; Wed, 25 Aug 1999 06:03:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 06:03:22 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908251003.GAA08609@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #337 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 99 06:03:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 337 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Privacy Advocates Fear Opening Door to Computer Surveillance (M. Solomon) Some Net Surfers Choke on 'Cookies' (Monty Solomon) Cash (was: Paying to Pay) (Ed Ellers) Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls (G.L. Sicherman) Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest (Andrew) Attention All You Toll-free Gurus (Jim Weiss) Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Tom Byfield) Re: Water Damage To Phone (Bruce Bergman) Water Amplifies Electricity? (John Warne) Re: Water Damage To Phone (Bill Horne) Some Customers cCll SW Bell Deal Foul (Monty Solomon) Some Excellent Netcasts Available (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:49:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Privacy Advocates Fear Opening Door to Computer Surveillance By Reid Kanaley KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE For the second time in less than a month, privacy advocates are fuming over leaked word of a Clinton administration plan to fight crime through computer surveillance. "This particular proposal is one of the most extraordinary assertions of law enforcement power since Watergate," said Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union and chairman of the ACLU's cyber-liberties task force. http://www.uniontrib.com/news/uniontrib/tue/computers/news_1u24privacy.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:53:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Some Net Surfers Choke on 'Cookies' Trying to surf the Web without accepting "cookies" is getting anything but sweet. An increasing number of Web sites, particularly in publishing, lock you out unless you let them slap a file called a "cookie" onto your hard drive to let the site identify you and build a database of your preferences. http://www.applelinks.com/articles/1999/08/19990823173700.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The only way to work around that problem is by either refusing to visit them at all or by deep linking to what you want on their site hoping to bypass their privacy invasion tactics. One of the reasons I have worked so hard in the past few months to develop this site has been because of what I believe is the increasingly urgent need to provide netizens with a way to surf the net without getting profiled, send and receive email without getting spammed (or being able to easily ditch the address and take a new one for public posting purposes, etc), and provide a link to a very reputable, totally commercial free chat room. By the way, in http://telecom-digest.org/chat you can insert the name of any chat room at irc.ram-page.com in the place where you see #telecom-topics defaulted as the room name, or you can create a room of your own there if you wish. All I have there is essentially a java-based 'hook' into irc.ram-page.com which functions like a 'community IRC client'; that is to say instead of you having an IRC client on your own machine, I have it here for everyone to use. If you do not like using Java-based things then use any IRC client to connect with irc.ram-page.com 6667 and request room #telecom-topics; you will be in the same room as the folks who enter through my side of it instead. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Cash (was: Paying to Pay) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:42:52 -0400 PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > In the United States at least, the law provides that our currency is > considered satisfactory payment of all debts, 'public and private'. Lacking > a contract in which you agree to provide some other form of payment, your > creditor may not refuse a cash payment..." The purpose of that was to make sure that there would be one currency universally accepted throughout the nation, rather than a situation where some sellers only took gold, some only silver and some only accepted "New York dollars," for example. I'm not convinced that this has anything to do with the issue of checks vs. cash, because when you write a check you're still dealing in the specified currency and not another currency created by the bank on which the check is drawn. > An exception allows that in the case of a debt greater than ten dollars, > the creditor is not obligated to accept 'the minor coins of the United > States'; i.e. pennies, nickles or dimes..." A similar rule has been mentioned a few times, claiming that the creditor is not obligated to accept pennies for a debt greater than 25 cents (in some versions of the story it's said to be a Federal offense to pay with too many pennies!). This comes up when some ticked-off customer decides to pay his car payment or whatever in pennies, presumably hoping to inflict suffering on the staff of the loan company. As with the exception you mention I have no definitive information on this one. ------------------------------ From: colonel@monmouth.com (Col. G.L. Sicherman) Subject: Re: Families of Michigan Prisoners Refusing Collect Calls Date: 24 Aug 1999 21:51:03 -0400 Organization: Kentucky Fried Fox In , jack@REMOVE-THIS.com.content. net wrote: > WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan is reporting the following on their > Web page at http://www.msnbc.com/local/WOOD/32552.asp > A criminal justice reform group and the Michigan Criminal Justice > Program of the American Friends Service Committee say the state > Department of Corrections is gouging them. They claim rates are > excessive and there's a three dollar surcharge per call. > Judy Kerperien of Midland says it's not right to take financial > advantage of people who already have enough problems. She has two sons > in jail. I don't remember whether this was mentioned in the Digest: "The Morris County [N.J.] Jail last week became the first in the state to install a 900 toll number and begin charging callers for public information, such as bail amounts or criminal charges filed, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported. ... The 900 number's recording informs callers they will be charged $1.50 for the first minute and 95 cents for each additional minute." --Associated Press, 1997 I suspect that New Jersey government is the least populist in the U.S., though, from Our Moderator's reports, Illinois can give it a run for our money. -:- "If we would think less about Siberia and Kongo, and think more about some of our Southern convict camps, we would understand more about the glass house and stone throwing business." --Col. W. C. Hunter Col. G. L. Sicherman home: colonel@mail.monmouth.com work: sicherman@lucent.com web: [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is absolutely essential that people who are arrested, their families and friends be demeaned, treated like scum and abused whenever possible in order for the corrections industry to work the way it is intended. Giving the jail a 900 phone number is a great way to do this; that way poor people who have no phone in their home and have to use the corner payphone for all their calls can't get through to anyone at all to find out about their family member, etc. But any police officer could explain to you that one of the most important things to do when arresting someone is to then proceed to drive a wedge between the arrested person and his family and/or neighbors. Spread a few vicious and ugly rumors; make life a living hell for the ones who did not get arrested, etc. Maybe you read last week in http://telecom-digest.org/news or in some other news source about the boy barely turned fifteen who was sentenced to *life in prison without parole*; isn't that wonderful! It is not often the industry gets one that young with a guarentee of a lifetime behind bars. I am sure police officers everywhere wish they could have been the one to make the arrest; but then they can't all be that lucky. In fairness, the rest of the story goes like this: the young man was molested by a pedophile sometime in the past; in his anger or confused state of mind which resulted, he acted out in a horrible way by murdering a younger child. His crime cannot be excused; he must take responsibility for it, but neither can what happen to him be excused. He gets taken off to a lifetime in prison and his first raping -- with many to follow, for that is the best way in the world to make someone feel filthy and worthless, so it is heartily endorsed by the industry -- and on the way out of the courtoom the police officers involved in the case laugh and kid around with each other, and the prosecutor. What a victory they had that day, eh? Yet they wonder why so many people call them pigs ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: andrew@3.1415926.org (Andrew) Subject: Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest Date: 25 Aug 1999 02:10:03 GMT Organization: MaTech Andrew (andrew@3.1415926.org) wrote: > In a June 23rd posting to this group, Fred Goldstein asked us > to guess the future name of the combined Bell Atlantic/GTE and to > send the guess along with a $70 entry fee to the contest sponsors. > Being a believer in minimalist URLs I entered ba-gte.com/net and > gte-ba.com/net. Although it wasn't showing up in the whois database > at the time, some fellow from the Phillipines had already guessed > ba-gte.com in December of 98. Bell Atlantic aquired it from him > last month. > The contest I'm sponsoring is to guess how much, if anything, > Bell Atlantic will offer me for ba-gte.net. The best guesser > will have a donation in their name made to telecom-digest.org. > Guesses may be sent to andrew@ba-gte.net. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, thank you! Have you any idea > what they paid the other guy for his version of it? That might give > the folks an idea what sort of guesses are reasonable. Or is that > part of the contest? Better still, I would be interested in finding > out what would happen if you did *not* agree to release it on their > demand. I'm not sure how they got ba-gte.com or what they paid for it, I just know it was not registered to BellAtlantic on June 23rd. I don't have any particular sentimental attachments to these domains, so if I get a reasonable offer, we'll never know how they would respond to a no. Here's a scorecard, for those who are interested: Owned by Bell Atlantic: Owned by me: ba-gte.com ba-gte.net gte-bellatlantic.com gte-ba.com gte-bellatlantic.net gte-ba.net Owned by a someone in Hong Kong: bellatlantic-gte.com Still unclaimed (according to whois): bellatlantic-gte.net This merger was announced in July of 1998. If I was on the ball, I would have acted then. Andrew ------------------------------ From: NBJimWeiss@aol.com (Jim Weiss) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:21:45 EDT Subject: Attention All You Toll-free Gurus I have a customer with an 800 number which is quite important to their business. The current responsible organization "owns" my customer's 800 number (has it in the carrier name rather than my customer's name). The carrier is going Chapter 7 and has already stopped answering their phones so it's impossible to communicate with the carrier. 1. How can my customer change the responsible organization on their toll-free number so service can continue with another carrier? 2. How does the nationwide data base organization know to "recover" the toll-free numbers from the current carrier and put them back in service when there's not necessarily any communication coming from the carrier? Thanks for listening. Jim Weiss, nbjimweiss@aol.com Network Brokers, Inc. Providing Long Distance Services for Less ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:28:07 -0400 From: Tom Byfield Subject: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Greetings, I need to arrange a cellphone setup that meets the following criteria: (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; - US: northeast definitely, west coast preferably, and the rest of the US would be great; - Europe: UK definitely, the rest of the EU pref- erably, and former Yugoslavia and other parts of eastern Europe would be great. (2) I'll be based in the UK for most of the fall, so a carrier/plan there would probably make sense, but I expect to be calling the US a fair amount. (3) Overall, I expect to be pretty spare about using it; cost is a very real factor. If anyone can make specific recommendations about handsets, economical carriers and/or calling plans, and pointers to sites with good, salient info for a cellphone newbie, I'd be very grateful. Cheers, Ted ------------------------------ From: blCHURRObergman@earthlink.net (Bruce Bergman) Subject: Re: Water Damage To Phone Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 03:49:39 GMT Organization: A clean desk is a sure sign of a sick mind. Reply-To: blCHURRObergman@earthlink.net On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:08:40 -0700, Dave Robnett wrote: > Is the voltage a phone line carries enough to cause a phone to short > out if it is connected to a wall jack which gets wet? If so would it > require an incoming call? > I've never heard of any precautions to be taken about phones and > water, only about phones and electrical storms. Phones and water *can* be a bad combination, but it would be a true freak accident if anything came of it besides killing a perfectly good phone set. (Though to be fair, it could be more hazardous to you if you have pre-existing heart problems, but even then it's not something to obsess over.) When a phone is ringing, you have 130 Volts AC at around 20 Hz (imposed over the On-hook 48V DC CO Battery potential), which starts out current-limited at the CO Ringing Generator and is further inherently limited by the loop resistance of the cable from the CO. If you dropped a ringing phone set in the tub while you were in it, the ring voltage would certainly get your attention -- for the few cycles until the ring trip caused by the water would cut off the ringing. Off hook phones average 6 to 12 volts DC across the pair. For an On-hook phone, you have 48V DC, which is also current-limited. 48V DC is usually innocuous, I used to touch both - and + busbars occasionally, and with not even a tingle if my hands were dry. Now, placing anything metallic across them right at the batteries is NOT a good idea (BIG sparks!!!), but a human beings' internal resistance is (usually) high enough to get away with this. And the ring voltage never gets to the handset whether it's on- or off-hook, the only hazard there is component failure from excessive moisture (by immersion). The true telephone safety hazards come from close-by Lightning Strikes and Power Crosses on the phone cables, that would overwhelm the station protectors, and could kill you if you are grounded while using the phone. But this ground path could occur through contact with ANY appliance, fixture or tool with a grounded surface and the affected phone sets, not just a sink or bathtub. When you're strapping DTA's or changing mainframe connections on a hot step office in the wee hours (like I did at GTE for several years), you're fingers are on the office battery all night. The only time it really bites you is either when you get across ring current, or when you short the pair, and get bitten by the Back EMF from the line relay coil when you take the short off with your fingers still on a pin or a bare spot of the DTA strapping wire. Won't hurt you, but it certainly gets your undivided attention. In this case you don't have 3,000 feet of cable to soften the shock. And the reason they would put all those dire warnings out "Do Not Put A Phone Anywhere Near Water!" or "Don't get within 500 feet of a phone while you are wet!"? Why, Liability Lawyers, of course! If there is a one in a billion chance of anything bad happening and they didn't warn you about it, the Lawyers would be lining up with wheelbarrows to cart off the cash. (Look at the Sunshade for your car, it will have "Warning: Remove from windshield before driving" printed on it somewhere. Duhh!) I think using wall phones in bathrooms is a Good Idea just to avoid that long-shot hazard, but not an absolute requirement. (Gee, I have 2851CM 5-Line Wall Keysets in both, but they are equipped with 14' or 25' handset cords.) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: << Snip >> > Pop quiz: select the right answer from the multiple choices given > below ... that tariff was started because: > 1) The Mother Company always acted in the best interest of the > subscribers, knew what was best and did not want to see > anyone getting hurt. > 2) It was during the war, when Western Electric had been > nationalized for the duration of the war, and phones were > in short supply. All the phone man had on his truck were > wall phones with little two foot cords on them. > 3) The Mother Company was sick of getting sued by subscribers > who were 'shocked' to find out that after they had accident- > ally dropped the receiver in the (take your pick) bathtub of > water, toilet bowl, kitchen sink, they could not just reach > in and take it out without getting the thrill of a lifetime > in the process. > If you picked choice three, then you pass on today's tutorial, and > may proceed to the next lesson. << Snip>> BZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTT!! If I might respectfully disagree, Pat, it was more likely ... 4) Ma Bell was the sole owner of all the phones, and charged all the subscribers a maintenance fee This made them solely responsible for the upkeep of the phone sets, so they built them like battleships so they would last, since every month they didn't have to come fix that set this money was pure profit. They also said things like that which spread FUD to try to keep you from doing ANYTHING that would cause them to have to roll a serviceman to fix them. 'Anything' included things like dunking them in water. And spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) to the phone subscribers on these 'EEEEEvil Hazards' was a very good means to this end. If it was sooooooo hazardous, how could we work on the lines??? Whenever I'm talking to my customers, whether the subject is Phones or 120/240 Volt Electric Systems, I try to instill a healthy respect, knowledge of proper procedures and normal caution, and NOT paranoia. Bruce L. Bergman NEW ADDRESS! blCHURRObergman@ NOearthSPAMlink.netEVER Remove the caps to reply. Troubleshooter - Electrician, Phones, HVAC, Plumbing,... You name it, I've probably fixed it. 'Current'ly with Westend Electric, Agoura, CA (Los Angeles) 818/889-9545 WARNING: No Unsolicited Commercial E-mail is EVER accepted. Violators will be reported. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:36:24 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: Water Amplifies Electricity? At 04:13 AM 8/24/99 -0400, Pat wrote: > Water conducts electricity quite well and in fact amplifies it to some > extent. OK, I'll bite -- please send details of water amplification of electricity. I've heard of Hams running "a full gallon." Guess this is what they mean. -30- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 09:28:37 -0400 From: Bill Horne Organization: Place Clue Here Subject: Re: Water Damage To Phone > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: [snip] Water conducts electricity quite > well and in fact amplifies it to some extent. News flash: (Atlantis, Underwater Press International) Citizens today rejoiced at the repeal of the oppressive laws of thermodynamics, and pledged to dedicate their lives to supplying freely amplified electricity to those less fortunate souls stranded on land .... Bill Horne (remove ".nouce" from username to reply. Sorry.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Okay, now listen. I think I phrased that incorrectly. I think what I meant to say was that coming in contact with electrical current when you are in water (standing in it, swimming in it, bathing in it, whatever) is much more dangerous or life-threatening than coming in contact with the same amount of electrical current when in a dry place. I do not know why I believe that; somone said it at some point or another and I accepted it as the truth. I am sure 'amplified' was not the correct term, but perhaps someone can tell me if I am correct in saying the danger to the person involved is greater or not. The only experience I ever had of this sort was a number of years ago when I was working on a (CB radio) linear amplifier for someone. The radio and the RF amplifier both used vacuum tubes instead of transistors. The guy sounded very dirty over the air; I was trying to improve his rig for him, which is something I do know how to do. Now everyone knows that when you intend to put your hands inside a device like that, it is not merely sufficient to unplug it from the wall. When you take the case off you must also use a long metal screwdriver with a *plastic* handle to discharge all those caps in there. You must tap the screwdriver around a few times, making a contact from the caps to ground. The results are sure to scare the cat and make it run off. After two or three loud bangs accompanied by sparks flying in all directions, *then and only then* is it wise to put your own hand inside the unit. Ditto with a TV set you are adjusting. I've seen TV sets that were still full of juice a couple days after they had been unplugged and left for repairs. If I found an old TV set in an alley dumpster and carried it home with me I would still try to discharge those caps before working on it. That time I forgot to do so. It knocked me off the chair I was sitting on. I was dizzy and had a headache for an hour afterward. Somehow, I believe I got off luckier than I would have had the basement floor been damp or had my feet been in a puddle of water. You can correct me if I am wrong about something here. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:35:27 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Some Customers Call SW Bell Deal Foul Court approved settlement, company responds By Jennifer Files / The Dallas Morning News Southwestern Bell Wireless' settlement of a class-action lawsuit looks too much like a sales pitch to please some subscribers. Plaintiffs had accused Bell of not telling customers clearly enough that it rounds call length up to the nearest minute when calculating bills. The company settled the case last year by agreeing to provide customers better descriptions of the billing practice - and by offering subscribers a $15 voucher. http://www.dallasmorningnews.com/business/0823biz1swbell.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 03:10:21 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Some Excellent Netcasts Available If you happen to review the netcasts which will be on line regularly at http://telecom-digest.org/television.html I hope you will give particular attention to three which are excellently produced and very worthwhile. Note the final three shows listed at the bottom of the page, all from space.com entitled "Mission Control, Over", "Deep Sky", and "Cosmic Visions". This last one will be updated monthly while the first two, I believe are weekly. All are worth viewing; please at least check them out. All of the netcasts listed at http://telecom-digest.org/television.html are automatically updated as new shows come out. Many are weekly shows but a couple are daily, and Cosmic Visions as noted above is monthly. You might also like the hacker/phreaker news show put on by the younger people called "Parse: Hacker/Phreak", or "Silicon Alley". And there are others ... I do not expect anyone to like all the shows or watch them all, but I expect many of you will find at least one or two you enjoy watching regularly. As I noted here Tuesday, these are **not** Hollywood, big budget productions. They are not likely to recieve imprimateur from ABC, NBC, CBS, or the Mutual Network ... they are all just programs that are produced on a regular basis by individual netizens or in some cases, small web sites like this one. Since new programs in each series are issued at various times of the week, etc, if you find one or two you like, click the button on a regular basis to see if a new show has been released. I will appreciate some feedback on these shows as will the individuals who syndicate them to the net, all of whom can be contacted by clicking in the right place on the tag next to the descriptions. http://telecom-digest.org/television.html and of course do not forget about http://telecom-digest.org/radio.html and /news as well. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #337 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 15:01:27 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA28419; Wed, 25 Aug 1999 15:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 15:01:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908251901.PAA28419@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #338 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 99 15:01:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 338 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson You Can Call Directory Assistance 'Information' in Small OH Town (Pollock) Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (mxs159@cwru.edu) How to Print Serial Data to Parallel Printer Attached to Terminal? (Zayan) Lightning Protection Module? (Keith Jarett) Phone Number Article (J.T. Thompson) Autodialer Vendors (John Warne) U.S. Hung up on Phone Extras; Want to Know Who's Calling? (Monty Solomon) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Joseph T. Adams) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (John R. Levine) Re: Cable and Wireless Update: Portugal Renumbering (David Charles) Re: Water Damage To Phone (Gerry Wheeler) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (Mark Brader) Re: VTech DSS (takmel@stratos.net) Re: VTech DSS (Dave O'Shea) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Pollock Subject: You Can Call Directory Assistance 'Information' in Small OH Town Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 11:00:35 -0400 Organization: It's A Mike! You Can Call Directory Assistance 'Information' in a Small Ohio Town By STEPHANIE N. MEHTA Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL August 25, 1999 CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- "Can I have the numbers for every pawnshop you have in town?" the caller asks. Helen Houser, an operator with the Chillicothe Telephone Co., is unfazed. "Well, we have Tom's and we have Frank's," she says patiently, rattling off both telephone numbers from memory. After the young-sounding man hangs up, Ms. Houser says, "The way he asked, you'd think we have 20 pawnshops." Here in Chillicothe, directory assistance can still be called "Information" without any snickering. People in this town just 45 miles south of Columbus dial 411 seeking everything from cooking advice to answers to trivia questions. They also call for telephone numbers of long-defunct retailers, companies that have changed their names, or businesses whose names they momentarily can't recall. Such requests rarely stump Ms. Houser and her co-workers at the phone company, a unit of Horizon Telecom Inc. In a throwback to another time, a live operator answers each time a customer in these parts calls directory assistance. And because all of the company's 33 operators live in or around Chillicothe, they usually can help callers, such as the man who recently asked for the number of "the big, gray building on Paint Street." That would be the Ross County Court House. The job requires the skills of a geographer and the memory of a Scrabble expert. "People will call asking for the L&K Hotel, but that's been the Country Hearth Inn for a year now," says Alice Gray, a 26-year veteran of Chillicothe Telephone. "We know the number they want, and we give it to them." Try getting that kind of service where you work. Most telephone companies today have largely automated their directory-assistance systems in a bid to cut costs. Information calls often begin and end without any human contact. In Bell Atlantic Corp.'s East Coast territory, 411 callers are greeted by the sonorous recorded voice of actor James Earl Jones. In a further effort to reduce expenses, long-distance and local telephone companies are moving and consolidating their call centers to low-cost areas -- eliminating local know-it-alls such as Mrs. Gray and Ms. Houser. With national 411 service available in some areas, callers don't even have to know an area code, but they don't exactly get knowing, personal attention. Chillicothe Telephone executives say their company can afford to maintain local, live operators because they also answer repair inquiries and work for an answering service that Chillicothe Telephone runs. "We're a home-grown company," says Thomas McKell, president of the phone business, which has about 37,000 customers in Chillicothe and surrounding towns. "I know there would be a lot of unhappy people if we, say, turned directory assistance over to Ameritech," the big, regional Bell telephone company. Ms. Houser, 54 years old, and Mrs. Gray, who is 59, think totally automating directory services is a bad idea. Nor are they impressed with the new, nationally advertised directory services that offer extra help finding telephone numbers for about a buck a call, such as AT&T Corp.'s "00" service. "My lands, we've been doing that for 100 years," observes Ms. Houser. For outsiders, local directory assistance in Chillicothe sounds straight out of Shangri-La. The calls are free, so many customers don't write down phone numbers or take the time to look them up in the phone book. It is simply easier to dial 411. The two women met about 26 years ago, and became friends working the night shift. They maintain an easy friendship forged by years of sitting side by side -- and the occasional bit of eavesdropping. "Back when we had the cord boards, we could monitor calls," recalls Mrs. Gray, referring to the old switchboards. "We weren't supposed to, but we did," adds Ms. Houser. The company eliminated the cord boards in the mid-1980s. It also got rid of the big, oversized books that operators once used to look up numbers, and it introduced computerized listings. Some veteran operators don't need the help. Mrs. Gray, who now works nights mostly, has memorized the phone numbers for all of the pizza-delivery places, bars and Chillicothe's lone taxi service. Ms. Houser, who works 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., can instantly rattle off the phone numbers of all the big retailers and many government agencies. What Store? But everyone can be stumped occasionally. On a recent morning, Mrs. Gray answered two calls asking for the phone number of a comic-book store in town -- but in neither case did the caller know the correct name or address. "I'm going to have to find the name of that store," Mrs. Gray said, mildly annoyed that she hasn't heard of it. The number of calls and the monotony of sitting in one place take a toll. "Can you imagine doing this all day?" asks Ms. Houser rhetorically. It troubles her that supervisors have begun asking operators to move calls along more quickly -- though in Chillicothe, they have an average of 25 to 30 seconds to handle a directory-assistance call without getting a nudge from supervisors. By contrast, some of the big call centers are trying to move directory calls in six seconds on average. Since this is a small town, the operators do get to share their frustrations with the business owners whose numbers they give out each day. Mrs. Gray recently met Marty Lowery, the owner of a local towing company that everyone refers to as "Big Marty's." "I told him, 'If the girls here didn't know you were listed as Southern Ohio Towing, you'd lose a lot of business,' " she recalls with a laugh. Mr. Lowery, who says he is nicknamed Big Marty because he is 6 feet 3 inches tall, agrees that the name situation is confusing. The Human Touch Residents recognize that personalized directory assistance has become a luxury. David Milliken, president of the Chillicothe-Ross Chamber of Commerce, says he makes long-distance directory calls from time to time and often gets a wrong number or a rushed operator. He enjoys the human touch that accompanies requests for local telephone numbers. "I suppose people in the outside would find that quite quaint," he says. "But that's just part of the way we do business in our community." Chillicothe Telephone operators' resourcefulness soon will be put to another test. The company is launching its own version of national directory assistance. For an extra 35 cents, callers can get a regional telephone number, and for an extra 85 cents, a national number. Local 411 calls will still be free. Mrs. Gray worries that she won't be able to provide a personal perspective for callers seeking telephone numbers outside Chillicothe. But in the meantime, she continues to do what she does best: solving vexing riddles created by faulty memories. "Are you sure it's not Dennewitz Pools? That's on Valley Drive," she tells a caller who insists he is looking for a company called SCA Pool on Valley Drive. Moments later, he realizes Mrs. Gray is correct, and thanks her for her effort. "See? When we get national directory assistance, I won't be that smart." In Chillicothe, at least, they know who has the 411. Copyright 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ------------------------------ From: mxs159@cwru.edu Subject: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:49:08 -0400 Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center I received an email message about a "new plan" which claims to provide unlimited LD calling for $60 a month ... For families like mine where $100 LD bills are common (even with less than 9c per minute avg. plans), this of course sounds like a good yet believable deal, considering the ferocity of the competition out there. Has anyone heard anything back form these people? Who are they? What are the catches? The number in the email that I called was 888-804-9661. Everything sounded official (and believable) except they didn't mention who they were, or what happens next. etc. Marc [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would be most careful with anything of that sort. In the past here, but not recently, there have been reports of 'unlimited long distance calling for X dollars per month' and unfortunatly they all turned out to be fraudulent offers. In a couple cases, the 'company' absconded with the credit card numbers of the 'customers', etc. Verify it and double check it quite completely before signing on. Naturally you want the company's complete name, where it is located, etc. I know nothing about the people you mention here; just be certain you know something about them before you go with the service. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Muj Zayan Subject: How to Print Serial Dataa to Parallel Printer Attached to Terminal? Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:16:19 +0500 Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site Reply-To: Muj Here is my equipment setup and I'm looking for a way of printing the serial data that is coming from my PABX to a Wyse terminal which is connected to the PABX @ 1200bps. 1. The Wyse terminal has 2 serial ports and a parallel port. 2. One of the serial ports is connected to the PABX through an RS 422 converter. 3. The parallel port is connected to a dot matrix printer. What I need is to get a hard copy of the data I get from the PABX as it is being displayed on the monitor of the Wyse terminal. Presently I get only a screen print of the data by pressing the key on the keyboard which is attached to the terminal. I wonder whether this is possible but it provokes hope as the parallel port is existing. Any help will be greatly appreciated and I prefer responses to be carbon copied to my e-mail as I might face trouble monitoring the newsgroups. Regards, Muj zayan@dhivehinet.net.mv ------------------------------ From: Keith Jarett Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:26:46 -0600 Subject: Lightning Protection Module? Where can I buy a module that protects the telephone line from lightning by shorting it to ground at the point where the wires enter the house? I'm thinking of a simple spark gap connected to a substantial grounding wire. Last month in a single storm I witnessed three sparks jump from an inside phone wire to a metal radiator. The phone did not survive, which is not surprising since the spark was clearly over 10,000 volts. My father tells me he used to install carbon spark gaps for this purpose in the 1940s. Are they still available somewhere, or are there better alternatives now? Keith Jarett ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 08:57:47 +0000 From: J.T. Thompson Subject: Phone Number Article I've been commissioned to write a short piece for a technical journal about: * how phone numbers came about - for instance why different countries got their different dialing codes, and * how the emergency call numbers work: specifically the old 999 number in Ireland which is now changing to 112 in line with the rest of Europe. Any suggestions for good research sources gratefully received. JTT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 09:38:43 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: Autodialer Vendors If anyone on the list uses autodialer message delivery systems, I'd appreciate contact information for the company supplying the equipment. Our school system will be replacing a 48-port system later this year. The current system attempted over 1.5 million telephone calls to parents of school children in the 1998-1999 school year, notifying of absences, school events, and other information. We're generating a bid list. E-Mail to: warnejw@sbac.edu Thanks, -30- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:45:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. Hung Up on Phone Extras; Want to Know Who's Calling? ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Rebecca Ryen hears the ring, ring of the telephone and lunges for the receiver eager to hear a friendly voice at the other end of the line. http://www.freep.com/tech/qcall24.htm Want to know who's calling? Some services offered by phone companies to give consumers more information about their calls: http://www.freep.com/tech/qcbox24.htm ------------------------------ From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power Date: 25 Aug 1999 09:51:44 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE Jonathan D Loo wrote: > In article you write: >> When you suggest that these human beings, each one unique and >> irreplaceable, had no inherent right to resist those who imprisoned, >> enslaved and murdered them, you are really saying that they had no >> right to live. > Please re-read my post. I did not say that people have no inherent > right to resist oppression. What I stated was that in my opinion it > is better to use a lawyer than to use a gun. Sorry. I read more into your post than what was there. In my experience, most of the people who advocate nonviolent resistance to violent oppression do in fact imply, or state outright, that resisting by force should not be an option. You didn't, though, and I shouldn't have assumed that you did. I apologize for misunderstanding and therefore misstating your position. I still disagree with your premise. I do NOT agree that it is inherently better to use a lawyer, in this case or in the various other cases I listed. For one thing, lawyers are officers of the court, and therefore part of the very same corrupt system that is enslaving, robbing, and murdering people every day as we speak (this latest incursion into privacy rights being only one in an ever-worsening series of steps designed ultimately to eliminate any dissent or resistance against tyranny). The people who tried to use lawyers, in each case, ended up worse off than before. Certainly, nonviolent means of resistance, where they are practical and effective, are better in the long run than violent ones. I don't think anyone disputes that. What I and many others dispute is their effectiveness in today's current political climate. Especially when they are not backed up, even in theory, by some sort of defensive force. Everything that governments do, whether legitimate or not, is backed up by force. If those who are wronged by them do not have recourse to similar force, then effective resistance is impossible. This is the condition of most of the countries of the world today. The U.S. was once different (at least if one was not Black or Native American). But we are rapidly losing the abillity to effectively defend ourselves against criminals (INCLUDING lawyers!) either inside or outside the so-called "government." As should be obvious to readers of this group, this includes not only the right to keep and bear arms, which I realize most people don't understand, but also the right of free speech, which is the very purpose for telecommunications in the first place. You go to your lawyers if you wish. I'm sure they will be happy to see you, and your pocketbook. But I will continue to try my best to organize, motivate, and equip people for active and effective resistance against any and all forms of tyranny. Your way may work. Courts *sometimes* do the right thing. But very often they don't. And in our form of government courts are NOT the last line of defense, nor the final authority on what the Law is. The final authority are the People themselves, both individually and collectively. So if you are not effective in challenging this kind of blatant violation of free-speech rights with your lawyers, we will be there to try and challenge it by other, hopefully more effective means. Joe ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 1999 08:57:13 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; Hmmn. Iridium, I suppose. Most of Europe is GSM, the UK is GSM and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. > (3) Overall, I expect to be pretty spare about using it; > cost is a very real factor. Well, forget Iridium. Get a cheap cell phone here and a cheap cell phone in the UK. If you want the same number to reach you on both, use call forwarding. Calls between the US and UK are as cheap as domestic calls in the US. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: d_c_h@my-deja.com (David Charles) Subject: Re: Cable and Wireless Update: Portugal Renumbering Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:59:19 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , John_David_Galt@ acm.org (John David Galt) wrote: > Michael Hartley wrote: >> All subscriber numbers will always be 9 digits long (up to 15 digits >> will be possible for certain services - area codes 941, 943, 944) > This is the first case I've heard of any country violating the ITU's > 15-digit limit on international numbers (including the country code) > since the limit was increased from 12 digits at "Time T" in October > 1997. > Does ITU plan to increase the limit again anytime soon? > Does any of the three pager services with those area codes really > expect to have more than 1,000,000,000 customers (the number each > could have without exceeding the limit) in the forseeable future? I have previously come across over-length pager numbers. In the early 1980s there were some in the UK with 8 digit local numbers in area codes which would normally have 5 or 6 digit local numbers. This would have corresponded to a 13 digit international number which would have exceeded the 12 digit limit at that time. I think that the explanation for this is that the paging service concerned did not support incoming international calls and therefore it was irrelevant that the ITU limit was exceeded. In several countries there are numbers which can only be used internally and do not map to any international number (in a typical European numbering plan any national number starting with 1 would be in this category). In some ways this could be considered more satisfactory than having normal looking numbers and blocking international calls to them. Having internal-only numbers which map to an invalid international numbers differs little from this. David Charles ------------------------------ From: gwheeler@vmguys.com Subject: Re: Water Damage To Phone Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 13:06:02 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , blCHURRObergman@ earthlink.net wrote: > Phones and water *can* be a bad combination, but it would be a true > freak accident if anything came of it besides killing a perfectly good > phone set. (Though to be fair, it could be more hazardous to you if > you have pre-existing heart problems, but even then it's not something > to obsess over.) When a phone is ringing, you have 130 Volts AC at > around 20 Hz (imposed over the On-hook 48V DC CO Battery potential), > which starts out current-limited at the CO Ringing Generator and is > further inherently limited by the loop resistance of the cable from > the CO. Hmmm. Brings to mind the night I was up a pole, in the rain, trouble-shooting some problem or other. The pole was wet, my leather gloves were wet, I was wet; everything was wet. And it was dark. Did I mention it was wet? I was trying to reconnect the drop wire to the terminal posts, but every time I touched the ring terminal (or the adjacent one) I got zapped. What a pain. As you say, it's limited current, and not a problem when your skin is dry, but it's no fun when you've got a good connection to the wire. Still, it didn't kill me. Gerry ------------------------------ From: msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: 25 Aug 1999 09:49:34 -0400 Organization: - Leonard Erickson writes: >> And there are still stores that act as payment stations for utilities. >> About a mile and a half from here is a drugstore where I can pay my >> electric, phone, and cable bills. ... Danny Burstein writes: > As I mentioned in my earlier note, _some_ of these places take your > payments for free (well, at least to you ... they do get some sort of > kickback from teh utility) while others hit you with a service charge. > I went to a half dozen places here in Manhattan for comparison. > Four of them charged for taking a Bell Atlantic payment, generally 75 > cents, and the only one that could answer me about the delay said > "three business days" to make the transfer. In Canada, all the major banks take utility payments, as well as some tax payments. I would expect that if you're walking in and paying cash, all of them will levy a service charge; when I pay via ATM directly from the account I usually use, there is none. I've never heard of stores doing it here; is it rare for banks to do it in the US? Mark Brader "Never trust anybody who says 'trust me.' Toronto Except just this once, of course." msbrader@interlog.com -- John Varley, "Steel Beach" My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ From: NOtakmel@stratos.netSPAM Subject: Re: VTech DSS Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 15:45:48 GMT Organization: NetSet Internet Services, Inc. On Wed, 25 Aug 1999 01:30:27 GMT, steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) wrote: > We don't sell them, but I have used Vtech phones and found them to be > generally good. Most of the modern phones have pretty decent sound > quality. Thanx Steve! ------------------------------ From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Re: VTech DSS Organization: snaip.net Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:50:00 GMT wrote in message news:telecom19.332.9@ telecom-digest.org: > Hi! > I know this might be subjective but does anyone know how good the > sound quality of VT-1711 (900Mhz Digital Spread Spectrum) is? Sound quality is good, range is as good as any 900mhz system I've used. They also replaced a handset that I dropped, gratis. My only gripe is that the buttons are smallish, and the volume level isn't quite up to par in a noisy environment. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #338 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 18:00:23 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA07900; Wed, 25 Aug 1999 18:00:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 18:00:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908252200.SAA07900@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #339 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 99 18:00:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 339 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: MyLine Question - Who Owns the 800 Number (Judith Oppenheimer) Attention All You Toll-free Gurus (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? (John Warne) How I Block Cookies (Keith Jarett) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Water Damage to Phone (Richard Thomsen) Re: People Entering Into Stupid Contracts (Adam H. Kerman) US Crypto Plan Aims to Bug PCs (Monty Solomon) Re: Cellular Phones (Denise Rackett) Re: VISA Authorizations (Brian Elfert) Phone Calls From Prison (John B. Hines) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:01:23 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: Re: MyLine Question - Who Owns the 800 Number Unless the IXC is your RespOrg, they have nothing to do with it -- it is your RespOrg who activates the number, and who you need to get in touch with. If the IXC is your RespOrg and is not being responsive, that's another story ... Getting a toll-free number is always a two-step process -- first, reserving it; second, getting it activated. Both have to be micromanaged by you, or someone on your behalf, with your RespOrg. Without such attention to detail, many numbers get 'lost'. That's why they always tell you, don't advertise the number until it is ringing to you. There are no guarantees on reserved numbers. We've never lost a number, but have a busy practice working for clients who come to us after-the-fact, who have. (ICB facilitated getting thousands of 888 numbers *into* set-aside for clients. For each client we submitted a list; then required a letter from the RespOrg that it was received; then verified that it was forwarded to DSMI; then required a letter from DSMI that it was received; then again, got written verification from DSMI, for each client, on every single number, that there were no 'mismatches', errors, typos, etc., and that each was indeed placed into set-aside.) Getting this level of coordination and cooperation from the RespOrgs is never easy, but that's how we handle all client communications with RespOrgs. To their credit, DSMI understood exactly what we needed, and was very cooperative. In this manner, we did not lose a single 888 number as they meandered into set-aside. Nor did we lose any numbers removed from set-aside. Have you dialed the 888 number recently to see if/where it rings? Depending on how long ago this conversation with your RespOrg took place, you may find it ringing to someone else. Judith Oppenheimer http://icbtollfree.com http://800consulting.com http://whosells800.com 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 John R. Levine wrote: >> RespOrgs had a difficult time, at best, complying with the FCC's >> mandate to contact the 888 set-aside subscribers to see if they still >> wanted those 888 numbers. > My resporg contacted me and I said yes, I still want one of my > set-aside numbers. But I can't figure out how to activate it. A LOA > letter to my IXC with a copy of the set-aside letter from 1996 didn't > do the trick. Is there something magic I need to tell them? n:Oppenheimer;Judith tel;cell:917 406-4298 tel;fax:209 391-9400 tel;work:212 684-7210 url:http://icbtollfree.com org:ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com email;internet:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:37:06 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: Attention All You Toll-free Gurus NBJimWeiss@aol.com (Jim Weiss) wrote: > I have a customer with an 800 number which is quite important to their > business. The current responsible organization "owns" my customer's > 800 number (has it in the carrier name rather than my customer's name). Jim, please be more specific. Who, exactly, is the RespOrg on the number, and who, exactly, is noted as the subscriber of the number in that RespOrg's records? If the carrier is a reseller, its supplier/RespOrg has the reseller down as the customer. However, the rules state that the end user customer is indeed the subscriber of record, and the party entitled to portability. This raises a common problem, and points out just one of the reasons why RespOrgs should be required to note two separate fields in their records: billing party (in this case, the reseller), and subscriber (the end user). (Of note, for competitive reasons, resellers don't want their supplier/RespOrg to know who their customers (the subscribers) are -- they say its proprietary information to the reseller. However, the RespOrg is obligated to act on behalf of the subscriber -- the end user customer -- and cannot accountably do so if another entity stands in its way. As noted in an earlier message to the Digest, this presented yet another barrier when RespOrgs were mandated to contact subscribers for replication.) Moving on, if the carrier/reseller *is* the actual subscriber (based on the number being part of a bundled service etc.), then your customer has no portability rights to the number. > 1. How can my customer change the responsible organization on their > toll-free number so service can continue with another carrier? Only the current subscriber can authorize change (port) to a new RespOrg. See above, and see last paragraph below. > 2. How does the nationwide data base organization know to "recover" > the toll-free numbers from the current carrier and put them back in service > when there's not necessarily any communication coming from the carrier? The SMS/800 does not take action, per se; it is more of an information repository, and routing system. Numbers are ported, routed, returned to spare, etc., by action of RespOrgs issuing instructions to the SMS/800, ostensibly at the behest of the subscriber of record. Were ICB handling this for you, we'd walk backward through your customer's paper trail to determine exactly who is responsible for what, and who is entitled to what, and then take action, if warranted, with the RespOrg on behalf of your customer. If your customer is entitled to end user/subscriber status, I could pretty much guarantee you a positive outcome (ie, we do this sort of thing all the time.) Judith Oppenheimer http://icbtollfree.com http://800consulting.com http://whosells800.com 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 14:37:31 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? At 06:03 AM 8/25/99 -0400, PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Okay, now listen. I think I phrased > that incorrectly. I think what I meant to say was that coming in > contact with electrical current when you are in water (standing in > it, swimming in it, bathing in it, whatever) is much more dangerous > or life-threatening than coming in contact with the same amount of > electrical current when in a dry place. I do not know why I believe > that; somone said it at some point or another and I accepted it as > the truth. I am sure 'amplified' was not the correct term, but > perhaps someone can tell me if I am correct in saying the danger to > the person involved is greater or not. > The only experience I ever had of this sort was a number of years > ago when I was working on a (CB radio) linear amplifier for someone. > The radio and the RF amplifier both used vacuum tubes instead of > transistors. The guy sounded very dirty over the air; I was trying > to improve his rig for him, which is something I do know how to do. > Now everyone knows that when you intend to put your hands inside a > device like that, it is not merely sufficient to unplug it from the > wall. When you take the case off you must also use a long metal > screwdriver with a *plastic* handle to discharge all those caps in > there. You must tap the screwdriver around a few times, making a > contact from the caps to ground. The results are sure to scare the > cat and make it run off. After two or three loud bangs accompanied > by sparks flying in all directions, *then and only then* is it wise > to put your own hand inside the unit. Ditto with a TV set you are > adjusting. I've seen TV sets that were still full of juice a couple > days after they had been unplugged and left for repairs. If I found > an old TV set in an alley dumpster and carried it home with me I > would still try to discharge those caps before working on it. > That time I forgot to do so. It knocked me off the chair I was > sitting on. I was dizzy and had a headache for an hour afterward. > Somehow, I believe I got off luckier than I would have had the > basement floor been damp or had my feet been in a puddle of water. > You can correct me if I am wrong about something here. PAT] OK, I'll buy your explanation. Standing in water can certainly decrease your chances of surviving an electrical shock! I worked around high-power television broadcast equipment for 20 years. In addition, I did some investigation after a friend died from an electrical shock while working *inside* a transmitter. The most worrisome shock is the one that manages to find a path through (or near) the human heart. The heart keeps working due to rather small electrical currents moving in the structure. It takes only a few milliamps, passing through the heart, to do nasty things. Fortunately, we have pretty good protection from our own stupidity by high skin resistance. If not for that, touching terminals on a 9-volt battery with a finger on both hands could cause one to depart this world. Even if a current through your heart doesn't kill you then, damage can be done that will kill you later (even days later). Benchtesting equipment? Keep one hand in your pocket and don't ground other parts of your anatomy. On the chance you get 'bit,' most of the damage will probably be from your 'jerk-away' reaction, falling off the stool, or such. Short capacitors? You bet! Then, clip a ground wire to each terminal to make sure. There are television transmitters that have walk-in cabinets with power supplies running thousands of volts and amps. They are all interlocked, said interlocks supposed to kill power and discharge *very* large capacitors. It's a real thrill to open a cabinet door when the rig is running -- although the chief engineer will probably can you if you are that dumb. All these cabinets come equipped with a large metal hook attached to a long insulated pole. The hook is connected by a length of 3- or 4-inch wide braid to a ground capable of dissipating a dead short of the power supply. The procedure is to remove the rig from the air, shut down the power, and carefully open the cabinet door (the interlocks should have worked). Grasping the insulated pole, one places the hook on *all* exposed wire and terminals, one spot at a time. Then, maybe you enter the walk-in cabinet. If you ever enter the cabinet and *then* begin to check with the hook, you can learn why we called it the "feces-hook," or something similar. You'll need a change of clothes. My friend was killed because of a residual charge in a capacitor. He walked away, thought he was OK, continued normal activities for 12 hours, then died. Autopsy showed the damage to the heart. Application to telephony? Well, I could make a case for the ringing voltage killing under certain circumstances, but far more injury is caused by jumping back when finding oneself in contact of an incoming telephone call (standing on a ladder? Got tools in your hand and you hit your co-worker? Teaching customers or kids new words?) <. -30- ------------------------------ From: Keith Jarett Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:13:23 -0600 Subject: How I Block Cookies On my PC, if I set my cookies.txt file's properties to "read only", web sites think I've accepted their cookies, but nothing gets written to disk. If I want to accept a cookie, I just uncheck the read-only box, accept the cookie, then go back and re-set the cookies.txt file to read-only. Does anyone know if there is a flaw in this technique? Keith Jarett [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That technique works just fine, and a lot of people use it. The only problem that comes up is when the site issuing the cookie goes back to look for it and can't find it. Then it as to issue it all over again. You sometimes wind up spending time 'logging in' repeatedly or readjusting your personal screen display at that site, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:21:39 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my comments a couple issues ago. I > use a semi-automated system. My adding or deleting a name to the mailing > list triggers a mailing to the person automatically. I send out an FAQ > and other things. It is very rare I get back word saying it was a > forgery. PAT] Pat, what is it about your scripts that changes the Message-IDs of messages posted to the list? I wish you'd eliminate that "feature" as it makes threading of messages impossible. Although you do need a script that would add an In-Reply-To or References header since it's gated between News and Mail. If a message itself had both headers, I guess save the longer one and copy the longer one to the other header. [An old error in RFC1036, which will probably always be a feature, uses the References header for the string of older Message IDs, rather than the correct Mail header, In-Reply-To. In Mail, the References header was meant to provide a place to cite Message-IDs referenced in the message, but not used for threading. Threading requires old Message-IDs to be retained regardless of whether or not they are cited in the body of the text.] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually it is quite easy to read threads here. I do it for you automatically when your preference is to read message-by-message (threaded or otherwise) in the c.d.t. newsgroup. Got to http://telecom-digest.org/TELECOM_Digest_Online which is the Usenet c.d.t. newsgroup, and note the options. You can sort by date, by subject, by author name, or by thread. I think it is a much superior presentation to 'traditional' Usenet as you might find it on your ISPs local news server. Please try it out. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Richard Thomsen Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:08:59 -0600 Subject: Re: Water Damage to Phone On Wed, 25 Aug 1999 03:49:39 GMT, blCHURRObergman@earthlink.net (Bruce Bergman) wrote: > Now, placing anything metallic across them right at the batteries is > NOT a good idea (BIG sparks!!!), but a human beings' internal > resistance is (usually) high enough to get away with this. I had to respond to this. The resistance of dry skin is about 5000 ohms or so, but wet skin drops this down a lot. The INTERNAL resistance of a human being is VERY LOW once you get past the skin! So wet or broken skin can be a problem. In fact, I understand that the reason electricity is so dangerous if you are in the water is that it is easier for the current to go through your body than for it to go through the water around you. During an electrical safety training course I attended, the instructor told us about a guy who decided to impress his friends. He put one hand on each terminal of a car battery to show that it would not harm him. When his friends were not impressed, he connected a set of jumper cables to the battery, and then put his tongue across the other ends. His tongue literally exploded. The resistance across your tongue is about 1 ohm. Our instructor told us that you can put it across a 9-volt transistor battery and feel the current. He also told us "DO NOT try this with any other type of battery!!!" The internal resistance of a 9-volt transistor battery is pretty high, so it cannot produce too much current, while other batteries can have very low resistance, and thus produce a lot of current (Ni-Cad's come to mind). Also, if you put a lot of current down a very small diameter wire, the wire is destroyed. A lot of current going down one of your nerves can destroy the nerve in the same manner. Richard Thomsen ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: People Entering Into Stupid Contracts Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 18:50:31 GMT Adam Frix wrote: > Have you never seen or been exposed to a typical cruise line ticket? > It is, in fact, a contract for passage. The interesting thing is, > while the terms of this contract are indeed available ahead of time, > that tidbit is well hidden. Virtually all who buy cruises, do so by > laying their money down *first* and getting their tickets afterward. > And the first time they ever get exposed to the terms of the contract > they just signed is AFTER they get their tickets, because the contract > itself is written on the back of the tickets. > And frequently, this contract is written in ink that is so light, it's > virtually unreadable. The cruise lines have really set themselves up > for suckers. And of course, if you'd ever take a look at the contract > you've agreed to by buying a cruise ticket, you'd be astounded. You > want to talk about lame-brained and one-sided! This is called an adhesion contract (because it sticks to the back) but isn't any type of a contract at all. A contract requires a meeting of minds, terms both parties have agreed to, which is impossible to do in this type of situation. The rights of passage on cruise ships are governed by ancient international treaties whose limits on liability accidentally haven't been inflated since before WWII. This is why there is a market for trip insurance. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:47:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US crypto plan aims to bug PCs Posted 24/08/99 7:15am by Thomas C Greene in Washington US crypto plan aims to bug PCs Crypto works the same horrifying voodoo on government control-freaks the world over, but cultural distinctions will colour their response. If the British Nanny State would become a cruel bully, its American companion aspires to become a twitchy, sweaty sneak thief. Or such is the impression we get from the Department of Justice's recent draft proposal for what it calls a "Cyberspace Electronic Security Act". http://www.theregister.co.uk/990824-000001.html ------------------------------ From: Denise Rackett Subject: Re: Cellular Phones Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:35:20 -0400 Hello, I'm not sure that you will have this information, but I'm desperate. I am trying to discover when the first cell phone was introduced to the United Kingdom. Do you know the answer to this question? If not, do you know where I might find it on the net? Thanks and have a great day! ------------------------------ Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations From: belfert@foshay.citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 16:38:47 GMT Michael A. Desmon writes: > I think that depends on your bank. I've done that a few times before > when I didn't track my balance correctly and the bank would treat it > like a bounced check. They would honor the Visa and ATM transactions > and then charge me a returned check fee of $29. Since the merchant has an authorization code form the bank for the money, the bank really doesn't have a basis to withhold the money from the merchant. Brian ------------------------------ From: jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) Subject: Phone Calls From Prison Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:01:54 GMT Organization: US Citizen, disabled with MS, speaking solely for myself. From today's {Chicago Tribune}, Every time an inmate picks up the phone, the prison makes money. Last fiscal year, prison phones earned the state of Illinois nearly $12.3 million. In Florida, they brought in $14.7 million in revenue. In California, the take was $23.2 million. And then it goes on to detail how prison rules have changed to allow almost unlimited calling even though they are being used for illegal activities. The entire article is at: http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/article/0,2669,SAV-9908250325,FF.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Shame, shame, shame on all those people. They don't even make a pretense at rehabilitation any longer do they? What would seem to be a conflict of interest here is totally overlooked. It is a lot like the laws which allow government seizures of any assets found in drug cases. No wonder there are so many people in prison for using or selling drugs; if you were a police officer and your department could get lots of extra money every year (which often times turns into a pay bonus for the officer as well) and all you had to do was make up a few bogus arrests once in a while and lie as part of your court testimony, wouldn't you use it as a way to Make Money Fast? Really, it would be 'win-win' situation; the officer and his department make extra money and the industry earns millions of dollars per year as well, as the {Chicago Tribune} report above explains. The guy who was arrested? What are you worrying about him for? He, his family and friends are all scum. He is lucky he does not get charged rent for the prison cell he occupies. Have you heard the report that has been playing all day today on the radio? It appears that the employees of the Janet Reno franchise of the corrections industry, d/b/a/ US Department of Justice have all filed suit in a class action against the Justice Department. Some nasty news coming out now is that Justice Department lawyers were ordered by their supervisors to *falsify their time cards* each week and report forty hours of work while at the same time being forced to work fifty hours. It seems Justice wanted to reduce or eliminate entirely any overtime pay required by law. Several hundred lawyers employed by Justice are represented by an attorney who has had the audacity to file a class action and demand that 'Justice, of all employers, must be forced to obey the law, and pay its employees what they have earned.' Right now they are taking testimony from employees who claim their supervisors forged their names on time cards, and deliberatly falsified the number of hours worked, etc. Worse yet, it appears there were 'two sets of books' being kept for payroll purposes; the correct set and the set used to pay the employees, tossing a little extra fraud into the process. It all promises to be a lot of fun for everyone as the details are starting to unfold. But this is not surprising; remember you are dealing with an employer who a few years ago stiffed a tiny little software company by purchasing one copy of some software which shortly thereafter showed up on hundreds of desktop computers. When the software company complained about the piracy, it fell on totally deaf ears. The US 'Department of Justice' ... justice, indeed. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #339 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 18:30:23 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA09462; Wed, 25 Aug 1999 18:30:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 18:30:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908252230.SAA09462@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #340 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 99 18:30:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 340 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ITU Number-Length Maximum (was Re: Portugal Renumbering) (Mark J. Cuccia) History of A Telco, A Fairy Tale (Raymond D. Mereniuk) I Lied About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (John R. Levine) GSM in the US (was Re: Info About an International GSM (Danny Burstein) Looking For IS-41 ASN.1 Definitions (David Cattarin) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Ethan Henry) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (David Scheidt) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Kim Brennan) Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? (Joseph T. Adams) Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? (Herb Stein) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (John B. Hines) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 16:43:42 -0500 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: ITU Number-Length Maximum (was Re: Portugal Renumbering) John David Galt (John_David_Galt@acm.org) wrote: > Michael Hartley wrote (regarding Portugal's re-numbering): >> All subscriber numbers will always be 9 digits long (up to 15 >> digits will be possible for certain services - area codes 941, >> 943, 944) > This is the first case I've heard of any country violating the > ITU's 15-digit limit on international numbers (including the > country code) since the limit was increased from 12 digits at > "Time T" in October 1997. I don't see how this "violates" the ITU's maximum limit of fifteen possible significant digits of a worldwide telephone number. I think that the "up to 15 digits will be possible for certain services" line refers to the significant digits of the worldwide telephone number ... i.e., the paging numbers will be nine digits, just like all other subscribers numbers; the paging area codes will be three digits- so far you have twelve digits for a Portugese national/domestic number; and then add in the +351 country code for Portugal, and thus you have the maximum of fifteen digits of a worldwide telephone number, for these pagers based in Portugal: +351 94x xxxxxxxxx (three (three (nine digit digit digit "pager" country pager subscriber code) area number) code) > Does ITU plan to increase the limit again anytime soon? I don't think so -- they just recently raised the maximum from twelve to fifteen digits recently -- Time-T as you mention. BTW, I think that Time-T happened on 1-Jan-1996 (or 12-Dec-1995) or maybe it was 1-Jan-1997 (12-Dec-1996), rather than in October 1997. > Does any of the three pager services with those area codes really > expect to have more than 1,000,000,000 customers (the number each > could have without exceeding the limit) in the forseeable future? I doubt it. I think that Portugal wants all subscriber or "local" numbers to be standardized at nine digits within each area code or service code. Incidently, as for Time-T, the increase of the ITU maximum length of a worldwide telephone number from 12 to 15 significant digits (includes the ITU-assigned country code, but does _NOT_ include the digits of any carrier or toll/overseas/international access codes) -- Prior to Time-T, there already were some countries which for some time had national/domestic numbers which, if the country code were included, the total number of significant digits would have been greater than 12 - although no more than 15 digits. The two that come to mind are +49 (West) Germany and +43 Austria. These two countries had PBX numbers (which would have been longer than twelve digits if the country code is added), which were made "longer" due to the direct-inward-dialing extensions. Prior to any country increasing their digit-registers and other equipment from twelve to fifteen maximum possible digits, to call from a country which couldn't handle greater than twelve maximum digits, one could call the "operator" or attendant" at the called customer PBX. The Operator/Attendant number usually ended with a '0', and the total digit length of such attendant numbers fell within the ITU maximum. I would _assume_ that many _European_ countries had already increased their maximum length well prior to "Time-T", thus one could probably have been able to call to Germany or Austria PBX extensions with "longer than twelve" significant digits from other nearby European countries. But I wonder how many countries _since_ "Time-T" haven't increased all of their equipment's capacity to handle up to fifteen digits! This equipment would need to be the digit registers in all sorts of places - particularly involving routing/switching, and rating/ billing! I know that here in the US, some LECs are _NOT_ planning on increasing the maximum international digit total to fifteen digits in their #1AESS offices, since those offices are probably scheduled to cut to (Lucent) #5ESS' or (Nortel) DMS-100's within the next few years. So, based on the volume of traffic _anticipated_ to call those countries - or such "longer" numbers in particular, the LEC might feel that doesn't justify spending the money to buy additional digit register capacity from Lucent, since that switch is going to be replaced with a new purchase from Lucent or Nortel (or Stromberg/Siemens), any time soon, anyhow. In the meantime, customers who wish to directly dial such "long" numbers will have to place the call with _OPERATOR_ assistance from their long-distance carrier, most likely at _OPERATOR-HANDLED_ rates! And, most-if-not-all of the "non" AT&T "other" common carriers' Operators do NOT usually handle such "sent-paid" calls, where the calling party's line-number is billed! Those LD carriers' operators only handle collect/3d-pty and "card/account" calls. However, one could still be able to place "card" calls by using 800-type dialups, or sequence calling (billed to card) even with '01+' type IDDD access - from such non-Time-T-compliant switches, as the touchtone digits of the called number are being directly processed by the LD-carrier reached with the 800- dialup number. But with most LD-carriers, "card" rates (surcharges and/or per-min rates) are noticeably more expensive than "sent-paid dial" rates! Now, as for countries which (since Time-T) have the possibility of (some) maximum fifteen (significant) digits of a worldwide telephone number, in addition to +49 Germany and +43 Austria, I've also seen reference to +358 Finland, +31 Holland, and +852 Hong Kong. (If any of these are wrong, please inform!) Now we are going to add +351 Portugal. Are there any OTHER countries which have (or may soon have) some worldwide telephone numbers of greater than twelve (significant) digits? MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ From: Raymond D. Mereniuk Organization: FBN Technical Services Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:29:23 -0800 Subject: History of A Telco, A Fairy Tale Once upon a time some guy invented the telephone. The telephone was good and everyone wanted a telephone. Lots of entrepreneurial types wanted to offer telephone service because they figured they could make lots of money because everyone wanted a telephone. The telephone became very important and the government decided the market required their influence so everyone got a fair deal. So they invented the idea of a regulated monopoly. They would let telephone companies operate as a monopoly in a region but they would set the pricing and the amount of profit the telephone company (Telco) could return to their investors. And most people involved were happy, for the time being anyway. Running a regulated monopoly was not overly time consuming so the executives started thinking of ways to wring more money out of this regulated monopoly system. If an executive could find a way to put a different spin on the accounting they would be allowed a higher rate of return and more money could be returned to the investors. The executive could take his plan to the boss and the boss would be impressed and he would get a promotion and an increase in his/her annual incentive bonus. And this was good for the executives and good for the Telco and good for the investors but bad for the rate-payers - luckily they would never know though. Another executive looking for a new way to get his promotion and bonus decided to try lobbying the government people responsible for regulated part of their business. It was quickly realized that buying a few meals and a few other perks could get the regulators to approve accounting changes, rate increases, and basically allow the Telco to make more money. And this was good for the executives and good for the Telco and good for the investors but bad for the rate-payers - luckily they would never know though. The Telco grew very big and employed lots of people. Some were promoted and supervised other workers. Some of these supervisors should not have been promoted as they were not nice to their workers. The executives of the management team were too busy trying to figure out ways to get promoted and make more money so they failed to notice the supervisor was not treating his workers fairly. The workers got mad, they went home frustrated, and they complained to anyone who would listen. Soon someone got the idea that they should start an union to get the Telco to treat them fairly. The executives of the management team were so busy figuring out ways to get promoted and make more money that they just let it happen rather than deal with the source of the problem. And this was good for the executives and so-so for everyone else except the rate-payers - chances are they will never notice the difference. The Telco still didn't treat their workers well so the union became stronger and stronger. Soon the unions were so mad at management that they started making more and more outrageous demands, higher salaries, restrictive work designations, demands that would significantly increase the costs of the Telco. The executives of the management team were worried, how would they get their promotions and bigger bonuses now? One executive quickly realized that this union problem was in their best interest. Fighting it would be difficult and the executives would probably not sleep well. If they gave the unions everything they want they would increase their costs and the amount of money which could be returned to the investors. And this was good for the executives and good for the Telco and good for the investors but bad for the rate- payers - luckily they would never know though. Then came the day both the management team and the union dreaded. Out with the regulated monopoly and in with competition. A new breed of executives now existed in the management team who were willing to deal with the union. The union was informed the gravy train would soon be over and reality would rule as the Telco would be changing their business model. The union was horrified, what were they to do. The union by this time was huge and they too had executives. These executives wanted promotions and pay increases too and they would not get them if the business model changed. So they thought why don't we just lobby the regulators just like the Telco. They soon found they could buy support for their cause with mere trinkets. These executives also decided to tell the rate-payers that their world would never be the same (FUD) with deregulation and the rate-payers listened, at least a little anyway. The regulators were persuaded to change the terms of deregulation to benefit the Telco and their unionized workers. By this time everyone at the Telco was unionized except the executives of the management team. The unions were happy, the Telco was happy, and the rate-payers would hopefully never know what this maneuver cost them. The End Virtually Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbn.bc.ca "Y2K Stressing You Out? FBN - Y2K Experts" http://www.fbn.bc.ca/year2000.html ------------------------------ From: John R. Levine Subject: I Lied About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 15:55:28 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY > In comp.dcom.telecom was written: >> and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's >> shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. > err..... double errr..... Danny Burstein points out that Omnipoint is GSM, and if you get a multi-band handset, you can indeed roam between their system and European systems. But I still doesn't look like a good solution for this problem: * Omnipoint has coverage in much of the northeast (stopping about 5 miles south of where I am), plus spots in Indiana, around Detroit and Miami. No coverage at all in the west. * European roaming rates are very high, upwards of 50 cents/min in the UK, plus truly outrageous international rates of more than $1/minute and sometimes $2/minute back to the US. I still think a cheap US phone and a separate cheap UK phone would be the most cost-effective. For one-number service, use call-forwarding from your POTS phone. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: GSM in the US, was: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Date: 25 Aug 1999 17:15:36 -0400 In johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) writes: > Most of Europe is GSM, the UK is GSM > and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's > shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. Wash your mouth out with soap, there, pardner. Dem's fighting words. While Sprint may be shutting down its GSM network in DC (which is a result of some very wierd marketing and legal issues which no one seems to really understand ...) GSM is quite alive and well, and growing, in many other parts of the country. And with a lot of finger crossing, we'll BE BACK in Washington. A pretty hefty portion of the urbanized (and not quite so urban) areas of the US have GSM up and running. Quite succesfully. And we GSM zealots will ride roughshod over you heathens ... The main GSM operator on the East Coast, Omnipoint, has some pretty decent and seamless roaming arrangements throughout Europe, Asia, and other areas. The only thing you need to do is either have a multi-band handset or a short term loaner. (The US and Canada use 1.8 ghz; the others use 0.9 and 1.8 ghz). The overseas rates are ok for a short period, but if you're planning on being there more than a couple of days or weeks (depending on your usage ...) you're probably better off getting a local service provider. Disclaimer: Following Victor Kiam's example, I liked the company so much ... _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: David Cattarin Subject: Looking For IS-41 ASN.1 Definitions Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:16:46 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Hi, I'm working on a project where I need to handle some IS-41 messages through a TCAP stack. It would make my life easier if I could run the ASN.1 definitions through a compiler rather than write the encoding/decoding from the spec. If you have a copy of these definitions (other than IS-41.5, ;-) I'd appreciate it if you mail it to me or let me know where I can get them. TIA has not been very helpful. Thanks. Ditto In the English language two positives never form a negative. "Yeah, right." ------------------------------ From: Ethan Henry Reply-To: egh@klg.com Organization: KL Group Inc. Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 15:12:40 -0400 John R. Levine wrote: >> (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; > Hmmn. Iridium, I suppose. Most of Europe is GSM, the UK is GSM > and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's > shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. What? Yes, the DC GSM network is shutting down, but there's plenty of US GSM coverage at 1900 MHz ... check http://www.omnipoint.com, http://www.voicestream.com, http://pbwireless.com and several others. Ericsson has a phone, the I888 that will work on both 900 & 1900 MHz, as does Bosch (the 718 I think). Both are widely available in the UK/Europe & in the US. Ethan Henry egh@klg.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 20:06:32 GMT >> (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; Omnipoint offers this service. I rented one of their phones, and it worked fine in Europe. But their service in the US isn't so hot. Still, you should have service in most major cities. >> (3) Overall, I expect to be pretty spare about using it; >> cost is a very real factor. > Well, forget Iridium. Get a cheap cell phone here and a cheap cell > phone in the UK. If you want the same number to reach you on both, > use call forwarding. Calls between the US and UK are as cheap as > domestic calls in the US. That's probably the best plan. Get a phone here, and a phone there, and forward a number from here to there. I'm pretty sure that LD costs will be MUCH less that roaming costs. -Joel ------------------------------ From: David Scheidt Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Date: 25 Aug 1999 21:14:24 GMT Organization: EnterAct Corp. John R. Levine wrote: >> (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; > Hmmn. Iridium, I suppose. Most of Europe is GSM, the UK is GSM > and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's > shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. Don't tell OmniPoint that don't have a GSM network! They cover bits of the Northeast. They have Boston and New York City, as well as bits of the rest of upstate New York, Connecticut, New Hamshire, and maybe a bit of southern Maine. You will need a different handset, but your SIM will work. Of course, I expect that the roaming charges are ridiculous. It is likely cheaper to get a phone in the states and a different account in the UK. If having the same number is important, call forwarding will fix that. Calls to the UK from the US are really cheap. (Less than some of my intra state calls!) dscheidt@enteract.com Remember - if all you have is an axe, every problem looks like hours of fun. -- Frossie in the monastery ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 25 Aug 1999 21:14:34 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed > Hmmn. Iridium, I suppose. Most of Europe is GSM, the UK is GSM > and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's > shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. ??? No, Sprint Spectrum is GSM, and yes they are shutting down, but they aren't the only GSM network in the US. Omnipoint is in the Northeast (I believe) and they are GSM, BellSouth has a GSM network PacBell has a GSM Network, and their are others in the midwest. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. ------------------------------ From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? Date: 25 Aug 1999 20:06:39 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE John Warne wrote: > At 04:13 AM 8/24/99 -0400, Pat wrote: >> Water conducts electricity quite well and in fact amplifies it to some >> extent. > OK, I'll bite -- please send details of water amplification of > electricity. > I've heard of Hams running "a full gallon." Guess this is what they mean. Amplification may not be the correct term, but, as many people have discovered (to their great discomfort), being wet does increase the body's ability to conduct electricity, because water with almost anything dissolved in it is an good conductor of electricity itself, and a person sitting in a tub of water provides a much better path to electrical ground than he or she would be otherwise. Hence, it takes substantially less voltage to send a dangerous current through the body than it otherwise would. For instance, touching a 120V main while standing on dry ground, wearing shoes, and not otherwise grounded will send only a negligible amount of current through the body. One may not even notice it. But if one is in contact with a good ground, or is soaking wet, that same voltage can easily be fatal. Joe ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:09:34 GMT Water, at least distilled water without mineral content, is quite a good insulator. In article , John Warne wrote: > At 04:13 AM 8/24/99 -0400, Pat wrote: >> Water conducts electricity quite well and in fact amplifies it to some >> extent. > OK, I'll bite -- please send details of water amplification of > electricity. > I've heard of Hams running "a full gallon." Guess this is what they mean. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ From: jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:13:45 GMT Organization: US Citizen, disabled with MS, speaking solely for myself. msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) wrote: > In Canada, all the major banks take utility payments, as well as some > tax payments. I would expect that if you're walking in and paying cash, > all of them will levy a service charge; when I pay via ATM directly from > the account I usually use, there is none. > I've never heard of stores doing it here; is it rare for banks to do it in > the US? It is getting more and more rare, depending on the size of the market. In small towns they might still do it. In Chicago, large banks charge a fee to see a teller, so for sure, they don't want extra foot traffic of bill payers. My local suburban bank has dropped all those "extras", since they didn't charge a few for them, and when they do, it is much higher than anyone else, (a money order is $2 vs 0.69 at the grocery store), so they don't get many takers. Modern banks in the US don't want actual customers, only their money. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #340 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 19:59:15 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA14487; Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:59:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:59:15 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908252359.TAA14487@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #341 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 99 19:59:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 341 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: Issues 339-340 (TELECOM Digest Editor) MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Alan Gore) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Arthur Ross) Re: Lightning Protection Module? (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Some Net Surfers Choke on 'Cookies' (Andy Finkenstadt) Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) (Kent K. Steinbrenner) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (David Scheidt) Re: VISA Authorizations (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: How to Print Serial Dataa to Parallel Printer Attached (Bill Horne) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Ray Mereniuk) Car Navigation Maker Receives 2,000 Complaints For Glitch (Monty Solomon) Nortel to Acquire Periphonics (Monty Solomon) Re: Syphilis Outbreak ... (Bill Levant) Re: How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg (Bill Levant) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 18:49:36 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Administrivia: Issues 339-340 Inadvertently issue 339, dated at 6:00 pm on August 25 was given the subject line of 'issue 340' ... the archives copy has been corrected and you should mark your copy as 339. It correctly shows 339 in other places in the issue. The true issue 340 is the one you received dated at 6:30 pm Wednesday and this issue now is 341. PAT ------------------------------ From: agore@primenet.com (Alan Gore) Subject: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:54:38 GMT Organization: Software For PC's Is anyone else out there having as big a problem with MCI customer service as I have? In the fall of 1998, after having been an MCI landline long-distance customer for about a year, I signed up to have my account billed to my American Express card. It had previously been on a cash billing basis. While I waited for the credit card changeover to take place, I made regular payments by check of $306.09 for my January statement, and $337.07 for February. When my American Express statement for February arrived, I found that MCI had already charged two amounts to the account: $643.09 from the Denver, CO office on 1/29/99, and on the same statement $306.00 from the Olivette MO office on 1/30/99. Note that $643.09 is the sum of my January and February statements, which I had already paid by check. The $306.00 comes from a different department at MCI, and is almost the same amount as my January statement. Apparently, the Olivette office is in charge of billing amounts that are larger than a certain size ("High Toll"), so it seems that both the Olivette office and the Denver office billed me for the same January statement. When I discovered the error I called MCI Customer Service at once. They acknowledged immediately that an error had been made during my changeover, and promised to send a refund. Weeks went by, and no refund or credit ever appeared. I called them again on several different occasions. Each time, I got the same response: yes, an error had occurred, and we'll fix it right away. Nothing has been done, and I have never been able to get a Customer Service person to return my phone calls. I have to call again, and start over with some entirely new representative. After several month of not getting any response from MCI, I pursued the matter trough American Express. Amex issued provisional credits for both amounts while they queries MCI. This month, MCI sent a copy of my January statement in response to the $306 amount. This caused American Express to declare the mater resolved, and rebill the amount to my account. I have not heard anything further about the $643.09 amount, so unless MCI rebills that, I'm assuming my credit will stand. So at this moment I'm still out the $306 that was rebilled. Has anybody out there been able to get a double-billing error resolved? If so, who did you contact to make it happen? agore@primenet.com | "Giving money and power to the government Alan Gore | is like giving whiskey and car keys Software For PC's | to teenaged boys" - P. J. O'Rourke http://www.alangore.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 15:09:16 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Tom Byfield wrote: > I need to arrange a cellphone setup that meets the following > criteria: > (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; > - US: northeast definitely, west coast preferably, > and the rest of the US would be great; > - Europe: UK definitely, the rest of the EU pref- > erably, and former Yugoslavia and other parts > of eastern Europe would be great. > (2) I'll be based in the UK for most of the fall, so a > carrier/plan there would probably make sense, but I > expect to be calling the US a fair amount. > (3) Overall, I expect to be pretty spare about using it; > cost is a very real factor. > If anyone can make specific recommendations about handsets, economical > carriers and/or calling plans, and pointers to sites with good, > salient info for a cellphone newbie, I'd be very grateful. You need three things: 1. A dual-mode CDMA/AMPS handset purchased in North America 2. A GSM handset purchased, preferably, somewhere in Western Europe 3. Duct tape -- Best regards, -- Ratbert the Consultant (alter ego of Arthur) Dr. Arthur H. M. Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Tel: 602-371-9708 Fax: 602-336-7074 Portable (CDMA, of course!): 602-677-1021 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:11:01 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Lightning Protection Module? In article you write: > Where can I buy a module that protects the telephone line from > lightning by shorting it to ground at the point where the wires enter > the house? I'm thinking of a simple spark gap connected to a > substantial grounding wire. I thought that such spark gaps were required by law in most states. Either that, or the telephone company installed them on every line. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: kahuna@panix.com (Andy Finkenstadt) Subject: Re: Some Net Surfers Choke on 'Cookies' Date: 25 Aug 1999 17:19:13 -0400 Organization: Me Myself and I Reply-To: kahuna@panix.com In Monty Solomon writes: > Trying to surf the Web without accepting "cookies" is getting anything > but sweet. For a growing number of web sites, they attempt to give you a cookie that has an expiration date beyond the current session. I usually reject these unless I have some perceived advantage to accepting it. There are ways around it, though. I use a shareware add-on utility called Cookie Pal (http://www.kburra.com) that is configured to prompt me for all cookies that do not expire in the current session (while accepting those automatically). Highly recommended. Andrew Finkenstadt (http://www.finkenstadt.com/andy/) "I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone." - Bjarne Stroustrup ------------------------------ From: Kent K. Steinbrenner Subject: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:23:22 GMT Organization: @Home Network I have Caller ID on my office telephone. Yesterday I received a call from someone who was conducting a survey, obviously from some big telemarketing/surveying phone bank. The number that popped up on my Caller ID screen alerted me that this call might be from some big "phone bank" or other, because the prefix wasn't a traditional begins-with-2-or-higher number. What showed on my screen was: UNAVAILABLE 801-1599895 159 as a prefix? I think not! Anyone have any idea why this number was shown? I remember a couple of months ago I got a prefix beginning with a 0, which also was from an "UNAVAILABLE" caller. Kent K. Steinbrenner Irvine Typographers ------------------------------ From: David Scheidt Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Date: 25 Aug 1999 21:24:06 GMT Organization: EnterAct Corp. mxs159@cwru.edu wrote: > I received an email message about a "new plan" which claims to provide > unlimited LD calling for $60 a month ... Don't buy from spammers. dscheidt@enteract.com "[C]ows are extremely mammalian." -- Dr I. A. York ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 16:52:24 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations In article you write: > Any bank that allows you to withdraw money already committed to a > merchant (either by accident or on purpose), then penalize you with a > $29 fee when that merchant's settlement comes in, has "set little > traps" for you, and you should be hightailing it to another bank as > soon as possible. They don't want your business, they want to SCREW > you. Granted, some would argue "yeah, and this would be unusual ... > how, exactly?", but like anything in the free market, you gotta vote > with your wallet. Move your account and tell them how you feel about > their "little traps" and that you've moved to another bank that > chooses to treat customers fairly. There is an important distinction to make here, however: when you deposit money in an account, the bank does not directly earn anything; the bank really earns money by lending your money to others. A reduction in number of small or residential depositors have little effect. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:09:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power > Sorry. I read more into your post than what was there. In my > experience, most of the people who advocate nonviolent resistance to > violent oppression do in fact imply, or state outright, that resisting > by force should not be an option. You didn't, though, and I shouldn't > have assumed that you did. I apologize for misunderstanding and > therefore misstating your position. I personally do believe that using deadly force is wrong in all except the most extreme cases. However, my original post didn't say that. Besides, in many cases the mere possession of a weapon, without actual use, may be effective. The cases you did cite, were extreme. The response to oppression should be progress from less severe forms of resistance to more severe forms of resistance, and should be proportionate to the severity of the oppression. If the government does something that I do not like, I write to elected legislators. In the case of the Nazis in Germany, the use of deadly force was necessary to halt the Holocaust. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 16:34:17 -0400 From: Bill Horne Organization: Place Clue Here Subject: Re: How to Print Serial Dataa to Parallel Printer Attached Zayan, The easist way is to dump the PBX data into a PC, and print it from there. 1. Construct or buy an RS-422 "tap" box, which copies the signals from the PBX out to a different serial port. IIRC, Black Box sells one. 2. Connect the serial signal to a PC. 3. Write a program (in Perl, BASIC, etc.) that dumps the data to a file, or use Procomm or some other "Dumb Terminal" emulator to record the data to a log file as it comes in. 4. Use a hex editor to modify the data, and purge and/or substitute any needed formatting, and then send the result to the printer attached to the PC. You'll have to go through several trial/error cycles to get it looking nice. 5. Once you've got the result you want, code a permanent solution that filters the input on the fly. HTH. Bill Horne (remove ".nouce" from username to reply. Sorry.) ------------------------------ From: Raymond D. Mereniuk Organization: FBN Technical Services Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:22:13 -0800 Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General ianangus@angustel.ca (Ian Angus) wrote: > The ranges they found for large cities are shown below > (all figures in U.S. dollars): > Light Users U.S. $29.87 - $41.90 > Canada $24.06 - $26.42 At this time it is not fair to make this type of comparison and state Canada has low residential telephone rates. An exchange rate of .65 appears to have been used which means we have an US$0.65 dollar. At this exchange rate the Canadian dollar is horribly under- valued. It would appear the world currency market has reviewed the Canadian political leadership and valued the Canadian currency accordingly. A more realistic US$ exchange rate would be .85 to .90 and ideally .90 to .95. Currently exporters like the low exchange rate as it saves them from tough competition and the need to run a more cost-efficient operation. Re-do your numbers with an US$ exchange rate of .85 and you we see we pay more than American consumers. If we had political leadership that at least had a clue and attempted to make Canada look responsible rather than like a bunch of Socialist Pinko Tree-Hugging Business-Hating Tax-& Spend Eskimos ... we would have a more realistic exchange rate. But, until that time your numbers are factual. > Mr. Mereniuk argues that the telcos should be forced to reduce costs > I suspect doesn't know) is that every new entrant in local service > in Canada argues that the phone companies' rates for residential > service are much too low, and that it is impossible for new > entrants to make a profit at those price levels. Got me there, I didn't know that every new entrant complained that residential rates are too low. Can't say I am real surprised though. Within the last few years one of the Canadian Telcos, BC Tel or Bell, wrote-off $400 in assets to help prepare them for competition. Before this write-down the Telco had an allowed rate of return based on their capital investment which equals assets minus depreciation. The message I got when they wrote-off $400 in assets in order to get their books ready for competition is that their customers were paying rates based on a capital investment which was $400 million higher than what it should have been at that time. Accounting can be used to manipulate the cost of operating a division or segment of a business to make it look more profitable or more costly to operate. What is to stop a Canadian Telco from accruing a disproportionate amount of their costs to the segment of their business responsible for providing residential telephone service. They would look like heros to the investment community as this is what they are predicting, 'residential rates must increase to cover cost'. This would make the other business segments look more profitable and the investment community would be even more excited and the stock price would rise. I find it impossible to believe the Telcos are not moving their costs around. The only question is the extent and the effect this is having on the rates charged to residential customers. Who are the new entrants to the market? Who are the leaders of these new entrants? What business model (operational) are they using? The first answer is not really important but the later two are. The short form answer would be Telco and Telco. The current Telcos, and new entrants, may never be able to offer residential service and make a profit if they don't change their business model. Their current business model was developed from their regulated monopoly days where the more money you spent the more money you were allowed in profits. Until they change their business model they will never be a cost-efficient provider of goods and services. In the computer and data communications equipment businesses we have come to expect more for less money. In North America workers are working longer hours and pay increases may not be keeping up with the rate of inflation so the workers are delivering more to their employers for less money. Why can't we expect a high technology operation like a Telco to deliver more services at an ever decreasing cost? We should expect this but most customers don't so the Telco doesn't change. Virtually Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbn.bc.ca "Need Someone To Tell You What To Do?" FBN - The Consultants http://www.fbn.bc.ca/consultg.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:58:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Car Navigation Maker Receives 2,000 Complaints For Glitch BY YURI KAGEYAMA ASSOCIATED PRESS TOKYO -- A top Tokyo manufacturer of car navigation devices has been flooded daily with thousands of complaints about its machines going haywire over a satellite glitch. Pioneer Corp., the manufacturer of 80 percent of the problem machines in Japan, received more than 2,000 calls Sunday, the day the devices began to either not go on at all or to pick the wrong locations. http://www.freep.com/tech/qtchb24.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:22:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nortel to Acquire Periphonics NORTEL NETWORKS CORP (43-5/8, before open) said that it would acquire PERIPHONICS CORP (25-1/4, before open) in a common stock exchange deal worth $436 mln. Nortel is broadening its focus to offering voice, video and data on the same lines for Internet usage. Periphonics makes call center and other interactive products, and posted sales of $142 mln for the fiscal year ended May, 1999. The boards of both companies have approved the deal, the firms said. Shareholders representing about 13.5% of Periphonics' common float have agreed to vote in favor of the deal. The deal, expected to close in the 4Q, will be tax-free to the U.S. stockholders of Periphonics. For the full text story, see http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2560849632-962 ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 18:53:30 EDT Subject: Re : Syphilis Outbreak ... http://newslycos.com/stories/Technology/Internet/19990824RTNET-TECH-SYPHILIS.a sp Uh, this was missing a "." in the address. What you meant was news.lycos.com, etc., not newslycos.com (which turns out to be an XXX site). Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for bringing this correction to my attention. I trust readers were able to find the site where the story is located. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:07:22 EDT Subject: Re: How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg > How can my customer change the responsible organization on their > toll-free number so service can continue with another carrier? I think this one's fairly easy. You have your customer's lawyer contact the Chapter 7 trustee, and offer to purchase the RespOrg rights from the Chapter 7 estate (in effect, the bankrupt company) for, say, $1,000.00, and your customer's lawyer offers to do all the necessary paperwork for the Trustee to have what is called a Section 363 sale. No one will object, in all likelihood, and once he gets a Bankruptcy Court order and a bill of sale from the Trustee that sez it's his, your customer should be able to get the SMS folks to recognize him as the owner. Even if -- as is probably the case -- some bank has a security interest in *all* of the company's assets, the 800 number isn't worth very much (if anything) to the lender, and its lawyer will almost certainly not gripe. Should take about five weeks, if the Trustee's cooperative. Bill P.S. Though I am a lawyer, I'm only licensed in PA and NJ. Your customer should contact a lawyer licensed in his state for more complete information. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #341 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 21:44:27 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA19096; Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:44:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:44:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908260144.VAA19096@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #342 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 99 21:44:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 342 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (Al Iverson) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (John McHarry) Re: Phone Number Article (Andrew Emmerson) Re: I Lied About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Stanley Cline) Re: VISA Authorizations (John McHarry) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Syphilis Outbreak ... (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Doug Rosser) Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) (Terry Kennedy) Re: U.S. to Seek New Computer Surveillance Powers (ElectiJim) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: radparker@radparker.com (Al Iverson) Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Organization: See sig before replying! Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:09:02 -0500 In article , mxs159@cwru.edu wrote: > I received an email message about a "new plan" which claims to provide > unlimited LD calling for $60 a month ... > For families like mine where $100 LD bills are common (even with less > than 9c per minute avg. plans), this of course sounds like a good yet > believable deal, considering the ferocity of the competition out there. > Has anyone heard anything back form these people? Who are they? What > are the catches? > The number in the email that I called was 888-804-9661. Everything > sounded official (and believable) except they didn't mention who they > were, or what happens next. etc. You're interested in a service that was advertised to you via unsolicited email? Consider that for a moment. These people probably forged headers, were cagey with their company name, and sent you something you didn't ask for or indicate interest in. Then you call them on the phone and they don't mention who they are? Are you really SERIOUSLY considering giving these people your money? Al Iverson -- Web: http://al.radparker.com/ -- Home: Minneapolis, USA Visit the Radparker Relay Spam Stopper at http://relays.radparker.com. STOP! Include SWANKY99 in email replies or they may be tagged as spam. Send me no unsolicited advertising, as I will always return it to you. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:45:20 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling In article was written: > Don't buy from spammers. I agree 100%. ------------------------------ From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 00:22:04 GMT On Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:49:08 -0400, mxs159@cwru.edu wrote: > I received an email message about a "new plan" which claims to provide > unlimited LD calling for $60 a month ... > For families like mine where $100 LD bills are common (even with less > than 9c per minute avg. plans), this of course sounds like a good yet > believable deal, considering the ferocity of the competition out there. > Has anyone heard anything back form these people? I know nothing of that offer, I have been arguing for some time (within my company) that a flat rate plan makes sense. You can only get so much traffic out of a line, and you don't have per drink billing costs. One problem with this would be people using the line to connect to distant ISPs. That could make a residential line look like a solid Erlang. So long as you don't sell too many of those and keep them off the busy hours, I guess you could live with it, if allowed sufficient grousing. You can't do this for international calls, yet. ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: Phone Number Article Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 01:03 BST Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk In article , jt.thompson@indigo.ie (J.T. Thompson) wrote: > the old 999 number in Ireland which is now changing to 112 in line with > the rest of Europe. It isn't and this is a misconception. The standard number 112 is _in addition to_ existing national emergency numbers, which will remain in use for those who are more familiar with them. The 999 code was introduced in 1937; once the service had been rolled out in London, Glasgow was next on the list. The war then intervened, but by 1948, all large towns and cities served by automatic exchanges had the 999 service. In the ensuing years, every telephone in the country was given access to the system. WHY THE DIGITS 999 WERE CHOSEN FOR EMERGENCY CALLS The ultimate reason for the use of level 9 for emergency use was the design of the coin boxes used in payphones at the time. This was because the design of the mechanism allowed level 0 (operator) calls to be made without the insertion of a coin. A simple modification allowed level 9 calls to be made as well without the insertion of a coin. 999 was chosen because three digits were required for director working and the same digits were considered easier to remember. Other numerical levels were not chosen because they were already in use. Another consideration was that it was necessary for the same code to be used in non-director areas, where dialling 9 was the standard route from a dependent exchange to its parent. It was seen as important that the emergency code should be the same anywhere - so the actual (not advertised as such, though) code on Non-Director exchanges was 99, and when prefixed by a 9 from dependent exchanges (or PABXs) became 999. If 999 was dialled directly onto the parent exchange, the third 9 was simply absorbed. In most cases where dialling 9 for the parent was not possible, subscribers had to dial 0 instead of 999. Sometimes there were special junctions for 999 only; this was however rather rare. Additionally the coin-box dials would only allow the digits 9 or 0 before the correct payment had been made - so the only codes that could have been used were 999, 900, 909 and 990. At the time 909 was used for Directory Enquiries (published as "XOX") and 909 and 990 were regarded as unusable because of the risk of fraud. Andrew Emmerson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:52:26 -0400 From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: I Lied About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed John R. Levine wrote: > * Omnipoint has coverage in much of the northeast (stopping about 5 > miles south of where I am), plus spots in Indiana, around Detroit and > Miami. No coverage at all in the west. VoiceStream out west and Omnipoint are merging, so technically there *is* "Omnipoint" coverage out west, just under the VoiceStream name. As for the rest of the US -- there is or will soon be GSM coverage in most major cities (the major question mark remains New Orleans, no-thanks to Telecorp/SunCom/AT&T.) GSM in the US is provided by about a dozen companies, the largest being VoiceStream/Omnipoint. Other US GSM carriers include SBC (PacBell's Pure Digital PCS); BellSouth (BellSouth Mobility DCS in the Carolinas and northeast Tennessee); TDS (Aerial Communications); Powertel; DigiPH PCS; PCS One (a partnership between Omnipoint and D&E Telephone in central PA); as well as several smaller companies (that, unfortunately, do not roam with anyone else.) In Canada, GSM service is provided by Microcell, who markets the service itself under the Fido name, and whose service is resold by Cityfone. SC (a very happy Powertel customer who has roamed on all the major North American GSM carriers except for PacBell) ------------------------------ From: mcharry@erols.com (John McHarry) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 00:11:54 GMT On Wed, 25 Aug 1999 16:52:24 EDT, Jonathan D Loo wrote: > In article you write: >> ...Move your account and tell them how you feel about >> their "little traps" and that you've moved to another bank that >> chooses to treat customers fairly. > There is an important distinction to make here, however: when you > deposit money in an account, the bank does not directly earn anything; > the bank really earns money by lending your money to others. A > reduction in number of small or residential depositors have little > effect. Not if it is just a few, but retail banks deal in having large numbers of us. I had a small disputation with a credit card issuer and explained to them that they are a fungible resource (commodity). They got religion. I think the first time I fired a bank was when I was about ten years old. They changed the rule immediately, but I didn't deal with them again for 40 years. Well, it was a small bank in a small town, but it wasn't the only one. Don't take _any_ crap off a commodity resource! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:44:31 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service In my experience, call Customer Service at any organization, you either get someone who believes the problem doesn't exist, or you get someone who promises to fix it and then it doesn't get fixed. Even if the call answerer believes the problem exists, the person with the power to correct the mistake does not believe there is any problem. In a few jobs I have had in the past, after hanging up on a complainer or after a complainer walks away, my co-workers or sometimes even my supervisor would mutter some nasty comments about the customer. Sometimes the customer is wrong but I do not think we should ever make personal comments about them after they leave. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:38:04 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Syphilis Outbreak ... In article was written: > Uh, this was missing a "." in the address. What you meant was > news.lycos.com, etc., not newslycos.com (which turns out to be an XXX > site). Isn't this the same mistake that was made by a large bank? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I think it was. It is a very common technique of porn sites to take names that are the same as the names of legitimate sites plus or minus a dot or two, or maybe a slight variation on the spelling and use this as a way of tricking users into visiting them instead. They figure a certain number of people each day will reach their site in error, and of those, a certain number will stick around to view what is going on. I would be interested in finding out what percentage of the sites on the web are porn-based. I realize sites come, and sites go, and no one has the exact numbers from day to day, but what are the educated guesses right now of porn versus legitimate uses? Ten percent? Twenty percent? PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Doug Rosser From: Doug Rosser Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 10:17:04 +1000 Organization: BTR OIS This works for me, and I'm an Australian ... 1. Ericsson I888 dual band (900,1900 Mhz) GSM Phone (Buy one in the UK). 2. BT Cellnet SIM Card, which will allow roaming into any of the GSM 1900 carriers in the US (I've used Omni Point and Bell South so far) and will also work through Europe. I understand that a common European tariff is in place/or near. (as a bonus the phone will also work in most of Asia/Pacific (The obvious excpetions being Japan and South Korea). 3. Use the calling card feature if the I888 to make all your international calls. In most cases you will not be charged airtime to the local free call number and you pay your calling card rates (which should be better than rack rates.) Other bonuses include a functional voice mail system and the use of SMS messaging and a groovy looking blue and black phone with a flip. (The only difference for me is that I normally use a C&W Optus SIM but carry a Telstra and BT one just in case. Doug Rosser, Manager, Corporate Telecommunications - Asia Pacific Invensys plc, doug.rosser@invensys.com > Tom Byfield wrote: >> I need to arrange a cellphone setup that meets the following >> criteria: >> (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; >> - US: northeast definitely, west coast preferably, >> and the rest of the US would be great; >> - Europe: UK definitely, the rest of the EU pref- >> erably, and former Yugoslavia and other parts >> of eastern Europe would be great. ------------------------------ From: Terry Kennedy Subject: Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) Organization: St. Peter's College, US Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 00:30:10 GMT Kent K. Steinbrenner writes: > What showed on my screen was: > UNAVAILABLE > 801-1599895 > 159 as a prefix? I think not! Why not? Just because *you* can't dial it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist ... "Classic" (pre-divestiture) in-WATS (800 service) and out-WATS used prefixes like this. It kept those services from tying up dialable prefixes. Since then, with all sorts of competition, lots of 800 service is just delivered via call forwarding to regular numbers. But for larger customers who have direct links (T1, usually) to IXC's, I bet this sort of numbering still exists. I'm not at my office, or I'd check to see if this prefix is in the LERG. In the old (MF) days, these numbers were "box-able" (you could call them with a blue box or from an operator position). I bet an operator could still complete a call to it for you, if you can convince them to do it. Since there is likely no rate info, they may not complete the call, since there's no revenue from it. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA +1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If I am not mistaken, the operator can indeed punch it in, but I do not think the computer will release the call and send it out, lacking information needed. Or it may send it out but it will reach an intercept or perhaps come into another oper- ator position as a call that needs attention. I had a strange thing happen like that a couple days ago. I placed a long distance call, and it started to set up, but then suddenly a live operator came on the line. She said, "I am sorry, the equipment failed to capture your number. Please give me the number you are calling from." When I gave her my number, she punched it in, said thank you, and released the call on to its destination. I have not had an operator ask for the number I was calling from for years. PAT] ------------------------------ From: eclectijim@aol.comnsp (EclectiJim) Date: 26 Aug 1999 01:33:54 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power > in my opinion it is better to use a lawyer than to use a gun. I presume this is equivalent to "it is better to shoot a lawyer than to shoot a gun"? I'm afraid that the twain shall never meet on this topic ... Big Brothers (Guv, Biz & Labor) are watching you ... ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #342 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 26 03:05:20 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id DAA03177; Thu, 26 Aug 1999 03:05:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 03:05:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908260705.DAA03177@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #343 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Aug 99 03:05:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 343 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing (Monty Solomon) Re: Some Net Surfers Choke on 'Cookies' (Jonathan D Loo) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Crazy Proposals For 310 Area Code (Linc Madison) Re: AT&T to Terminate 500 Number Service by November 15 (Linc Madison) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (J.F. Mezei) Re: Lightning Protection Module? (Steve Winter) Re: Lightning Protection Module? (S. Falke) Re: Lightning Protection Module? (Herb Stein) Re: Lightning Protection Module? (Bruce F. Roberts) Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) (Victor R. Pirozzolo) Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) (Anthony Argyriou) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 00:02:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:35:12 -0400 Subject: SIMSON SAYS: The D stands for Dissappointing From: simsong@acm.org PLUGGED IN Bell Atlantic DSL stumbles Company's new InfoSpeed is faster than dial-up Net service but slower than cable modem By Simson L. Garfinkel, 08/19/99 The "D'"in "DSL" is supposed to stand for digital. The other two letters stand for the words "subscriber line," which is telephone company jargon for the wires that run from the firm's central office to your home and business. Together, the letters DSL stand for a new technology that is bringing high-speed Internet access to many homes and businesses nationwide and, increasingly, throughout the world. There are basically two ways to get DSL service in Boston. The first is through an established Internet service provider, such as Harvard Net or Shore Net. Call one of these ISPs, which are marketing mostly to businesses, and it will order you a second telephone line for the DSL connection. Getting this second phone line can take anywhere from one to two months -- and sometimes longer. The price of the connection depends on how fast you wish to connect to the Internet: Typical prices are $200/month for a connection that can send 384 kilobits per second, or $300/month for a connection that runs at 768 kbps. The second way to get DSL service in Boston is directly from Bell Atlantic, using the new InfoSpeed service introduced earlier this year. Bell Atlantic is initially targeting residential subscribers, aggressively marketing DSL as a high-speed alternative to dial-up Internet access. The company says InfoSpeed is a secure alternative to cable modems, which it refers to as a "party line." Bell Atlantic has a distinct advantage in offering DSL: It already has a telephone line in practically everybody's home. So when you order DSL from Bell Atlantic, you don't need to wait for a new wire to be installed. Instead, the company merely clips the DSL equipment on to your existing telephone line, which is then used for both voice and data. Bell Atlantic has priced its DSL service at roughly $50 per month -- about the same as my MediaOne cable modem, and a quarter the cost of a DSL connection from Concentric or Shore Net. To avoid cannibalizing its own data services, however, Bell Atlantic has put an interesting restriction on the connection. Although download speeds can allegedly go as fast as 640 kbps, the upload rate is limited to 90 kbps. This restriction is designed to prevent people from running high-traffic Web servers or other Internet services on their home networks. By comparison, my MediaOne cable modem delivers 300 to 600 kbps in both directions. I've gotten an incredible amount of e-mail from readers in recent months about Bell Atlantic's DSL offering, so I decided to try it. As things turned out, I was one of the first customers in Massachusetts allowed to "self-install" the DSL equipment. Instead of having a Bell Atlantic technician come to my house and hook up the equipment, the company just mailed me a box. I plugged it in and turned it on. Within a few moments, a little green light appeared on the box indicating that the DSL line was operational. Unfortunately, it was also misconfigured: It took me two phone calls, and an hour waiting on hold, to get things working. One of the first differences I noticed between the DSL and the cable modem was the speed. Although the DSL is supposed to run faster than the cable modem, in my side-by-side comparison tests I found that overall, the cable modem Internet connection was between 30 and 50 percent faster than the DSL. For example, it took me 4 minutes and 54 seconds to download the 180-second trailer from the movie "The Matrix" over my cable modem; over the DSL connection, the same download (at exactly the same time of day) took 8 minutes and 3 seconds. The overall rate for the cable modem was 592 kbps, vs. 346 for Bell Atlantic's DSL. I had similar results downloading a copy of Netscape Navigator: 1 minute 27 seconds by cable modem; 4 minutes 27 seconds by DSL. These download times aren't necessarily the fault of the DSL technology. Instead, they are likely caused by congestion at Bell Atlantic.NET, the phone company's own ISP. Unfortunately, while Bell Atlantic promises that other companies will ultimately be allowed to offer Internet service over its lines, right now there are no other choices. Another significant difference between the cable modem and the DSL connection involves security. Since both connections provide 'always-on' access to the Net, it's important that your computer be relatively secure so bad guys can't break into it. As I've written in the past, one of the easiest ways to break into a Windows 95 or NT computer over the Internet is to use Microsoft's file-sharing protocols: Many people inadvertently make their home computer's hard drive available for remote access without a password. The good news for cable modem customers is that MediaOne automatically blocks Microsoft's file-sharing protocols on cable modems in the Boston area. MediaOne programs each of its cable modems to work like a mini 'firewall.' Unfortunately, Bell Atlantic puts no similar blocks on its DSL service. Instead, it includes with the modem a brochure explaining the dangers of file sharing and advising customers to turn off file sharing before connecting to the Internet. All in all, I'm rather disappointed by Bell Atlantic's DSL service. The company's one advantage is deployment: DSL is likely to be available in many communities not served by MediaOne or another cable modem provider. But given a choice between DSL and cable, I would choose the latter - at least until Bell Atlantic gets more experience in offering high-speed Internet service. Technology writer Simson L. Garfinkel can be reached at plugged-in@simson.net. SIMSON-SAYS is Simson's column on computer issues that appears weekly in The Boston Globe and other newspapers. Please feel free to pass this column on to a friend. If you wish to subscribe to SIMSON-SAYS, just send an e-mail message with the word "subscribe" as its first line to simson-says@vineyard.net. This message (C) Simson L. Garfinkel. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:59:26 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Some Net Surfers Choke on 'Cookies' In article you write: > For a growing number of web sites, they attempt to give you a cookie > that has an expiration date beyond the current session. I usually > reject these unless I have some perceived advantage to accepting it. > There are ways around it, though. Two things -- first it is extremely easy to delete Netscape cookies on a Macintosh whenever you feel like it. Go into the Finder and then open the System Folder >> Preferences >> Netscape Users. You will see some folders. Go into the one that belongs to you (or all of them if it's your computer) and delete the file called MagicCookie. While you're at it, you can also delete the Cache f. If you are using Netscape below version 4, go to System Folder >> Preferences >> Netscape f and delete the MagicCookie (and the cache f if you feel like it). (Note, the f is displayed in a cursive format because it is actually a different f than the regular ASCII f.) Microsoft Internet Explorer for the Macintosh has the best cookie management of all. Go into Edit >> Preferences (I think these are the right menus) then click on cookies in the left side of the Preferences dialog then go to the little pull down menu and choose Ask For Each Site. You can also remove individual cookies from this screen. It will then generally ask you for permission to place cookies approximately two times (may vary from site to site) for each site you visit. This is much better than Ask For Each Cookie because then it will ask you for permission every single time someone gives you a cookie. My opinion only. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 04:56:51 GMT Leonard Erickson wrote: > Some companies (like the local cable company) use bulk mailing > permits rather than metered mail for sending bills. No. "Bulk Mail" means pre-sorted mail of any class, as contrasted with mail entered at single-piece rates. There are various presorted First-Class rates in addition to Standard Mail (A) [formerly presorted Third-Class]. Check the permit imprint indicia to see what class was used. First-Class should say "First-Class Mail" or "Presorted First-Class Mail". If it says "Bulk Rate", "Standard", or "Nonprofit", it was sent as Standard Mail (A). Bulk mail may be paid with permit imprint, meter stamp, or precancelled stamp. First-Class or Standard Mail (A) may be paid with meter stamps. If you have at least 200 pieces or 50 pounds, you can use a permit imprint even if you are paying at single-piece rates. If your cable company really used Standard Mail (A) to send you a bill or an invoice, that is illegal and you should complain to your postal inspector. Bills and statements MUST be mailed as First-Class. > There's this one catch, which I learned when I used to help a friend > with bulk mailings. The post office checks the submitted "permit" mail > against the balance in the account. When the next item in the stack > will exceed the balance in the account, the rest of the mailing sits > there until more money is added to the account. They don't notify you > about this either (unless is sits there for weeks). What notice? With very limited exception, mail is prepaid. You must prepare the mailing statement before you enter the mail. Doesn't your friend know how much he has in the Advance Deposit account? If not, he must ask at the post office. If it's short, add the balance on the day he deposits the mail. Generally, the post office has no storage space. If you don't have funds on hand, they usually make you take the mail back. > So I've gotten "you have 10 days to pay" notices the day before they > are due. And since there's no postmark on the bulk mail items, it's > useless to try proving anything. If there is a postmark, notice is as of the date on the postmark. If there is no postmark, notice is as of the day you received it in the mail. In the case of cable companies and public utilities, there is usually some consumer protection that requires bills to be mailed on a timely basis with payment due so many days later. There was a lawsuit against Ameritech several years ago in which the class-action attorneys raked in millions in fees. The tariff said that bills were due 21 days after they were mailed. But Ameritech was using permit imprints. In the settlement, Ameritech agreed to put the mailing date on the envelopes. I hope the post office verifies that the date is correct when accepting their bills. Your municipality may require something similar of the cable company. Without that postmark, the due date is counted from the date YOU received it. > I note that the *other* utilities use metered mail. I suspect that this > is because the *lack* of a postmark has blown up in their faces in > court at some time in the past. Neither a meter stamp nor use of date of mailing with a permit imprint establishes timeliness since that is under control of the mailer. A postmark is applied by a disinterested third party, so it can be relied upon. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:59:23 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Crazy Proposals For 310 Area Code In article , Robert Lee Harris wrote: >> (B) Preserve the local calling area as it currently exists. Any point >> that is currently local to any of the 17 rate centers would be local to >> the new consolidated rate center. However, the LECs would now demand a >> rate increase to make up for the lost toll revenues. > It seems like the best way to overlay numbers would be to apply the > new area codes to cellular phones and pagers. Since wireless numbers > are billed per minute anyway, there would be no temptation to increase > rates for calling a wireless phone from a regular phone line. Fine, but your comment has no relevance whatsoever to what I was talking about in the bit you quoted. What I was talking about was a proposal to collapse the entire 310 area code to a single rate center. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 20:07:59 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: AT&T to Terminate 500 Number Service by November 15 In article , Jeffrey J. Carpenter wrote: > I received a letter from AT&T concerning the termination of the AT&T > Easy Reach 500 number service. I know many people did not feel this > service was useful and had too many problems for them to utilize it, > but it has worked well for my purposes, and this termination with less > than three months notice will leave many of us who utilize the service > scrambling for a replacement and to try to notify people of my new > number. Unfortunately, this is the phone number I have published in > the Baltimore and DC phone books, and there is no way that can be > updated by November 15. So why, exactly, was 533 activated as an expansion code for 500? There are oodles and oodles of unused 500 prefixes, and no great demand for new ones, clearly not by AT&T, but also not by any other providers. I really have to wonder who on earth thought 533 was needed. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 23:30:55 -0400 1- most GSM carriers in North American have roaming agreements. So your phone will work transparently as you roam with your SIM card. (this applies worldwide). This include receiving calls and sending/receiving SMS messages. 2-GSM roaming has a disadvantage: to reach your phone, one must dial your "home" phone number. So if you are in the UK, and someone across the street wants to call you, they must pay the overseas call to your US number, and you must pay the cellphone charge to forward the call to your overseas (UK) location. 3- To get around 2, make sure you buy an UNLOCKED phone. With such a phone, you can insert any SIM card from any tGSM telco. Therefore: you can have a Omnipoint SIM card with a US phone number, and a Vodaphone SIM card with a UK phone number and if you temporarily go to another country, you can buy "prepaid" services thus avoiding roaming rates. Wand while in the UK, you can receive your Omnipoint SMS messages by just inserting your Omnipoint SIM card for a few minutes. (and vice versa). Phone manufacturers have recently come out with multiband GSM phones. (and Canada's major cities also have GSM coverage). ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Lightning Protection Module? Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 03:46:24 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Keith Jarett spake thusly and wrote: > Where can I buy a module that protects the telephone line from > lightning by shorting it to ground at the point where the wires enter > the house? I'm thinking of a simple spark gap connected to a > substantial grounding wire. We have a few 110 punchdown AT&T phone line surge protectors with solid state modules 400 times faster than a gas tube. The 6 pair unit is $119 and the 25 pair is $269 (fully populated). This is "pro" telephone equipment like you find in the "phone rooms". Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: S Falke Subject: Re: Lightning Protection Module? Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:59:59 -0700 Organization: SBC Internet Services Here's some info -- application/catalog data -- http://www.comm-omni.com/ WE '5-pin footprint' modules -- http://www.portasystems.com/ http://www.edcosurge.com/ oem-type components -- http://www.semtech.com/ http://www.cpclare.com/ http://www.jesc.com/ S Falke Keith Jarett wrote in message ... > Where can I buy a module that protects the telephone line from > lightning by shorting it to ground at the point where the wires enter > the house? I'm thinking of a simple spark gap connected to a > substantial grounding wire. ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: Lightning Protection Module? Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 04:12:22 GMT SWBT uses either carbon blocks or gas discharge devices AFAIK. In article , Jonathan D Loo wrote: > In article you write: >> Where can I buy a module that protects the telephone line from >> lightning by shorting it to ground at the point where the wires enter >> the house? I'm thinking of a simple spark gap connected to a >> substantial grounding wire. > I thought that such spark gaps were required by law in most states. > Either that, or the telephone company installed them on every line. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ From: Bruce F. Roberts Subject: Re: Lightning Protection Module? Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:45:10 -0700 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I would start by calling your local telco, explaining what happened and asking whether lighting arrestors are installed on the line. If so, I think they need to be looked at. TTFN -br- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 02:27:08 -0400 From: Victor R Pirozzolo Reply-To: victor@snet.net Subject: Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) Kent K. Steinbrenner wrote: > What showed on my screen was: > UNAVAILABLE > 801-1599895 > 159 as a prefix? I think not! > Anyone have any idea why this number was shown? I remember a couple of > months ago I got a prefix beginning with a 0, which also was from an > "UNAVAILABLE" caller. Kent ... The "159" number is an outwats line. In many of the older switches, numbers beginning with "1" were used for outwats. It is a legitimate number. You won't be able to call it, as switches other than the one containing this code wouldn't be translated to allow the dialing or routing of this code. Even if you could, outwats lines are programmed with 'denied termination' and therfore can't receive calls. Victor ------------------------------ From: anthony@alphageo.com (Anthony Argyriou) Subject: Re: Paying to Pay (was Re: SprintPCS Surcharge) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 06:33:56 GMT Organization: Alpha Geotechnical Reply-To: anthony@alphageo.com J.F. Mezei wrote: > It is pretty standard for large companies/utilities to specify that cash > payments may not be made by mail. Though this is usually presented as a reliability issue -- if you send cash, and they don't get it, you're SOL. You have no proof, and the cash is gone. If you send a money order properly made out, no one else is supposed to be able to cash it. If you send a check, you will have records of what happened to it, even if it is cashed by the wrong party. Remember that there is always at least one person who will open your envelope at the utility company end of things, and they're pretty poorly paid, and probably not terribly reliable, since 99% of what they handle is checks. Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #343 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 26 15:02:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA25977; Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:02:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:02:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908261902.PAA25977@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #344 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Aug 99 15:02:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 344 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: How to Print Serial Data to Parallel Printer Attached to Term (Reed) Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? (Adam H. Kerman) Re: US to Seek New Computer Surveillance Power (amp@pobox.co) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (msx159@cwru.edu) Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) (Jon D. Loo) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (John David Galt) Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Weird Caller ID (Bill Levant) Re: International Cell Phone (Bill Levant) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Ian Angus) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Arthur Ross) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reed Subject: Re: How to Print Serial Data to Parallel Printer Attached to Term Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 23:00:47 -0600 If no response in this newsgroup, you might try newsgroup comp.terminals Might want to give model number of Wyse term also. reed Muj Zayan wrote: > Here is my equipment setup and I'm looking for a way of printing the > serial data that is coming from my PABX to a Wyse terminal which is > connected to the PABX @ 1200bps. ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Poll Question: How Are Your Phones Answered? Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 05:17:07 GMT In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Adam H. Kerman : >> Is Ward and Randy's BBS still operating? It was >> at the last time I happened to be at Randy's home, which was a number >> of years ago on the northwest side of Chicago. The computer doing the >> BBS was sitting there on the work bench right next to the computer >> handling Chinet. I think the CBBS machine was destroyed in a fire at Randy's apartment a few years ago. One of his Sun monitors went, er, nova. Randy moved back in after repairs were made. He still lives in the same place you saw. > If you were there a REAL long time ago, you could have been there when I > dialed in as a user on both systems. Chinet's still alive and kicking and accessible via the Web with a home-grown program called Wapp written by a chinet user. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly did not mean to trivialize > the Christianson XModem protocol, and yes, it was the first way of > transferring files between computers. When I was there last, I suppose > it would have been in the early 1990's. Once a year, there is a > 'reunion' meeting for all the people from the old days of BBSing held > at a restaurant on the far northwest side of Chicago. After that > Saturday afternoon lunch, a few of us went over to Randy's home for > a couple hours. You might very well have been online that day. PAT] Anyone in Chicago is welcome to attend the next CBBS memorial party, held on a Saturday in February to commemorate the invention of the BBS. It'll be 22 next year! No promises, but maybe I can beg Ward Christiansen to show up next year. He still posts on Chinet every so often. Since there's interest, I promise to post an invitation in the Digest next January when the date is finalized. For as long as I can remember, the party has been at Barnaby's on Touhy just west of California in the West Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago. [Yes, this is near where Benjamin Smith attempted to murder six men returning from synagogue.] Lately, Randy's been holding monthly network gaming parties, so anyone who wants to worship at the feet of greatness, er, meet the old fart, or just get gibbed, let me know. How Ward and Randy remember things. See "The Birth of the BBS" http://www.chinet.com/html/cbbs.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 00:43:42 -0500 From: AMP Reply-To: amp@pobox.com Subject: Re: U.S. To Seek New Computer Surveillance Power [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: With this final message, the thread is being closed. Thanks to all who particpated. PAT] Jonathan D Loo wrote: > I personally do believe that using deadly force is wrong in all except > the most extreme cases. However, my original post didn't say that. > Besides, in many cases the mere possession of a weapon, without actual > use, may be effective. The cases you did cite, were extreme. > The response to oppression should be progress from less severe forms of > resistance to more severe forms of resistance, and should be proportionate > to the severity of the oppression. If the government does something that > I do not like, I write to elected legislators. In the case of the Nazis > in Germany, the use of deadly force was necessary to halt the Holocaust. Pat, I would like to respond to this though I realize that this is not really a forum for second amendment issues. I'd like to quote a man much more learned and respected than myself as it ... John Locke Explains Lethal Force For those in the dark as to when lethal force can and cannot be used, some plain writing from the 17th century. Nothing is to be accounted hostile force but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal [to the law], and it is such force alone that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse on the highway, when perhaps I have not 12 pennies in my pocket. This man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver 100 pounds to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore to me when I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force. I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any); and yet I might lawfully kill the one and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The reason whereof is plain to see; because the one using force which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it, and when it was gone it was too late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead carcass. The loss was irreparable; which to prevent, the law of Nature gave me a right to destroy him who had put himself into a state of war with me and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I might Nature gave me a right to destroy him who had put himself into a state of war with me and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I might have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have reparation for my 100 pounds in that way. John Locke, "An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government", Chapter 18 "Of Tyranny", #207, originally published in England, 1690. =end quote= The web is such an incredible resource! You'll find John Locke's 2nd Treatise on Government at my website as I've blatently stolen it from Project Gutenberg. (http://promo.net/pg/) The fellow who runs PG claims to be aproximately internet user #100 :) amp@pobox.com http://zeugma.nu/ What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand? ------------------------------ From: mxs159@cwru.edu Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 11:21:55 -0400 Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center It seems unanimous that this is probably a spammer. I'm a bit embarassed that I too may have almost fallen victim to these folks, even as suspicious as I am of people like this ... good thing I only left them my name and work number. However, I've seen big companies "hide" their identity until the last minute because they are afraid their other existing customers might get angry that they were'nt notified of plans designed soley to attract new customers. We all know the priority of the LD carriers is: #1) Offer best plans to round up new customers; #2) Prefer to keep existing customers "paying what thay are paying" for LD as long as they are happy and "think" they are getting a good deal (rather than automatically upgrade people to lower rate plans, etc, or even NOTIFY current customers of better plans!); #3) Try to retain customers "on their way out" by offering them better plans they could have had all along as they are "on their way out the door" (while they're closing their account, etc.). Have you ever been transferred to a special person for "closing your account"? I've learned they have more in mind than just pushing that button! I believe that $60 for unlimited calling is practical today. Even at five cents a minute, a person would have to make 40 minutes of personal long distance calls everyday to keep up! Just some thoguhts ... I personally would pay $60 a month for unlimited home LD if that type of program was available. I suspect many others would as well. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 23:02:24 EDT From: Jonathan D Loo Subject: Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) If a company has a trademark and this trademark existed prior to the registration of a domain name, this company should have no trouble acquiring the domain name even if the domain name registrant refuses. I am not a lawyer, so the above information may or may not apply to all cases. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@acm.org (John David Galt) Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 01:37:40 GMT Adam H. Kerman wrote: > Pat, what is it about your scripts that changes the Message-IDs of > messages posted to the list? I wish you'd eliminate that "feature" as > it makes threading of messages impossible. Although you do need a > script that would add an In-Reply-To or References header since it's > gated between News and Mail. If a message itself had both headers, I > guess save the longer one and copy the longer one to the other header. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually it is quite easy to read > threads here. I do it for you automatically when your preference is > to read message-by-message (threaded or otherwise) in the c.d.t. > newsgroup. My experience (reading the messages as news through Netscape 4.04) is that most messages are shown as "threads", but are shown as if all but the first message in a thread were direct replies to that first message. Once in a while this fails and a new "thread" begins. I agree with Adam that preserving the original Message ID is the cure. John David Galt ------------------------------ From: ahk@chinet.com (Adam H. Kerman) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 02:13:44 -0500 Subject: Re: Even I Get Accused of Spamming Adam H. Kerman (ahk@chinet.chinet.com) Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:21:39 GMT > * Review Index Sorted By: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ] > * May be in reply to: TELECOM Digest Editor: "Even I Get Accused of > Spamming" > Pat, what is it about your scripts that changes the Message-IDs of > messages posted to the list? I wish you'd eliminate that "feature" as > it makes threading of messages impossible. Although you do need a > script that would add an In-Reply-To or References header since it's > gated between News and Mail. If a message itself had both headers, I > guess save the longer one and copy the longer one to the other header. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually it is quite easy to read > threads here. I do it for you automatically when your preference is > to read message-by-message (threaded or otherwise) in the c.d.t. > newsgroup. Got to http://telecom-digest.org/TELECOM_Digest_Online > which is the Usenet c.d.t. newsgroup, and note the options. You can > sort by date, by subject, by author name, or by thread. I think it > is a much superior presentation to 'traditional' Usenet as you might > find it on your ISPs local news server. Please try it out. PAT] Pat, I've preserved the choices the archives gave me at the top of the quoted message. The message cited in "May be in reply to" was NOT the message I had followed up to. If someone posts a followup but changes the Subject, that will not be reflected in the thread as seen by the archives. I'm sorry, Pat, but true threading of messages requires that you preserve both the References and In-Reply-To headers, which allow threading in News and Mail, respectively. Now that I think about it, threading isn't affected when you change the Message ID. However, scoring is. Some people score their reading of News and Mail, giving highest scores to those who post followups or replies to their New articles and replies to their messages on a mailing list. They'd know what Message ID they sent their message (to be added to the score file) but wouldn't know what Message ID you had assigned till the read it in News or looked at the Digest. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:34:13 EDT Subject: Re: Weird Caller ID > What showed on my screen was: > > UNAVAILABLE > 801-1599895 This appears to be an ID for an outgoing WATS trunk, operating out of area code 801. Bill ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:40:05 EDT Subject: Re: International Cell Phone Whoever wrote that "the only GSM system in the US is being shut down" is, I believe, mistaken. I think Omnipoint's PCS system is GSM (though obviously on different frequencies than in Europe) but a dual-band handset might do it for you. I don't know anything about their service quality, pricing or coverage (and I don't work for them) but they seem to be concentrated in the large metro areas (though their literature suggests that they also have roaming agreements with other carriers (which would require a dual-mode handset.) Bill ------------------------------ From: ianangus@angustel.ca (Ian Angus) Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 14:13:10 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote: > At this time it is not fair to make this type of comparison and state > Canada has low residential telephone rates. An exchange rate of .65 > appears to have been used which means we have an US$0.65 dollar. At > this exchange rate the Canadian dollar is horribly under- valued. Sorry, but the exchange rate is what it is, and must be used in any comparison of Canadian and U.S. rates. However, you miss the real point here. Canadian local phone rates have been lower than U.S. local rates -- in fact, lower than most of the world -- for decades. In some cases the Canadian local rate is lower than the U.S. local rate even if you assume an exchange rate of 1.00! Some U.S. locations have lower basic rates than equivalent Canadian locations. But in every such case I'm aware of, the U.S. location has local measured service --they charge for local calls -- so the actual bill is higher. No Canadian location has measured local service. Until about 1994, however, Canadian long distance rates were significantly higher than U.S. rates -- often double for equivalent distances. Since then we have had (a) rate rebalancing which increased local residential rates by $5-$9 a month, depending on your locations and (b) an intense price war in long distance. The rate rebalancing increases narrowed the gap, but they did not bring Canadian local rates up to U.S. levels. But the price war has driven most Canadian LD prices to below U.S. levels. One example: $20 (Canadian) for unlimited evening and weekend calls within Canada is available in most provinces now. That's an astonishingly good deal, and available in most provinces. The result, as shown in the Yankee Group study I quoted, is that the total cost of Canadian telephone service (Local + LD) is well below U.S. levels. In fact, I challenge you to find any country in the world with average phone bills as low as Canada's today. > Accounting can be used to manipulate the cost of operating a > division or segment of a business to make it look more profitable or > more costly to operate. What is to stop a Canadian Telco from > accruing a disproportionate amount of their costs to the segment of > their business responsible for providing residential telephone > service. .... > I find it impossible to believe the Telcos are not moving their costs > around. The only question is the extent and the effect this is having > on the rates charged to residential customers There is not time or space here to discuss the complexities of the Phase III Accounting procedures which the CRTC imposed on the telcos to guard against cross-subsidies of the type you describe. Suffice it to say that charges such has yours have been made before, investigated in enormous detail, with all the figures on the public record, and no one has ever proven anything. I can't prove they don't do what you suggest -- it's impossible to prove a negative -- but I can say that if companies with the resources and telecom knowledge of AT&T couldn't prove it, then if it is happening it's buried so deep that it's not having much noticeable effect in the real world. Ian Angus Angus TeleManagement Group Inc http://www.angustel.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 05:16:24 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Stanley Cline wrote: > GSM in the US is provided by about a dozen companies, the largest being > VoiceStream/Omnipoint. Other US GSM carriers include SBC (PacBell's > Pure Digital PCS); BellSouth (BellSouth Mobility DCS in the Carolinas > and northeast Tennessee); TDS (Aerial Communications); Powertel; DigiPH > PCS; PCS One (a partnership between Omnipoint and D&E Telephone in > central PA); as well as several smaller companies (that, unfortunately, > do not roam with anyone else.) In Canada, GSM service is provided by > Microcell, who markets the service itself under the Fido name, and whose > service is resold by Cityfone. Close. These services are DCS-1800. It is on the US PCS frequency plan, not GSM. It is the GSM air interface protocol, basically, but not compatible with the service in Europe, either in the true GSM band (900 MHz) or the European PCS band (1900 MHz) due to the frequency plan mismatch. Doug Rosser wrote: > 2. BT Cellnet SIM Card, which will allow roaming into any of the GSM 1900 > carriers in the US (I've used Omni Point and Bell South so far) and will > also work through Europe. I understand that a common European tariff is in > place/or near. (as a bonus the phone will also work in most of Asia/Pacific > (The obvious excpetions being Japan and South Korea). This is about as close as you will get to international roaming at present. The SIM card is the real key. An implementation of them for the CDMA air interface is being developed - degree of compatibility with the Euros TBD. If you are travelling internationally to a place that operates an incompatible standard, don't bother to take the incompatible handset. Take the SIM card & rent a phone. GSM rentals are offered in many European airports. How they handle the billing for that I don't know. I do think that the SIM card was one of the smarter things the GSM crowd did. Reasons there are NOT true international phones: 1. Different bandplans in different regions, arising from tangled international electro-politics. The US, actually, was one of the troublemakers in this regard, as our FCC, under political pressure, allocated the PCS spectrum contrary to ITU recommendations. 2. Different air interface protocols, driven by regional protectionism, market manipulation, and some degree of NIH (that's "not invented here" for those of you who never worked in DoD contracting). Example: The old British FM system (TACS, used widely in Asia also), which is basically AMPS, but changed just enough (frequency plan, frequency raster, deviation, other small things) to make it different and incompatible. 3. Difficulty (read "expense and size") of implementing multiple bands/protocols in one phone. The components in the phone that are needed to do this are some of the more expensive & bulky, so they tend to not get built. Also, I suspect that the market for a true multi-band, multi-mode international phone is probably near zero. It's easier, as my previous facetious e-mail suggested, to just get a local phone appropriate for wherever you are. In this respect, the SIM card seems like a good compromise solution, given the inablilty to globally agree. There ARE dual-band, dual mode phones in the US. Many of the PCS phones operate CDMA digital in the 1800 MHz band, and when they can't find digital service, revert to AMPS at 800 MHz, where they are treated more or less like roamers by the AMPS carriers, even if they are at home. Sprint, especially, has marketed a lot of these. This helps the consumers' perceptions of coverage, as the AMPS networks are *very* well developed ... I'm always impressed by how far out in the desert you can find AMPS service ... and the PCS operators started later. In spite of noble efforts over the last several years to create a truly global "third generation" standard, there doesn't seem to be much hope of it really happening. The intergalactic soap opera that has been the global "harmonization" effort has converged ... on a solution that does one thing in the US and another in Europe. Why is this not a surprise?! -- Best -- Arthur Dr. Arthur H. M. Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #344 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 26 17:38:23 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA02285; Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:38:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:38:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908262138.RAA02285@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #345 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Aug 99 17:38:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 345 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Some Customers Call SW Bell Deal Foul (Fred Goodwin) Re: SprintPCS Surcharge Not Just For Late Payers - All Must Pay (M. Black) Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) (Art Kamlet) Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) (Steve Winter) New Surcharge on LEC Phone Bill (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (Joe Jensen) Re: Consumers Hooked on Caller ID, Etc. (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing (Travis Dixon) GSM in the US (was Re: Info About an International GSM (Robert Berntsen) Re: Death of GSM in Washington D.C. (Robert Berntsen) Obsolete V&H CD-ROMs (Keelan Lightfoot) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:42:30 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) wrote: >> How can my customer change the responsible organization on their >> toll-free number so service can continue with another carrier? > I think this one's fairly easy. You have your customer's lawyer > contact the Chapter 7 trustee, and offer to purchase the RespOrg > rights from the Chapter 7 estate Actually, assuming your customer is reflected as the subscriber of record (versus a reseller etc.), he should simply choose a new RespOrg. It's the new RespOrg's responsibility to submit the LOA (Letter of Authorization) to the SMS to transfer the number from the bankrupt RespOrg to the new one. Should take no more than 48 hours. (If there's more to this problem, call me -- I'll see if I can help, or point you in the right direction.) In answer to Mr. Levant's suggestion, RespOrg status is a certification from DSMI under FCC Tariff 1. You can't 'buy' it (although you do pay for it), and it wouldn't be assignable to a non-RespOrg entity. Judith Oppenheimer http://icbtollfree.com http://800consulting.com http://whosells800.com 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 ------------------------------ From: Fred Goodwin Subject: Re: Some Customers Call SW Bell Deal Foul Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:41:44 -0500 Instead of complaining about SWB Wireless, I wonder why these customers aren't complaining about the attorneys who represented them in the class action and who negotiated the settlement? I understand why SWB Wireless would want a settlement that does not require an out-of-pocket cash payment. But I do wonder what the attorneys representing the class got as their contingency? Fred Goodwin, CMA Associate Director -- Technology Program Management SBC Technology Resources, Inc. 9505 Arboretum, 9th Floor, Austin, TX 78759 fgoodwin@tri.sbc.com (512) 372-5921 (512) 372-5991 fax > From: Monty Solomon >Subject: Some Customers Call SW Bell Deal Foul > Court approved settlement, company responds > By Jennifer Files / The Dallas Morning News > Southwestern Bell Wireless' settlement of a class-action lawsuit looks > too much like a sales pitch to please some subscribers. > Plaintiffs had accused Bell of not telling customers clearly enough that > it rounds call length up to the nearest minute when calculating bills. > The company settled the case last year by agreeing to provide customers > better descriptions of the billing practice - and by offering > subscribers a $15 voucher. ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: SprintPCS Surcharge Not Just For Late Payers - All Must Pay Date: 26 Aug 1999 14:50:41 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two problems here. First of all, no > clerk I know of is paid (or valued at) anywhere close to $50 per > hour. They get paid $7-8 per hour and adding in non-cash expenses > like insurance, social security tax, etc it comes to maybe $10 per > hour. Secondly, there also has to be a clerk (valued at the same > cost) who handles the credit card payments does there not? So if > a $7 per hour clerk riffles credit card papers all day long or > endorses checks all day long or counts cash and puts it in a cash > register all day long, what is the difference? PAT] Pat-- Perhaps this is some Trilateral Commission conspiracy to get people conducting their transactions in electronic form. Or maybe it was instituted by the IRS to ensure taxpayer compliance ... they could offer tax breaks to corporations for reporting individuals' spending habits and plug that all into a hugh database which would go to the FBI ... -----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services BH-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know about some plot by the Trilateral Commission. Anything is possible I guess. I think what may be more likely is that companies with very large customer bases and a huge amount of remittance processing day after day may have some difficulty with dishonesty by employees they'd like to reduce or eliminate. Cash has a way of attracting undesirable strangers, if you understand what I mean. Illinois Bell in their Chicago headquarters had to clean their mailroom out a couple times because they had gotten so infested with petty thieves; people whose job was to open envelopes with customer payments. Keeping the stacks in exactly the same order for ease in balancing, remittance advices in one stack, the check or money order used as payment in the other stack. After about a hundred such remittance advices in one pile with checks/money orders in the other pile, add up both stacks, insure that both stacks balance, band it all together, it becomes a 'batch' and goes to the next phase of operation, probably check endorsing, where the checks and remittance coupons get microfilmed at the same time. Assign a 'batch number' to the whole thing. Then start over again. Do it for eight hours per day. You and twenty other young ladies, all sitting in one large room, all getting minimum wage pay, all under the theoretically watchful eye of a supervisor. At 5 pm, the 'second shift' will come in, take their seats and continue doing the same thing until midnight. If the mail coming in starts to pile up too much, then there will be 'overtime' for anyone who wants to work a couple hours longer that day. As for the customer who sends a payment without a coupon or a coupon without a payment, those go in a different pile. Trouble is, some customers send cash money. What the remittance clerk is *supposed* to do is upon finding cash money in an envelope is immediatly leave her seat, and take the money over to a person somewhere in the room who sits in a locked cage and is known as the cashier. The cash will be handed to the cashier, who will give back to the remittance clerk a form called 'substitute for payment' with all the details filled in. This scrip then goes in the stack where the checks or money orders would go otherwise in order to make it all balance out. New employees are always 'tested' secretly. An envelope with a marked twenty dollar bill and no remittance coupon (just some childish, scrawled note saying, 'please apply this to my account') will *always* find its way into that new employee's stack of mail. Then one of the supervisors will *never* take their eyes off of that person for the next couple hours. If that twenty dollar bill does not make its way to the cashier before the next time the person leaves their desk to go to lunch or the restroom or wherever, they will be confronted by the supervisor. Sadly, a great many fail the test; there is no second chance to take the test over. But not all of the cashiers were honest either; they had ways of pocketing customer cash payments while doctoring up the associated paperwork. Chicago Transit Authority had a loss of about forty-six *million* dollars over a ten or twelve year period due to employee disonesty and extremely poor audit controls. It ranged from subway agents who would deliberatly mis-ring the fare (or not ring it at all) to employees in the money counting room at 77th and Vincennes Avenue who seven days per week worked in a room with upwards of a million one dollar bills scattered everywhere on tables, laying on the floor, etc, and very little supervision. These were the dollar bills which came out of bus fare collection boxes. Busses would be in a line at the garage pulling in. As each bus pulled up, someone would get on and quickly turn a key in the bottom of the fare box, pull out the cannister of money and insert an empty box in its place, a lot like is done at pay phones. Step off the bus, it pulls out, the next bus pulls forward, get on and repeat the process. A bus every 30-45 seconds or so, a few hundred dollars in coins and bills in each fare box. All the boxes then went inside where the bills were pulled out and tossed on a conveyor belt which kept dumping its load on work tables. The coins were then dumped out into a hopper which kept sorting and counting them. People sat at the end of the hopper rolling the coins as fast as they could. People in the counting room were to band together dollars bills in bunches of a hundred each with the little straps they put around them. It was all supposed to go with armored guards when the bank came around a couple times per day to get it all. Much of it however did not make it to the bank. It got to the point CTA was able to get the losses in the counting room largely under control by requiring that employees coming to work each day had to take off all their street clothes and wear a large gunny sack sort of thing to hide their nakedness. It had no pockets in it, nowhere to hide any money. Obviously they were not allowed to take five cents of their own money in the counting room. At the close of the shift, men went in one locker room and women in another where they removed their sack coverings and dressed again in their street clothes, all under the watchful eye of a security guard in the men's dressing room and a matron in the women's area. That still did not help where losses due to subway agents was concerned. A ring of five agents who worked the downtown subway stations on the night shift hit them up for about million dollars each over a five or six year period in the early 1980's by mis-ringing fares to unlock the turnstiles. The supervisor who was supposed to be in charge of that crew was in on it also. Now CTA prefers that riders purchase a monthly pass at a discount, and pay by check or credit card direct to CTA headquarters. Gee, I wonder why? LOL ... In any large company where there is a constant flow of customer remittances, frequently in small amounts of money it is always better to avoid *actual cash* whenever possible and work instead with just checks or entries in a computer somewhere. Chicago Transit Authority was the most outrageous example in recent years in Chicago, however the main downtown post office had quite a bit of philandering by employees for a few years (see my earlier reports here on the losses suffered by Missionary Fathers) until the postal inspectors went in one night and cleaned the whole place out. Illinois Bell lost about a hundred thousand dollars to an internal fraud ring operating in their mailroom/remittance processing area in the late 1960's (about six or eight people were in on it), but the scandalous situation at Transit Authority was the worst of all, where they found not one, not two, but three or four 'independent' rings operating without knowledge of each other. There were the subway agents, the counting room employees, and a couple individuals at the headquarters offices who had 'peculiar ways' of handling cash from customers who stopped in to purchase tokens, transit cards, etc. Cash seems to fall in the wrong hands far too often; avoid its actual handling whenever possible. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) Date: 26 Aug 1999 10:45:58 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Victor R Pirozzolo wrote: > Kent K. Steinbrenner wrote: >> What showed on my screen was: >> UNAVAILABLE >> 801-1599895 >> 159 as a prefix? I think not! >> Anyone have any idea why this number was shown? I remember a couple of >> months ago I got a prefix beginning with a 0, which also was from an >> "UNAVAILABLE" caller. > The "159" number is an outwats line. In many of the older switches, > numbers beginning with "1" were used for outwats. It is a legitimate > number. You won't be able to call it, as switches other than the one > containing this code wouldn't be translated to allow the dialing or > routing of this code. Even if you could, outwats lines are programmed > with 'denied termination' and therfore can't receive calls. And when AT&T provided in-wats (later called 800 service) they trasnlated the 800 to 195. The urban legend was that 195 was chosen because it was the address of AT&T's headquarters building in NYC (195 Broadway.) [ wats - wide area telephone service - but everyone knew that, right?] When the January 1984 divesture occurred, AT&T decided they no longer wanted such a building, so they created the AT&T Foundation, and gave the building to the Foundation. Then they built a new headquarters building at 550 Madison Avenue, which they later unloaded on Sony. Basking Ridge - the world's largest pagoda with an incredibly large number of window offices and corner window offices -- is really a pretty nice place. But you might need a driver's license, something long timers at AT&T never needed in NYC. (In fact, when AT&T first moved people to Basking Ridge in the early-70s, they paid for driving school courses for an employee's entire family, and gave multi-year interest free loans to buy cars.) In order to translate 800 into 195, Western Electric turned out bunches of Network Control Point machines (whose network position now would be called an SCP.) I think they used CCIS6 signalling to the NCPs, but am less certain about that. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:21:41 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com Kent K. Steinbrenner spake thusly and wrote: > Anyone have any idea why this number was shown? I remember a couple of > months ago I got a prefix beginning with a 0, which also was from an > "UNAVAILABLE" caller. That can easily happen with international calls, but I am not sure about the number you provided. I was quite surprised at some of the caller IDs until I realized it was international. Another possibility is that prefixes (previously unheard of) are being added all the time to keep up with demand. Steve "I dream of a nation with a phone in every room." - unknown (and unwanted) http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: New Surcharge on LEC Phone Bill Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:07:32 GMT A new surcharge started appearing on my Ameritech phone bill this month: Equal Access Recovery Charge, four cents a month. Fg.D has been around for an awfully long time; surely those costs are fully recovered by now. Anyone want to speculate what this is for? ------------------------------ From: Joe Jensen Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 13:19:23 -0400 There is a lot of risk with this kind of promotion. As an interexchange carrier, I have to pay access charges to both the originating and terminating local telephone company on a per minute basis. These charges range from a few tenths of a cent to 9 cents a minute. Assuming a 30 day month, there are 43,200 minutes available for calling (60 minutes x 24 hours x 30 days). If I were to pick a lower switched access charge of $0.007 (7 tenths of a cent) per minute, my obligation to the LECs on both ends of the call would be $600 per month, if the line were left up continuously for the month. If I only left the call up during normal business hours (21.75 days x 8 hours x 60 minutes), the access charges would total to $146. I have not even paid for the underlying transport of the call. Not a money making proposition. Joe Jensen Buckeye TeleSystem > I received an email message about a "new plan" which claims to provide > unlimited LD calling for $60 a month ... ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Consumers Hooked on Caller ID, Etc. Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 14:54:17 GMT > The latest example: Bell Atlantic's Call 54, which enables people to > find out the name and address that corresponds to a local phone > number, as long as both the name and address are listed. To get the > information, a person calls 555-5454 and then dials in the phone > number. A recorded voice reads the name and address, and even offers > to spell them. > This service is a response to the growth of Internet and CD-Rom search > services, say company officials. With Call 54, consumers can look up > three listings for one 75-cent call. This has been available in Chicago for decades: Customer Name and Address. 796-9600 from any of the five area codes that used to be in 312. I have no idea if it works from out-of-town. Not to mention Haines Criss+Cross directory that were compiled from phone book listings in telephone-number order. Have we had any privacy at all since the telephone was invented? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It works okay from out of town, all that happens is the caller pays toll, and Ameritech does not get the 75 cents per call as they do locally. 312-796-9600 has been totally automated for about twenty years; before that it was answered by a live person. Prior to that number where all central office records were consolidated in the one database it uses, we had the same thing but on a different number. From about 1920 through sometime in the middle 1960's you got the same information from any exchange by calling (that exchange)-2080 which reached a clerk in the chief operator's office for the given exchange. She would look through a roladex sort of card file on the chief operator's desk. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Travis Dixon Subject: Re: Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:15:56 GMT Monty Solomon wrote: > Company's new InfoSpeed is faster than dial-up Net service but > slower than cable modem > One of the first differences I noticed between the DSL and the cable > modem was the speed. Although the DSL is supposed to run faster than > the cable modem, in my side-by-side comparison tests I found that > overall, the cable modem Internet connection was between 30 and 50 > percent faster than the DSL. Simson of course completely ignores the fact that cable modems are highly dependent on the local congestion. Any ISP is subject to congestion in the back end. He neglects to mention which service he subscribed to -- the 364k is what I am guessing , so his download speeds are really fairly accurate for the DSL line. Once all the neighbors get cable modems too his performance is likely to come down somewhat. ------------------------------ From: Robert Berntsen Subject: Re: GSM in the US, was: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:59:41 +0200 GSM in USA and Canada: If you look at: http://www.gsmworld.com/gsminfo/cou_us.htm you will find a list of 25 US GSM operators ( not all up and running). In Canada there is one operator: Microcell Telecom Inc I believe there is 17 of these in full operation. There is more than 3 mill customers in North America on GSM. The growth has been 2 mill addition in 1998, 800.000 in 4th quarter of 1998. Coverage for GSM is 55% of US population and 52% of Canadian pop. North America uses 1900 MHz for GSM while most other GSM networks use 900 and 1800 MHz. (I believe there is one Rusian network at 1900 MHz). I do not know similar statistics for other cell.phone systems in North America, so pls. fill me in. Regards, R. Danny Burstein wrote in message ... > In johnl@iecc.com (John > R. Levine) writes: >> Most of Europe is GSM, the UK is GSM >> and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's >> shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. > While Sprint may be shutting down its GSM network in DC (which is a > result of some very wierd marketing and legal issues which no one > seems to really understand ...) GSM is quite alive and well, and > growing, in many other parts of the country. And with a lot of finger > crossing, we'll BE BACK in Washington. ------------------------------ From: Robert Berntsen Subject: Re: Death of GSM in Washington D.C. Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 10:53:01 +0200 Arthur Ross wrote: > In the EU countries operators are REQUIRED to run an ETSI-approved > standard, of which right now there is one: GSM. They have leveraged > this into world-wide dominance -- the GSM organization has more than > 300 operator members in something like 130 countries. There are far > more GSM subscribers world-wide than CDMA, even though the latter is a > far-superior technical standard. Even with different frequency plans, > it would not be difficult to run the same air interface and network > protocols if they really wanted to. You (Arthur Ross) seem to express feelings not facts. CDMA is not "far-superior" to GSM. It is perhaps a little bit better, technically, but much worse overall because of the political situation for the CDMA. In addition, the scattered frequency plan of USA makes cellular networks harder to make there than in other part of the world. Adding CDMA in Europe would be a step backwards, as the new UTMS standard is even better and now including the whole world. > I personally think this is an appalling situation. And so does the US > government. There have been nastygrams exchanged between Washington & > Brussels over the last few months regarding this Euopean use of its > regulatory regime to exclude competition and manipulate markets. Are you referring to the unsuccessfully lobbying by Qualcom to block the rest of the world (including other US manufact) from reaching an agreement on UMTS? Jan Ceuleers wrote in message ... > I'm sorry, but I fail to see how this excludes competition. In the > markets for GSM infrastructure and terminals, American companies are > quite successful, you know. Americans are also well represented as > shareholders of European and other GSM operators. Moreover, the fact > that so many operators use the same technology also means that in many > cases there are several competing operators in the same service area, > all using GSM technology. This once again encourages competition, as it > reduces the barriers for users to switch to another operator. > As you rightly said elsewhere, the GSM market is huge. It's not limited > to Europe. The bigger the market, the more attractive it becomes for > equipment manufacturers. The standard is open and widely available. > Where are the barriers to competition you are talking about? > Also: unlike CDMA, there are no licensing strings attached to GSM. Jan, I agree. More important, for the customer, GSM works and works extremely well. Regards, R ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 03:41:39 -0700 Subject: Obsolete V&H CD-ROMs From: Keelan Lightfoot I am building an interface for my new old rotary Centurion payphone, so that it acts like a real payphone with a normal resedential phone line. I have already built the 130 volt power supply to trip the coin relay, and am waiting for the components that I need to use to detect the coin tones on the phone line. I have no commercial interest in building this interface. I am just doing it for fun. I was looking around tonight for where I could purchase the V&H databases required to calculate long distance rates. I started by searching old TELECOM Digests - $80 for the tape in the 80's. It now costs $289 (around $400 Canadian!) from Telecommunications Research Associates (www.tra.com). I can't afford this for a hobby project where the most expensive component is the payphone ($50 Canadian). Now, my questions: 1) Would it be legal to use an obsolete second-hand V&H database CD-ROM with my payphone, or does the licencing agreement say that these things are to be destroyed when the new CD-ROM comes in the mail? 2) If it would be legal for me to use a second-hand CD-ROM, where could I get one? What would it cost me? I really don't care if it is a year old, as I could preform a few kludgy translations on dialed numbers to make them work with newly split area codes. Any help is appreciated! Keelan Lightfoot ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #345 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 26 23:46:08 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA15960; Thu, 26 Aug 1999 23:46:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 23:46:08 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908270346.XAA15960@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #346 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Aug 99 23:46:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 346 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Death of GSM in Washington D.C. (Simon Chapman) Re: GSM in the US (was Re: Info About an International GSM) (T. Pelliccio) Re: Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing (Barry Margolin) Re: Water Damage To Phone (John R. Myers) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (Heywood Jaiblomi) Re: Autodialer Vendors (Adam H. Kerman) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Adam H. Kerman) Re: MCI Billing Problem (Bill Levant) Computer History AUDIO - Cold War Air Defense: NORAD and SAGE (L Weinstein) Modem->GSM Wireless->3640 BRI/modem in Germany? (Michael Medwid) Phone Company List? (vickiesfsd@netscape.com) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Michael Paci) Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Tony Pelliccio) Re: MyLine Service Discontinued (Ed Leslie) Re: VISA Authorizations (Andrew) Wierd Call (mbusse@midway.uchicago.edu) Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) (A Argyriou) Re: Last Laugh! A Tragic Case of a Wrong Number (G.L. Sicherman) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:36:39 -0500 From: Simon Chapman Subject: Re: Death of GSM in Washington D.C. Arthur Ross wrote: > In the EU countries operators are REQUIRED to run an ETSI-approved > standard, of which right now there is one: GSM. They have leveraged > this into world-wide dominance -- the GSM organization has more than > 300 operator members in something like 130 countries. There are far > more GSM subscribers world-wide than CDMA, even though the latter is a > far-superior technical standard. Even with different frequency plans, > it would not be difficult to run the same air interface and network > protocols if they really wanted to. I have a genuine question about this ridiculously emotive argument, which I'll probably regret, but here goes anyhow: Am I right in thinking that all CDMA mobile systems are IS-41 networks? And that IS-41 is necessarily backwardly compatible and constrained by its ongoing support of TDMA and AMP ? And that IS-41 has some "issues" such as the use of 10 digit MINs rather than international numbers, non-standard feature codes, SMS constraints, MAP message length constraints, no CBC, USSD etc.? I just about understand (I think) that CDMA has a better radio access method in terms of efficiency, but its more than that isnt it? (I assume that this is the foundaction of above "far superior" claim) +--------------------------------+--------------------------------+ | Simon Chapman | | | Logica | Office Phone : +1-214-599-1000 | | 3535 Travis St., Suite 110, | Office Fax : +1-214-599-1001 | | Dallas, TX 75204 USA | www.logica.com | +--------------------------------+--------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: GSM in the US (was Re: Info About an International GSM) Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 21:25:52 GMT In article , dannyb@panix.com says: > In johnl@iecc.com (John > R. Levine) writes: >> Most of Europe is GSM, the UK is GSM >> and TACS. The only GSM system in the US was in D.C. but it's >> shutting down and turning into something else, CDMA, I think. > Wash your mouth out with soap, there, pardner. Dem's fighting words. > While Sprint may be shutting down its GSM network in DC (which is a > result of some very wierd marketing and legal issues which no one > seems to really understand ...) GSM is quite alive and well, and > growing, in many other parts of the country. And with a lot of finger > crossing, we'll BE BACK in Washington. GSM will surely be back in Washington. Do you think that Sprint is just going to walk away from the infrastructure? How much do you want to bet that Omnipoint/VoiceStream snap it up? == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing Organization: GTE Internetworking, Cambridge, MA Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 21:39:31 GMT In article , Travis Dixon wrote: > Simson of course completely ignores the fact that cable modems are > highly dependent on the local congestion. Any ISP is subject to > congestion in the back end. He neglects to mention which service he > subscribed to -- the 364k is what I am guessing , so his download > speeds are really fairly accurate for the DSL line. MediaOne cable modem service has been available in my neighborhood for over two years, so I think that it's probably pretty crowded. Yet I still get the full 1.5Mbps advertised speed when I download a test file from their server. MediaOne is pretty good about splitting up nodes when they get too crowded, to avoid congestion problems in the last mile. Some users don't get the advertised speed (Simson seems like one of them because he said his 300-600Kbps upstream is speed is the same as his downstream), but it's more likely due to wiring problems -- many buildings, especially apartments, have old wiring that doesn't provide the signal quality that a cable modem needs. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: John R. Myers Subject: Re: Water Damage To Phone Date: 26 Aug 1999 19:26:52 GMT Organization: John R. Myers / Palo Alto, California, USA The stories about water and telephones remind me of some family oral history, and the circumstances raise a new question. Upon hearing about the birth of my brother, in 1953, my grandmother dropped the phone into an aquarium. She fished it out, so to speak, by the cord and it commenced to smoke and sizzle. So she emptied out a large pretzel tin, placed the instrument inside, clamped the lid down tightly around the cord, and called Repair Service from a neighbor's house. When the installer arrived to swap out the phone she refused to part with the old one saying that she and her husband bought that phone outright when they moved to Hamilton (Baltimore County) in the twenties. She didn't like the new ones, and she would not trade her private property for Bell System property. Then she played her big card ... her son would normally take care of something like this, but he was called back to active military service from the Towson Toll Tandem Office. Call the Wire Chief in Hamilton to confirm my story. Sure enough, the boss remembered Dad as someone who started out there and as a union member who had volunteered to remain inside to maintain emergency services during one long strike. The lady could keep her phone. When my father saw it he took one whiff and then turned it over to me for exploratory surgery with the admonition not to connect any of the parts to the wall outlet (as was my custom when I was much younger.) Now the question. How common were these title disputes between suburbanites and the phone company? After all, we all know that those old phones were almost indestructable so this kind of confrontation over "grandfathered" equipment would not arise very often, and it would seem almost impossible for the rightful owner to "win" in any case. John R. Myers / Palo Alto, California "In theory there's no difference between theory and practice." ------------------------------ From: heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:50:16 GMT Organization: Free the Hooters Two In article , mxs159@cwru.edu wrote: > I believe that $60 for unlimited calling is practical today. Even at > five cents a minute, a person would have to make 40 minutes of > personal long distance calls everyday to keep up! In Canada, I think I have an even better deal for my business. LD calls in country are 35 cents per ten minute period day or nite. That works out to 171 hours a month (or more than one solid week) before I would hit the $60 mark. (assuming I am making mostly long calls rather than many short calls.) If I had my life to live over, I think I'd like to live over a liquor store. ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Autodialer Vendors Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:19:24 GMT John Warne wrote: > If anyone on the list uses autodialer message delivery systems, I'd > appreciate contact information for the company supplying the equipment. > Our school system will be replacing a 48-port system later this > year. The current system attempted over 1.5 million telephone calls to > parents of school children in the 1998-1999 school year, notifying of > absences, school events, and other information. God those things are obnoxious. One of my phone lines at home is still listed on numerous school and social service records as some sort of group home for children because a contract social service agency never updates records. For three years at the start of the school year, I'd get these calls. When I was a kid, the schools would never call parents regularly. They'd only call if there was an emergency. Today, they put the autodialer on all sorts of ordinary calls: School starts on such- and-such date, make sure your immune shots are up-to-date. I'd get calls for lots of absenses, like, why hasn't the kid been to school at all this semester? It took a while, but I think I finally tracked down all the schools with this incorrect number. My favorite call was from a downstate juvenile detention facility. I still get calls from the social service agency on occassion. ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:39:12 GMT Alan Gore wrote: [changeover to automated billing on credit card and double billing] > This month, MCI sent a copy of my January statement in response to the $306 > amount. This caused American Express to declare the mater resolved, > and rebill the amount to my account. You have protection because you were billed on your credit card statement. Send a letter to AmEx with copies of your MCI invoices and both sides of the cancelled checks. I'm sure AmEx will resolve it in your favor. > I have not heard anything further about the $643.09 amount, so unless MCI > rebills that, I'm assuming my credit will stand. So at this moment I'm still > out the $306 that was rebilled. Not to mention time and aggravation. Why haven't you cancelled your MCI service? You'd stand a better chance of getting it resolved if you send written protests to the managers of each facility that billed you incorrectly. If that doesn't work, write to the president of MCI. If that doesn't work, file a written complaint with your state public service commission and file a consumer fraud complaint with your state's attorney general. I doubt you'll successfully resolve anything over the telephone. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:36:54 EDT Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Write back to AMEX with a copy of your cancelled check (front and back) and tell them to charge it back to MCI again. And cancel MCI. NOW. Bill ------------------------------ Subject: Computer History AUDIO - Cold War Air Defense: NORAD and SAGE Date: Thu, 26 Aug 99 15:40:03 PDT From: Lauren Weinstein Greetings. Now available via the Vortex Technology "Computer History" page, the audio for two short United States Air Force productions dating from the inception of the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD Complex (System 425L) and the SAGE Air Defense System. Both are fascinating insights into the dawn of modern computing and telecommunications, and the thinking (at least in some quarters) of the era (1950's and 60's). If you're interested, please follow the links via: http://www.vortex.com/comphist Thanks much. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum --- http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Host, "Vortex Reality Report & Unreality Trivia Quiz" --- http://www.vortex.com/reality ------------------------------ From: Michael Medwid Subject: Modem->GSM Wireless->3640 BRI/modem in Germany? Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:22:35 -0700 Organization: Symantec Corp. Okay - here's a long shot. We implemented 3640s with BRIs and digital modems in Europe for RAS. Unfortunately in Germany it appears trying to make a modem call over a cell phone fails. (Nokia 6110 phone and the Cellular Datasuite 2.0 (http://www.nokia.com/phones/datasuite/specs20.html) ) It appears that in Germany (Munich) that when the GSM data call is placed it becomes a V.110 call and evidently the 3640 is not up to answering that kind of call. Note that if you use the same setup and call from Leiden Netherlands you can call the 3640 in Munich no problem. So the issue seems to be in how the GSM provider handles/passes-on the analog data call. Evidently there are supposed to be some AT commands in the GSM modem that are supposed to be able to alter how the call is passed-on. But using those had no effect for the users in Germany. So -- here's the long shot -- anyone have an office in Germany with a 3640 and the BRI/Analog modem combination for RAS (and routing?) AND are you able to make analog modem calls to this 3640 via GSM modem? Thanks. Please mailto:amigan@ihot.com if you have any applicable experience. Cisco says they won't have v.110 compatibility until next year. Michael ------------------------------ From: vickiesfsd@netscape.com Subject: Phone Company List? Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 13:09:08 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: vickiesfsd@netscape.com Does anyone know where a list of ALL the phone companies (with contact information) can be found if there is such a thing? ------------------------------ From: mjpaci@mpmcapital.com (Michael Paci) Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:51:16 -0400 Organization: MPM Capital LP Bosch and Ericsson make cell phones that operate at 1,900 Mhz and 900 Mhz GSM. Omipoint (http://www.omniopoint.com or 1-800-RU4OMNI) sells these phones and will even help you set them up. One must remember that you'll have 1 cell phone, but 2 SIM cards. So, once you get off the airplane you've gotta switch cards in order to use your phone. Omnipoint also offers a service where you have 1 SIM card and 1 phone number. Great if you're a US businessperson that travels to Europe a lot and need to be reached by people in the NANP. However, if you want your friend in Paris to call you while you're also in Paris, the friend will need to call your US number. US GSM systems (Omnipoint which operates from Boston on down through Philadelphia*) use the 1,900 Mhz while European GSM systems use 900 Mhz. For those of you out there, that's about a 400 mile strech. The phones work in all of the major airports (La Guardia, Newark, JFK, Philly, Logan) along the corridor and all along I-95 from Philly on up (that I've experienced). There may be a few small dead spots around Trenton, NJ. Though I've found it to be fairly (>75%) reliable in that area. The coverage is also excellent along the NJ Turnpike, the Mass Pike and I-84. There are a few dead spots east of Hartford along I-84, but only for ~10 miles. I've even used the phone I have (standard $49 Ericsson) in National Airport and Dulles in DC where it tells me that Sprint is my carrier and in San Francisco, well actually from Monterey up the PCH and/or 101 all the way through San Francisco. There it tells me that PacBell is the carrier. Oh yeah, I forgot model numbers. Here you go: Ericsson I888 World ($299) and the Bosch World 718 ($199). From my experience, the Ericsson is a better phone. Mike Paci *Omnipoint also has coverage in: New England, NY City, Long Island, North and Central NJ, Northeastern PA, the Detroit area, South Florida, and Indiana among others. They are also planning coverage south of DC to Richmond then East along I-64 through Tidewater, VA all the way to VA Beach. ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 21:31:13 GMT In article , joel@exc.com says: >> (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe; > Omnipoint offers this service. I rented one of their phones, and it > worked fine in Europe. But their service in the US isn't so hot. > Still, you should have service in most major cities. Omnipoint service tends to follow interstate highways, major secondaries and cities. Luckily in New England that means the whole region. Give it five years and there'll be REAL nationwide coverage under GSM. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: EdLeslie@EDU.YorkU.CA (Ed Leslie) Subject: Re: MyLine Service Discontinued Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 01:24:08 GMT Organization: York University, Ontario, Canada On Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:26:26 -0500, Mark.Brukhartz@wdr.com wrote: > Access Line has one unique feature: ``meet me'' paging. It will place > a caller on hold and page you. When you call in to Access Line, it'll > connect you with the waiting caller. Access Line holds a patent for > this nifty feature. I don't know if they license it to other vendors. > Is anyone aware of other systems with ``meet me'' paging? Up here in Bell Canada territory, I've had a "Primeline" for a number of years. Bell tried to drop it as non-Y2K compliant, but due to complaints to the CRTC, were not allowed to do so. After about three tries, the upgrade to a purposedly Y2K compliant version of the system has now been complete. I like mine *a lot*. EdLeslie@EDU.YorkU.CA ------------------------------ From: andrew@3.1415926.org (Andrew) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 26 Aug 1999 12:08:36 GMT Organization: MaTech Jonathan D Loo (jloo@polaris.umuc.edu) wrote: > In article you write: >> Any bank that allows you to withdraw money already committed to a >> merchant (either by accident or on purpose), then penalize you with a >> $29 fee when that merchant's settlement comes in, has "set little >> traps" for you, and you should be hightailing it to another bank as >> soon as possible. They don't want your business, they want to SCREW >> you. Granted, some would argue "yeah, and this would be unusual ... >> how, exactly?", but like anything in the free market, you gotta vote >> with your wallet. Move your account and tell them how you feel about >> their "little traps" and that you've moved to another bank that >> chooses to treat customers fairly. > There is an important distinction to make here, however: when you > deposit money in an account, the bank does not directly earn anything; > the bank really earns money by lending your money to others. A > reduction in number of small or residential depositors have little > effect. I don't understand your point. Are you saying that if your balance is so low that you risk incurring fees, that the bank is justified in collecting absurd fees because they can't make much money by lending against your small balance? Two points: The individual depositor has more power than he realizes. The reserve requirement for banks is something like 10%. This means that they can lend 10 dollars for every dollar you deposit. So, by taking your $1000 savings balance elsewhere (to a credit union hopefully) you've potentially reduced their loan portfolio by $10000. Individuals account for the overwhelming majority of bank deposits in percentage of total dollars. It's the businesses that borrow the money. Andrew (happy credit union member) ------------------------------ From: mbusse@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Wierd Call Organization: Com Ed Bites like a Great White Shark Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 19:22:01 GMT I tend to get a lot of random calls where people just hang up when one answers. (Most of which, I assume, are people wardialling, or something similar) The other day, I actually decided to call one of them back. The number was (773) 847-8495. When you call it, it rings for a while, then a recorded voice says "Thank you." Does anyone have any idea what the heck this might be? "My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, and an assistant district attorney, and a stenographer."-Sam Spade ------------------------------ From: anthony@alphageo.com (Anthony Argyriou) Subject: Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 01:42:01 GMT Organization: Alpha Geotechnical Reply-To: anthony@alphageo.com Jonathan D Loo wrote: > If a company has a trademark and this trademark existed prior to the > registration of a domain name, this company should have no trouble > acquiring the domain name even if the domain name registrant refuses. > I am not a lawyer, so the above information may or may not apply to > all cases. There was a recent case where Avery-Dennison was overturned on appeal to get avery.net and dennison.net, which were held by a company which creates vanity e-mail and web addresses. (So John Q. Avery could get johnq@avery.net for a vanity e-mail, and http://www.avery.net/johnq for a vanity web address.) Some strange legal reasoning. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/trade082499.htm Discussion on Slashdot, including general discussion about domain name squatting and trademark: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/08/25/1218240&mode=thread Anthony Argyriou [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why exactly do you feel that Avery-Dennison should be entitled to have anything other than exactly that phrase? Why should they be entitled to have 'avery' and 'dennison' as well? Why wouldn't a person named Avery or a person named Dennison be able to have those names and use them on the web? Not everyone around here is trying to commercialize the net nor are they in competition with those who are trying to commercialize it. For the information of Jonathan Loo and others who seem to feel that if a company has a trademark or copyright all they have to do is just shut down someone else's website and take the name away from them, you cannot just take someone's name like that. At least you should not be able to, but the commercialized internet as we know it today -- thanks in large part to the Internet Society and their devotees who claim to speak for all netizens and who have their arms-wide-open in a welcome to big business everywhere -- has been largely hijacked from its real owners, and now anything is possible I guess. People should have a right to use their real names as part of their web site if they choose to do so. Any number of netizens whose last names happen to be the same as that of a commercial enterprise have found it extremely difficult to put up a web site with their name in it, even though they had nothing for sale at all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gls@noname.nowhere.com (G. L. Sicherman) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Tragic Case of a Wrong Number Date: 26 Aug 1999 20:24:32 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies In , TELECOM Digest Editor's wrote: > answering machine with a twenty second outgoing message for which I > had no other use and put it on the modem line to answer incoming > calls with the message, "You have reached a WRONG number, repeat, a > WRONG number. Hang up and dial again, correctly this time." (click). > In my evil, sick mind, . . . A really evil mind would have recorded something like this: You have reached... Hell. At the present time we are not accepting phone calls. You must visit us in person. I'd like to have heard her argue that one with the phone company! Col. G. L. Sicherman work: sicherman@lucent.com home: colonel@mail.monmouth.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Who knows, maybe the customer service rep would think she was complaining about a toll charge on her bill to Hell, Michigan and give her credit for that instead. For the benefit of persons who have never gone to Hell or been through Hell, it is a tiny little rural community about 30 miles north and west of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Just drive north on the interstate a few miles then left on one of the county roads, I forget which one off hand. Population about 500 people, their only industry seems to be farming and a small tourist shop on the main road where one can purchase T-shirts and coffee mugs which tell the world you have been through Hell. They also have postcards you can mail out telling your family and friends that you have gone to (or are now living in) Hell. Really, its a very lovely part of the state, situated sort of to the north and slightly west of a state forest. There used to be a branch of the National Weather Service located there, and on the occassions each winter that the temperature fell below 32 degrees, the weather station would issue a notice that 'Hell froze over'. The one occassion I had to visit there, we were just passing through driving between Ann Arbor and (I think) Muskegon, a number of years ago. Someone suggested we should drive through the town, so we did but the traffic on the local road from the interstate going west was very congested. It seems they were making 'road improvements' and had one or lanes closed most of the way. That led to the inevitable joke by us on the way that the road to Hell was getting paved and widened to make it easier to get there. Seriously. Hell, Michigan. Go visit sometime. Be sure and buy a couple souveniers. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #346 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 27 13:45:38 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA12389; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 13:45:38 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 13:45:38 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908271745.NAA12389@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #347 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Aug 99 13:45:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 347 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? (Joseph T. Adams) Re: Wierd Call (James Gifford) Re: How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg (Bill Levant) Re: How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg (J. Oppenheimer) Re: MAAP needed for Dimension 400 PBX... (Rodeocomm) International Calls and CIDs (takmel@stratos.net) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (Adam H. Kerman) UHA is Back! (Webmaster [UHA]) Re: GSM in the US (was Re: Info About an International GSM) (J.F. Mezei) Mexico Telecom Distribution Agreements (Leo McCulloch) Re: How I Block Cookies (Alan Boritz) Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General (Adam Kerman) Re: The D Stands for Dissappointing (Grover C. McCoury III) Re: Autodialer Vendors (Adam H. Kerman) (John Warne) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (David Esan) Re: MyLine Service Discontinued (Jeremy Greene) Re: Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing (Al Iverson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph T. Adams Subject: Re: Water Amplifies Electricity? Date: 27 Aug 1999 03:15:19 GMT Organization: Quality Data Division of JTAE Herb Stein wrote: > Water, at least distilled water without mineral content, is quite a > good insulator. That's true. Unfortunately, water, like silicon and several other substances, becomes a much better conductor if it is even slightly impure. The water we actually come into contact with is likely to have dissolved salts, carbon dioxide, and chlorine, and, in the case of a bathtub, probably soap and dirt as well. It conducts electricity not only better than pure water, but also better than dry skin. Worse, if you have metal plumbing, then this water also is in direct contact with the best electrical ground any home is likely to have. Electrical codes here require ground-fault interruption for electrical outlets in bathrooms. (Older buildings are grandfathered, though; this applies only to relatively new construction.) This means that current is allowed to flow only between the hot and neutral wires; any current that flows from hot to ground is detected and causes the circuit to be immediately interrupted, hopefully preventing or at least minimizing the duration of any shock that might be the cause of this abnormal current flow. I'm not aware of any similar requirement for phone wiring, or whether ground-fault detection and interruption is even possible for it. Does anyone know if such protection is possible? Joe ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Reply-To: gifford@nitrosyncretic.com Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Subject: Re: Wierd Call Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:45:01 -0700 mbusse@midway.uchicago.edu wrote: > I tend to get a lot of random calls where people just hang up when > one answers. (Most of which, I assume, are people wardialling, or > something similar) > The other day, I actually decided to call one of them back. The > number was (773) 847-8495. When you call it, it rings for a while, > then a recorded voice says "Thank you." > Does anyone have any idea what the heck this might be? Um, do you still have both your kidneys? :) | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press - gifford@nitrosyncretic.com | | See http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Robert Heinlein FAQ | | and information on "Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion" | [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Call me dense I guess. I don't get it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:06:15 EDT Subject: Re: How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg If the bankrupt RespOrg is listed as the "owner" of the number, then that property right is probably assignable by the Bankruptcy Court, and purchasable (is this a word?) from the Trustee. Certainly, if the RespOrg isn't the "owner" of the number then you don't need to buy it back. (Yeah, I know you can't "own" an 800 number, but I'm using the word loosely). Bill ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:10:03 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: Re: How to Get an 800 Number Away From a Bankrupt RespOrg I could argue the particulars. Instead, I'll just say -- from your mouth to God's ears. The more precedent set for asset value of and property rights in 800 numbers, the better. Judith Oppenheimer http://icbtollfree.com http://800consulting.com http://whosells800.com 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210 Wlevant@aol.com wrote: > If the bankrupt RespOrg is listed as the "owner" of the number, then that > property right is probably assignable by the Bankruptcy Court, and > purchasable (is this a word?) from the Trustee. > Certainly, if the RespOrg isn't the "owner" of the number then you don't need > to buy it back. > (Yeah, I know you can't "own" an 800 number, but I'm using the word loosely). > Bill ------------------------------ From: rodeocomm@aol.com (Rodeocomm) Date: 26 Aug 1999 18:38:29 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: MAAP Needed For Dimension 400 PBX Try calling Jack Gold at Northtel (651)227-5212. He usually has more of the old AT&T stuff than anyone else. Steve R. ------------------------------ From: NOtakmel@stratos.netSPAM Subject: International Calls & CIDs Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:51:27 GMT Organization: NetSet Internet Services, Inc. I assume that it's impossible to show the names on CID when a call is foreign origin but at least will it show something useful? Will it at least tell me it's an international call? TIA. R. ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 04:10:39 GMT llambda@gmx.net wrote: > However, when newspapers put their articles on the web for free, they > must justify it by making up for lost sales. What lost sales? I'm in Chicago; I wasn't going to subscribe to the {New York Times}. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But NYT is actually considered by many to be a national newspaper, and indeed, there are many people in Chicago who subscribe to it for home delivery. Many copies of it are purchased on newsstands around town also. When I was a little kid and had my newspaper route, although the vast majority of my customers got either the {Chicago Tribune} or the {Chicago Sun-Times} I guess there were about a dozen in all who got the miscellaneous papers. There was one who got the Polish newspaper {Daily Zgoda} each day, a couple got the NY Times, a few got the CS Monitor. Like the Monitor, the NY Times was always two days late. The reason was, the Monitor and the Times were placed on the New York Central train bound for Chicago each day from the east coast, as was the {Wall Street Journal}. The papers arrived in Chicago the next day and went to all the newspaper agencies including the one I worked for. Later that day, the carriers got the papers for delivery on their routes. All that changed of course with 'satellite printing'; NYT, WSJ and Monitor are all now transmitted from their home sites and actually printed locally. I think NYT is printed locally in Chicago by the Tribune printing plant ('Freedom Center') on the north side, so people get the paper the same day as the folks in New York. The Monitor is satellite-fed to a newspaper on the south side of town called the {Southtown Economist} which prints and distributes it locally. Also when I was a child, my mother took me on the Illinois Central train to New Orleans. The conductor on the train let me 'help' him with his duties for much of the trip, and one thing I remember distinctly was going into one car on the train which was stacked with bundles of newspapers, mainly the black newspaper called the {Daily Defender} but there were also bundles of the Monitor, NYT and others. As the train went through all the small towns in Tennessee and Mississippi in the early morning hours around daybreak if it stopped at a station, the man in the car with the newspapers would hand a bundle of newspapers out to the stationmaster. One or two days late was better than no newspaper at all. Sometimes even though the train did not stop, the guy would grab a bundle of papers and as the train slowed down just a little he would toss the bundle out the door into the back of a pickup truck waiting by the side of the track and wave to the guy. The train coming from New York to Chicago did the same thing; everyone in Ohio and Indiana got their copies of the the east coast newspapers as bundles would be tossed out the door into the back of pickup trucks the news agencies had waiting there. Then, the little kids in the community who had newspaper routes would take the papers to each home on their route. Believe me Adam, NYT does have a big readership in the Chicago area although circulation techniques have changed, and there are no more two-day old newspapers getting delivered. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:18:55 -0400 From: Webmaster [UHA] Subject: UHA is Back! http://www.uha1.com - United Hackers Association We're back online once again to provide you with the best! Our Server is now connected to a Fiber Optic backbone, to bring you the best speed possible, the best files possible, the most information possible!. Within the last two months many things have been done. We have already started hosting sites, for very low costs (check out www.uha1.net for prices). -Many files and information have been added. -Our Library now has about 2000 texts. If for any reason you come across any broken links, as a result of our quite active nature, you can contact files@uha1.com , with the link that is broken and it will be fixed within 24 hours. UHA is now offering free graphics ! For Those Webmasters which may not have time to make there own, We can do it for you!. Our skilled designers will do it for FREE. Check out http://www.UHA1.com c ya -the file ripper [Prezident of UHA] - United Hackers Assocation [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good luck with your web site! I hope it works out well for you and your associates. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: GSM in the US (was Re: Info About an International GSM) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 00:37:46 -0400 Tony Pelliccio wrote: > GSM will surely be back in Washington. Do you think that Sprint is just > going to walk away from the infrastructure? How much do you want to bet > that Omnipoint/VoiceStream snap it up? But SPRINT will want to have the GSM net down for long enough that its GSM customers will have had no choice but to convert to Sprints CDMA network, losing the advantages of GSM. If Sprint were to sell its GSM infrastrucrure right after decomissioning, I bet a lot of former Spring-GSM customers would just wait for Omnipoint to go live instead of switching phones etc etc. ------------------------------ From: Leo McCulloch Subject: Mexico Telecom Distribution Agreements Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 00:14:11 -0500 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Telemex now has the capacity to intercept all illegal traffic to Mexico. We can provide legal contracts for all bands in Mexico at competitive rates for traffic from the US. Some "back-haul" is available. No threat of closure. Some minimums apply but suitable for voice/data networks and debit card sales programs. Regards, Lic. Leo Arthur McCulloch Jr. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: How I Block Cookies Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 06:40:40 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Keith Jarett wrote: > On my PC, if I set my cookies.txt file's properties to "read only", > web sites think I've accepted their cookies, but nothing gets written > to disk. If I want to accept a cookie, I just uncheck the read-only > box, accept the cookie, then go back and re-set the cookies.txt file > to read-only. > Does anyone know if there is a flaw in this technique? Setting or resetting the read-only bit (on Netscape's cookies.txt) has no effect on the process of cookie processing, except that a cookie is not written to a file. Your browser will still store and send cookies it retains in memory for the current session. That's obviously only half of a solution. Web site operators can still track your movements between sites, they just can't track you between sessions. Keep in mind, though, that regardless of whether you allow web sites to write to cookies.txt, a rogue web site operator can read anything stored there (like passwords, preferences, etc.), unless if you've upgraded to a version higher than 4.51 (see Netscape tech note at http://help.netscape.com/kb/client/981231-1.html). BTW, although Netscape appears to have fixed the "Cookie Monster" cookie security bug, IBM apparently has no intention of fixing it on the OS/2 version, according to the Netscape team. ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Canada's Yak Plan and Canadian Telco System in General Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:15:33 GMT Ian Angus wrote: >Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote: >> At this time it is not fair to make this type of comparison and state >> Canada has low residential telephone rates. An exchange rate of .65 >> appears to have been used which means we have an US$0.65 dollar. At >> this exchange rate the Canadian dollar is horribly under-valued. > Sorry, but the exchange rate is what it is, and must be used in > any comparison of Canadian and U.S. rates. I agree with Mr. Mereniuk. The exchange rate is a function of all the trade of goods and services that takes place between two countries. (Though on that basis, it's wrong to say that the Canadian dollar is undervalued.) It's wrong to use the exchange rate to compare cost of living. Instead, one should attempt to compare what share a local phone bill has in the household budget of a typical urban consumer in Canada versus the United States, making sure the two consumers have roughly the same standard of living. The cost of local phone service isn't affected by international trade. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 08:28:08 -0700 From: Grover C. McCoury III Organization: Corvia Networks, Inc. Subject: Re: The D Stands for Dissappointing Yep, this is an important issue with cable modem. You share the pipe with all your neighbors. More subscribers in your neighborhood will most likely mean less bandwidth for you to use. Travis Dixon wrote: > Monty Solomon wrote: >> Company's new InfoSpeed is faster than dial-up Net service but >> slower than cable modem >> One of the first differences I noticed between the DSL and the cable >> modem was the speed. Although the DSL is supposed to run faster than >> the cable modem, in my side-by-side comparison tests I found that >> overall, the cable modem Internet connection was between 30 and 50 >> percent faster than the DSL. > Once all the neighbors get cable modems too his performance is likely > to come down somewhat. Grover C. McCoury III @ Corvia Networks, Inc. physical: 212 Gibraltar Drive Sunnyvale, CA 94089 audio: (408)752-0550 x128 electronic: grover@corvia.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 06:46:07 -0400 From: John Warne Subject: Re: Autodialer Vendors (Adam H. Kerman) Adam Kerman said, in part: > God those things are obnoxious. One of my phone lines at home is still > listed on numerous school and social service records as some sort of > group home for children because a contract social service agency never > updates records. I understand your frustration. We have a central database for all 29,000 students (and, sometimes, multiple phone numbers for a child). We also maintain a central point of contact for someone in your situation. One phone call from you would result in all instances of your phone number being purged from the school system database, no matter which of 50 school sites have the number. The most difficult case is when we get a call from a business. They know their lead number (and any private numbers), but not a clue as to the other numbers in hunt from the lead number. And guess which number *isn't* being called. BellSouth has an Annoyance Call Office. They have a bit of leverage in getting phone numbers out of databases. The obvious case of incorrect phone numbers happens when a telephone number is reissued by the LEC. Sometimes the data entry person at the school enters the number wrong. And, sometimes, the student gives an incorrect telephone number on purpose - making it hard for the disciplinary calls from humans at the school! ------------------------------ From: davidesan@my-deja.com Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:39:25 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , shadow@krypton.rain. com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: > It gets better. Some companies (like the local cable company) use bulk > mailing permits rather than metered mail for sending bills. > There's this one catch, which I learned when I used to help a friend > with bulk mailings. The post office checks the submitted "permit" mail > against the balance in the account. When the next item in the stack > will exceed the balance in the account, the rest of the mailing sits > there until more money is added to the account. They don't notify you > about this either (unless is sits there for weeks). > So I've gotten "you have 10 days to pay" notices the day before they > are due. And since there's no postmark on the bulk mail items, it's > useless to try proving anything. I had the same problem with my cellphone company. I pay my bills (via computer, no extra charge (yet!)) as they come in. I didn't get a cell bill in June, but didn't think much of it. The bill arrived on a Tuesday in July. I immediately called the cell company to tell them, and to explain why I hadn't paid. The customer service rep noted the information, told me not to worry. The next day I received a notice to disconnect since I hadn't paid. I called back, made sure they understood the situation. I paid the bill. Then they shut off my cell phone. (Strangely, it was one of the few times I actually needed it for an emergency, and it didn't work. Sigh.) The next day I called customer service, who sent me to accounting. Accounting informed me that it was not their fault that the USPS was late in delivering the bills, and that it was my responsibility to pay whether I got a bill or not! I asked how was I supposed to pay an unknown amount? They had cut my cell service because they had not yet received my check (two days later, mind you). I told her that it was not my problem that the USPS had not delivered my check on time. They restored my service, charged me no extra fees. I will note that they are the only utility that I have that doesn't use a first class stamp. And the only one with a first class operation. David Esan Veramark Technologies desan@veramark.com ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Greene Subject: Re: MyLine Service Discontinued Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:07:10 -0400 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. wrote in message news:: > Ameritech Cellular has a private Access Line system in a Chicago area > cellular POP. The system requires an upgrade for Year 2000 compliance. > Rather than upgrade, Ameritech Cellular sold their subscriber base to > the Access Line company. Access Line will bill its customers directly. > Prices are guaranteed stable for a year after the transition. > Access Line has one unique feature: ``meet me'' paging. It will place > a caller on hold and page you. When you call in to Access Line, it'll > connect you with the waiting caller. Access Line holds a patent for > this nifty feature. I don't know if they license it to other vendors. > Is anyone aware of other systems with ``meet me'' paging? I use a service called PersonalOffice. It's based in Chicago and Boston. It includes meet-me paging, fax storage, and email to fax conversion. The web site personaloffice.com is registered to "CAL Communications Inc." I'm not sure who CAL is. Is it the same company you're talking about? I think the service runs on software from Stok Software Inc. Jeremy ------------------------------ From: radparker@radparker.com (Al Iverson) Subject: Re: Simson Says: The D Stands for Dissappointing Organization: See sig before replying Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 02:19:30 -0500 In article , Barry Margolin wrote: > In article , Travis Dixon > wrote: >> Simson of course completely ignores the fact that cable modems are >> highly dependent on the local congestion. Any ISP is subject to >> congestion in the back end. He neglects to mention which service he >> subscribed to -- the 364k is what I am guessing , so his download >> speeds are really fairly accurate for the DSL line. > MediaOne cable modem service has been available in my neighborhood for > over two years, so I think that it's probably pretty crowded. Yet I > still get the full 1.5Mbps advertised speed when I download a test > file from their server. > MediaOne is pretty good about splitting up nodes when they get too > crowded, to avoid congestion problems in the last mile. Some users > don't get the advertised speed (Simson seems like one of them because > he said his 300-600Kbps upstream is speed is the same as his > downstream), but it's more likely due to wiring problems -- many > buildings, especially apartments, have old wiring that doesn't provide > the signal quality that a cable modem needs. Glad you've had good service, but here in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis / St. Paul) of Minnesota, I can state with absolutely certainty that - DSL is fast and fun; and - MediaOne cable internet access is slow and unreliable. I live in Minneapolis. I've had DSL since May. My friend has had it since April. His ISP is USWest, mine is VISI.com. (In the Twin Cities, your DSL runs over your current voice line, provided by USWest, but you can pick which ISP you want, and USWest is only one of many.) My friend has had a couple of outages. I've had one (lasted about four hours one Sunday night -- USWest tech support correctly diagnosed that it was a telephone line problem in the neighborhood). We're both very happy with the service. My transfer speeds used to be 3k/sec over a modem, now they're 29k per second average, and sometimes even faster. I've had times where I get 70k/second! My other friend has (had) a Mediaone Cable Modem. They don't have two way access yet. So the uplink is a built-in analog modem. He's had authentication problems galore. His ping times are anywhere from really fast to really super slow. 50ms-300+ms. Sometimes fast, but usually poor, and poor for days straight. The bandwith seems constantly saturated. He hates it. He's just cancelled it and he's getting ISDN instead (he's outside of DSL territory). Another friend just got a MediaOne cable modem. Suprise ... same problems! Is dumping it already, hasn't even had it a month yet. Many others in this area are complaining of similar problems. Additionally, many people have complained that they don't feel MediaOne is investing in enough bandwith. They feel that their download speeds aren't consistently fast and that MediaOne's connection to their upstreams must be overloaded. Al Iverson Minneapolils, Minnesota Al Iverson -- Web: http://al.radparker.com/ -- Home: Minneapolis, USA Visit the Radparker Relay Spam Stopper at http://relays.radparker.com. STOP! Include SWANKY99 in email replies or they may be tagged as spam. Send me no unsolicited advertising, as I will always return it to you. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #347 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 27 18:30:33 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA23236; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:30:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:30:33 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908272230.SAA23236@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #348 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Aug 99 18:30:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 348 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: New Surcharge on LEC Phone Bill (quonk@my-deja.com) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Shalom Septimus) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls (Shalom Septimus) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (Adam H. Kerman) Re: I Lied About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Steven) Microsoft Admits NT Has Serious Security Flaw (Monty Solomon) Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) (Dave Garland) Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) (Kim Brennan) Re: How to Print Serial Data (Forrest Nelson) Phone Records Up for Grabs? (Monty Solomon) Certified Telecom Professional? (D.J. Bennett) Traceroute on Telephone Circuits (Markus) Last Laugh! Tollfree Sex Aid Spammer (Babu Mengelepouti) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: quonk@my-deja.com Subject: Re: New Surcharge on LEC Phone Bill Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 05:32:11 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , Adam H. Kerman wrote: > A new surcharge started appearing on my Ameritech phone bill this > month: Equal Access Recovery Charge, four cents a month. Fg.D has been > around for an awfully long time; surely those costs are fully > recovered by now. > Anyone want to speculate what this is for? Did you perhaps make a lot of intra-LATA toll calls last month? There is an obscure charge in Illinois known as the "Residence IntraMSA Presubscription Implementation Charge" that took effect 4/7/97 and lasts for 3 years. Its purpose is to pay for the cost of providing intra-LATA presubscription. Most people will never see it since the rate is $0.0006 cents per minute of intra-LATA toll and intra-LATA long distance usage. ------------------------------ From: druggist@p0b0x.c0m (Shalom Septimus) Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 06:52:17 GMT Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com On 15 Aug 1999 01:13:19 -0400, kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: > We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us > even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA > batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? I once had a radio that used a 7.5-volt A battery (for tube filaments) and a 90-volt B-battery (for Vbb, aka plate voltage). I never actually saw the batteries in question, nor was I ever able to get the radio to work on AC notwithstanding the fact that you could plug it in, so I no longer have that unit. A batteries, if I understand it correctly, had no specific voltage (or size!); that was just the designation for anything that powered the filaments. Ditto B batteries. Now I wonder if C-cells were so named for Vcc (grid bias), which in those circuits that required them was around 1.5 volts? Or was this a coincidence of two different naming schemes? Shalom Septimus ------------------------------ From: druggist@p0b0x.c0m (Shalom Septimus) Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 06:52:19 GMT Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com On Thu, 19 Aug 1999 15:20:51 GMT, jt5555@epix.net (Julian Thomas) wrote: > If there's a way to program a pause in the speed dial, then the cat would > just get the in-laws and not the law. Yeah, but the problem is the paws on the dial, not the lack of pause in the speed-dial ... ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:45:53 GMT Joe Jensen wrote: > As an interexchange carrier, I have to pay access charges to both the > originating and terminating local telephone company on a per minute > basis. These charges range from a few tenths of a cent to 9 cents a > minute. Assuming a 30 day month, there are 43,200 minutes available > for calling (60 minutes x 24 hours x 30 days). If I were to pick a > lower switched access charge of $0.007 (7 tenths of a cent) per > minute, my obligation to the LECs on both ends of the call would be > $600 per month, if the line were left up continuously for the > month. If I only left the call up during normal business hours (21.75 > days x 8 hours x 60 minutes), the access charges would total to $146. > I have not even paid for the underlying transport of the call. > Not a money making proposition. How about giving consumers a break and offering much lower long distance rates and adding per-minute charges that reflect the cost of terminating calls? That would eliminate cross subsidy to high-cost areas, and encourage callers to call areas that are cheaper for you to serve. Both consumers and you would win. Yes, that makes billing more complicated, but you obviously have to keep track of settlement costs so some rural phone company doesn't accidentally bill you triple what you owe. ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: I Lied About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:16:54 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer I'll agree that $0.50 for roaming is a rip off, but that's still cheaper then many people offer roaming within the states. IDD rates on cell phones are usually a rip off. You do a lot better to use a calling card even if you are also getting hit for the per minute air time charge. Forwarding your POTS number works very well. I just land, grab a prepaid sim at the airport, plug it in and forward my land line to its number. This has the added benefit of giving you a local number, which is greatly appreciated by people living in the place you are visiting, and of course you can forward to whatever kind of system you want; perhaps a land line in the hotel room with no air time charges. You can even pick up a disposable phone with a couple hours of time for just over $100 in nearly any country. Steven ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 03:14:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Admits NT Has Serious Security Flaw By Peter Heywood, Data Communications Aug 26, 1999 (2:16 AM) Microsoft has acknowledged a serious security flaw in NT when used with Service Pack 4 (SP4) -- probably the most commonly deployed version of its operating system. The flaw enables hackers to masquerade as trusted hosts to get access to secure systems, using so-called Predictable IP Sequence Numbering - something that was identified and fixed in Unix systems several years ago, according to Richard Thomas, head of Winterfold Datacomm (Guildford, UK), a networking consultancy. http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990826S0001 ------------------------------ From: dave.garland@wizinfo.com (Dave Garland) Date: 27 Aug 99 00:06:30 -0600 Subject: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) Organization: Wizard Information Jonathan D Loo wrote: > If a company has a trademark and this trademark existed > prior to the registration of a domain name, this company > should have no trouble acquiring the domain name even if the > domain name registrant refuses. So, some company registers "coke" as a trademark. "Coke" is already known throughout English-speaking countries as the common name of a coal byproduct. The company that registered the trademark named it after a well-known biologic material "coca". The name "coke" later becomes popular as the name of a recreational drug derived from coca. So why exactly should the trademark holder prevail? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is not only that, but some of the large businesses moving in on the net do not even want individuals whose name happens to be the same as theirs to be allowed to use their name on their website. They try to use their trademarks as a way to prevent it. As far as they are concerned, the web and the net as a whole are commercial -- didn't the founder, Al Gore tell them that was the case? -- so therefore, if you have a web presence you are in business and unlawfully infringing on their trademark. If your website name even comes close to their name you have a problem. That's really not right in my opinion, but then the lawyers that some people around here would have us believe are the best way of resolving these issues have not asked my opinion, nor do I believe my opinion is very welcome most of the time; yours neither, for that matter. This whole issue of 'squatters' who take domain names for themselves is just one more assault on netizens by the government. Let's see now, we have tried shocking the world with kiddie porn as a way to shut things down; we have tried copyright infringement; the 'hackers' (those are people who know any more about computers than how to turn them on or off or point their mouse and click) have been insulted and attacked; we've tried taking over vast amounts of bandwidth for presentations while expressly forbidding anyone from viewing what is being presented except those we specifically authorize, ie force cookies and privacy violations onto; we've assured the world that Columbine was the fault of the Internet and all the gun dealers and bomb-makers therein while conveniently ignoring the fact that high school can be hell for some kids, and that after all the taunting and tormenting they had to take because they were gay the two at Columbine eventually broke from the pressure; I suppose we might as well now pick on guys who choose names for their sites that only an idiot would confuse with that of a major corporation. The Internet Society on its home page likes to say 'The Internet is For Everyone' ... what a joke! What they mean is, everyone who has a web site valued at X million dollars in negotiations to be merged with a web site valued at Y million dollars which did e-commerce of Z million dollars in its first month of operation. That's the net of the future; not you anarchists from the net of the 1980's! PAT] ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 27 Aug 1999 18:01:06 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) Our moderator opines: > thanks in large part to the Internet Society and their devotees who claim to > speak for all netizens and who have their arms-wide-open in a welcome > to big business everywhere -- has been largely hijacked from its real > owners, and now anything is possible I guess. How you define the "real owners" of the Internet? The users? The companies maintaining the backbone? The customers of the backbone maintainers, who pay for connectivity to the backbone? The designers of ARPAnet? Or the old timers who first were on the internet? While I agree it is a terrible thing to see folks pony up their $70 for a domain name, only to lose it because some company happens to have a similar company name, I am not so sure I agree with your opinion that the internet has been hijacked by commercial companies. Overwhemed, surely. But it is a two edged sword. On the one hand you have the advertising, spamming, etc. that these commercial companies bring, on the other paw, the access provided is stretching out to more and more folks, something I seriously doubt would have happened without the commercial interests, or at least not in anything like the same timeframe. You can argue that a lot of the companies impinging on the net aren't ISP's, but ultimately that is a chicken/egg comparison. As more folks have access, more companies want to be accessible to these folks. This in turn leads to advertising, which helps fund ISP's to provide yet more access. To draw another symbolism into this ... I think we are experiencing the "Urban blighting" of the internet. As more and more folks (and companies) get on the internet, more and more garbage (graffiti, litter, etc.) is piling up. Eventually people will look for ways to hide the garbage. There is no suburb to move to on the internet, unless you consider proprietary services like AOL's. So better controls will be developed or (en)forced upon the users to limit/restrict what folks can/do see. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I note you say 'controls will be enforced on the users' rather than controls being enforced on the companies which are swarming all over the place. How nice. Yes, by all means, let's keep the users in their place and not offend our new residents; why who knows, they may take the hint and go back to their storefronts and stay off the net. I welcome anyone on this net as long as they are willing to follow the existing rules and trad- itions which have long been in place here. As to who 'owns the internet' I suggest it is 'owned' by the persons and institutions who support its traditional role over the first couple decades of its existence; a medium for the exchange of ideas and knowledge; a way for people to communicate freely without the restrictions and sanitizing imposed on their ideas and speech so common in the mainstream media. Some have supported that role by financing the 'backbone'; others have supported it by making their computers available for free or at cost to the public who wish to use them. Still others have supported it with their creativity and knowledge shared freely with everyone. Geocities has supported the net by tossing popup ads in the face of everyone who visits them. Many companies have supported the net by snooping on everyone who comes to visit them. Quite a few newcomers have supported the net by conducting one scam after another, or flooding us with unwanted email. All very net-like and traditional, wouldn't you say? Well, you probably would say so if you had only been around here for the last five years or so, but believe me, that is *not* what the net is about, or how it was intended. Regards whether or not corporate support is needed and whether or not the net could survive without it, all I can say is are people around here really that hard-up financially? I certainly support the growth of the *user-base* on the internet. I certainly support the improvements in connectivity we have seen in the past few years. By the way, I also certainly support sending every spare nickle we have right now to the Turkish Red Crescent organization or other relief agency of our choice, but in any event I do not intend to go out and sell my body tonight to raise the money, however admirable the goal. And that is what it has come to: a lot of the commercial entities on the net in recent years think they have discovered a house of prostitution. All the print media certainly tells them it is so; look at all those netizens you can screw with. 'The rules have changed: get paid for viewing ads on the net' as alladvantage.com would say. Well hey, the rules always were we did not get ads tossed in our face here, but we are now to believe the ads were always around -- to netizens of less than five years or so here, that would be correct -- and we get fifty cents if we are willing to watch for an hour what we used to not have to deal with at all. Somehow I think the net would survive and continue to grow as a community without the commercial sites. There are certain people on the net that I would honestly say I have no love lost for; long ago fights, or whatever. I still would not sell them out for two cents per click-through. A web site called 'Topica' has offered me five hundred dollars for my mailing list, can you believe that? I would get about 25 cents for each of you guys. I suppose I could buy a new computer and improve my network connectivity. We all want the net to grow and prosper, right? In actual practice, when my rent comes due every Thursday and its two weeks before the next ITU grant installment arrives and the post office box has produced only very slim pickings for several weeks, it *is* tempting. But no thanks, the net means a little more to me than that, and I wish it did to you as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Forrest Nelson Subject: Re: How to Print Serial Data Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:17:23 -0700 Muj Zayan wrote: > Here is my equipment setup and I'm looking for a way of printing the > serial data that is coming from my PABX to a Wyse terminal which is > connected to the PABX @ 1200bps. I used to do something similar for SMDR output from a Lucent G3. Using a "Black Box Print Sharer", I sent the SMDR output to a PC for costing and storage of those records on disk. As a backup, the SMDR output was also sent to a printer for a hardcopy record. Given that these records were only brief bursts of data, and there was a reasonable buffer in the printer I didn't have a problem with losing data. One other neat system I put together back in the early 90's was a central monitoring and control system. This system monitored a variety of inputs: contact and serials alarm outputs from the PBX, voice mail, UPS, CSU/DSU, backup generator, and separate temperature and water alarms, etc. When an event occurred either alarms, lights, or pagers were activated depending on the severity. I could dial into this system from my home or office PC, find out what was wrong and then switch to the equipment that needed service and reprogramming. It saved many trips to the office after-hours. J. Forrest Nelson, RCDD Sparling, Inc. jfn@sparling.com *e-mail 206-667-0578 *direct 206-667-0501* fax http://www.sparling.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 03:22:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Phone Records Up for Grabs? by James Glave 1:25 p.m. 25.Aug.99.PDT A court ruling with implications for the use and sale of private telephone records sets a disturbing precedent for how the courts regard privacy, watchdog groups say. http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/21429.html ------------------------------ From: D.J. Bennett Subject: Certified Telecom Professional? Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 02:28:31 -0500 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. I was told today that there is some kind of "online university" that offers a program called the "Certified Telecom Professional" program. I was wondering if you've ever heard of it, and if so, how might I find them on the internet or via telephone? I've tried various internet search mechanisms and I have not been successful so far. Thanks in advance. Kindly respond to bennett2001@earthlink.net if you are able to. I appreciate your assistance. ------------------------------ From: Markus Subject: Traceroute on Telephone Circuits Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:44:22 +0100 Organization: Ericsson AXE Research and Development, Stockholm, Sweden Hello all! I was wondering if there is any commercially available product that allows me to trace the route of telephone calls I make. For example, if I call 123-456-7890, then I would like to see how that circuit is set up from my phone number to the phone number that I call. It is very easily done on computers when tracing the route to other servers/computers ip addresses. On a pc for example I just type 'tracert ip#' (change the ip# to some ip address) in dos, and then I can see all the hops my packets make. It must be possible to do something similar for telephone numbers instead of ip addresses. Maybe with some extra hw connected to the pc or something. If anybody has any thoughts about the possibility of doing a thing like this, please share your knowledge! Cheers, Markus ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 00:06:17 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Last Laugh! Tollfree Sex Aid Spammer I'm sure all sorts of men are interested in enhancing their sexual performance. To that end, they should all order the following product: New, Easy to Read Book on Men's Sexual Secrets Male Sexual Secret's Written by Robert Winter and Jeff Rutgard, M.D. To order " Men's Secrets" Call 800-764-5533 24 hours a day or send a Check/ Money Order To: Avatar Publishing 168 Second Ave. PBM 285 New York, New York 10003 To be removed call to free 1-800-965-4885 I'm sure that everyone wants to call their toll free numbers to order, as well as to be removed. Be sure to speak very slowly and in a heavy accent, and be sure to ask if they accept Bulgarian Levs as payment, and whether they can ship COD to Turkmenistan ... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have nothing to add. You know what has to be done. Try not to be too crude on the phone with them. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #348 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 27 22:23:01 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA00891; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:23:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:23:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908280223.WAA00891@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #349 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Aug 99 22:23:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 349 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet's 30th Birthday! (K. Paige O'Neill) Cisco To Spend $7.4B To Buy Cerent and Monterey Networks (John Stahl) Newspaper/Magazine Distribution (was Re: NYT Site) (Danny Burstein) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Alan Gore) Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) (Wayne V.H. Lorentz) Re: Weird Wrong Number (Bill Levant) Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! (Cortland Richmond) Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements (Andrew Green) Re: GPS Time Roll-Over (Cortland Richmond) Going to Hell (Without a Handbasket) (Bill Levant) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: K. Paige O'Neill Subject: Internet's 30th Birthday! Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:31:00 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This, from today's mail, passed along FYI to the readers. PAT] Hi Patrick, The 30th Anniversary of the Internet is only weeks away and Silicon Valley is gearing up to celebrate one of the most significant milestones of our century. I want to put this on your radar for a story, as I know this will be a widely discussed topic as the millennium draws to a close. By way of quick background: On October 2, 1969, the first electronic communication was sent from UCLA to UC Berkeley, establishing the foundation for email and marking the birth of the Internet. What has transpired since has revolutionized our entire planet. Among those who have agreed to serve on UCLA's honorary committee for the Internet's birthday party are: Marc Andreessen, Alan Baratz, Jim Barksdale, Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos, Steve Case, Vinton Cerf, John Chambers, John Doerr, Esther Dyson, Eric Hahn, Guy Kawasaki, Bob Metcalfe, Kim Polese, Eric Schmidt, Tom Siebel, and Jerry Yang (to name a few). In typical Silicon Valley style, a party for the Valley's leading digeratti will be held at the Atherton estate of Ron Conway, one of Silicon Valley's leading Internet angel financiers. The party will be hosted by UCLA's Chancellor Albert Carnesale and will celebrate the team that sent the first email and the visionaries who have inherited the Internet. There are so many potential story angles for this! To name only a few: -Internet as the century's most important invention; -Where were they 30 years ago: Take a look at where the forefathers and the 2nd generation Internet pioneers were 30 years ago (for example, the Yahoo founders weren't even born!); -UCLA's role in the history of the Internet; -The team that made it happen (I can arrange interviews with the senders of that first message). I think there is a hot story here and suspect this will be a widely discussed topic. Please let me know if you'd like to speak with a few members of the honorary committee, Ron Conway, or someone from UCLA who was involved in the email that got everything started. On an unrelated note, Spark PR is celebrating by launching two new Internet startups, Epinions.com, the online shopping guide, and AuctionWatch.com, the unbiased auction consolidator. We would be happy to arrange interviews for you with both of these new companies. K. Paige O'Neill Chief Blast Strategist Spark Public Relations paige@sparkpr.com 650.330.0330 x230 main 650.330.1625 fax 415.297.0769 cell 907 Alma Street Palo Alto, CA 94301 Check Out Our Clients!! AuctionWatch (www.auctionwatch.com) The Barksdale Group (www.barksdalegroup.com) epinions.com (www.epinions.com) Itixs (www.itixs.com) MedicaLogic (www.medicalogic.com) Tellme (www.tellme.com) VA Linux Systems (www.valinux.com) Paige O'Neill Spark PR [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about this as the weeks and days draw closer. Thanks very much for passing this along. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Stahl Subject: Cisco To Spend $7.4B To Buy Cerent and Monterey Networks Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 19:22:13 +0000 It seems that Cisco is buying another pair of companies, one of which is a company named Cerent, for which they will shell out $6.9 billion, that has pulled in less than $10 million over the course of the last six months -- and lost $29 million in the process! Wonder from whom these corporations get their info of the companies they target for take over? I know of some ocean front property in Phoenix they can buy, real cheap. I guess when they want to get into another segment of the telecom/data market, the simplest and easiest way is to buy someone with the technology. But let's not get ridiculous with the stockholder's money! Submitted by: John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom/Data Consultants email:aljon@worldnet.att.net Cisco spends $7.4 billion on optical push By Jim Duffy Network World Fusion, 08/26/99 Cisco today announced its entry into the optical transport business in a big way by plunking down $7.4 billion to acquire privately-held Cerent of Petaluma, Calif. and Monterey Networks of Richardson, Texas. The $6.9 billion acquisition of Cerent is Cisco's largest ever, dwarfing the $4 billion Cisco paid for StrataCom in 1996. Cerent develops SONET transport products that combine add/drop multiplexing, digital cross-connect, time division multiplexing as well as packet and cell switching. The company has more than 100 service provider customers nationwide. With these acquisitions, Cisco is entering the optical transport market, which is expected to be a $10 billion market in 2002, the company says citing data from various analysts. The Cerent and Monterey products will accelerate the migration of service provider networks from traditional circuit-based networks to cell and packet-based networks, Cisco says. Cerent's 454 optical transport system is the first generation of transport equipment designed around the Internet, Cisco says. It is a single platform that allows service providers to offer data and traditional voice services without investing in legacy SONET equipment, the company says. Using this technology, service providers can accommodate rapid changes in network traffic in a matter of minutes instead of days, Cisco says. Monterey builds optical cross-connect technology that is used to increase network capacity at the core of an optical network. The company has no announced customers, Cisco says. Monterey's technology gives service providers the ability to quickly add capacity at the core of the network, Cisco says. Combined with Cerent, Monterey gives Cisco a "complete" SONET infrastructure offering to help service providers' transition to packet-based multiservice networks, and eventually to optical transport networks based on dense wave division multiplexing, the company says. Cisco plans to integrate dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) with the Cerent and Monterey products, Cisco officials say. At that time, Cisco will have a DWDM solution for metropolitan networks but will still lack a long-haul offering based on DWDM. Cisco's partnerships with DWDM transmission companies Ciena and Pirelli are not likely to change "in the near to midterm," company officials say. Cerent was founded in 1997 and has 287 employees. Monterey was founded in 1997 and has 132 employees. Both companies will become business units within the Transport Group reporting to Kevin Kennedy, Cisco's senior vice president of the service provider line of business. With these acquisitions, Cisco now has 900 employees focused on optical internetworking. Under the terms of the Cerent agreement, 100 million shares of Cisco common stock will be exchanged for all outstanding shares, options and warrants of Cerent not currently owned by Cisco. Based upon Cisco's August 25 closing price of $68.625, the stock exchanged would have a value of approximately $6.9 billion. This acquisition will be accounted for as a pooling of interests and is expected to close in the first half of Cisco's fiscal year 2000. Under the terms of the Monterey agreement, 7.3 million shares of Cisco common stock will be exchanged for all outstanding shares, options and warrants of Monterey not currently owned by Cisco. Based on Cisco's August 25 closing price of $68.625 the stock exchanged would have an aggregate value of approximately $500 million. In connection with the Monterey acquisition, Cisco expects a one-time charge against after-tax earnings of between 7 cents and 11 cents per share for purchased in-process research and development expenses in the first quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2000. Both acquisitions have been approved by each company's board of directors and are subject to various closing conditions including approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: Newspaper/Magazine Distribution (was Re: NYT Site Requires) Date: 27 Aug 1999 16:58:12 -0400 In Adam H. Kerman writes: > llambda@gmx.net wrote: >> However, when newspapers put their articles on the web for free, they >> must justify it by making up for lost sales. > What lost sales? I'm in Chicago; I wasn't going to subscribe to the {New > York Times}. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But NYT is actually considered by many > to be a national newspaper, and indeed, there are many people in > Chicago who subscribe to it for home delivery. Many copies of it are > purchased on newsstands around town also. > All that changed of course with 'satellite printing'; NYT, WSJ and > Monitor are all now transmitted from their home sites and actually > printed locally. I think NYT is printed locally in Chicago by the > Tribune printing plant ('Freedom Center') on the north side, so people > get the paper the same day as the folks in New York. The Monitor is > satellite-fed to a newspaper on the south side of town called the > {Southtown Economist} which prints and distributes it locally. [more snippage] It's not just the big (inter)nationals using distributed printshops anymore. While some of the big nationwide papers and magazines have been able to do some of this for 25 years, there's been a _huge_ change more recently. The first step was the standardization of the various printing programs so that files developed on one system, say in NYC, could be easily transferred for printing to the plant in, say Chicago. Combined with general improvements in computer controls of the presses, allowing for smaller runs, this let many more papers in on the game. It was still pretty expensive, though. The really, really, big change occurred in the last five years, in fact, the last _two_ years. It was a combination of the widespread acceptance of Adobe's PDF system ([P]ortable [D]ocument [F]ormat) along with the _massive_ reduction in communications costs brought about by the internet. It's now gotten to the point where newspapers based in Amman, Jordan; Jerusalem, Israel; numerous places in Pakistan and India; Moscow, Russia; various Ukrainian publications; not to mention journals from both China and Taiwan ... can and do design their paper in PDF and transfer it, at minimal cost, to the same printshop (which happens to be a customer of our ISP) in NYC, and do a press run in the low thousands. Yes, that's the low thousands. A typical sized tabloid newspaper page is less than 500k in size, which even with a comparatively low speed 56k line takes only a minute or so to move across. A graphically intensive page might top out at 1.5 meg, or three minutes. A typical 32 page edition takes only about an hour to make it across. Add in a half hour or so of final adjustments, and then start up the presses ... When all is said and done the NY bundle is ready for the trucks only a couple of hours after the, for example, Kiev one. This is much, much, faster than air freight. And a great deal less expensive. Oh, and similar arrangements can be worked out with print shops anywhere there's an internet connection. And, as I noted above, this can work with standard phone-modem links. (Our specific customer is making due with a 128k ISDN circuit; they're doing fine but will probably upgrade to higher speed DSL soon). By the way, the biggest problem for the printshop is scheduling the different groups for the loading docks. Some of them don't quite get along well with each other ... (Actually, that's not at all true. One of the great things about the NYC "melting pot" experience is watching these folk work hand in hand). By the way, if anyone would like further information on setting this type of arrangement up, feel free to contact me directly. _____________________________________________________ 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: The same trains going back east would take the Chicago papers that direction as well, so the people in New York who wanted to see the Tribune could have it even though it would be two day's late also. One thing that has not changed over the years however is that the first edition of each paper goes to the competition. When the early edition of the Tribune comes out each day (actually late the night before) a bundle is always delivered to the Sun Times with a copy placed on each desk in the editorial and news departments. Ditto the Sun Times; the first people to see it each day are the staff at the Tribune, which is located right across the street. I assume the idea is the competition will be quick to call atten- tion to the errors of the other one, then the errors get corrected (or glossed over) in time to make the second edition printing deadline. Its always better to get the first edition of a paper each day rather than the final edition; you will see the stuff that never makes it into the final edition after all the errors have been purged and corrected. PAT] ------------------------------ From: agore@primenet.com (Alan Gore) Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:29:32 GMT Organization: Software For PC's Adam H. Kerman wrote: > Not to mention time and aggravation. Why haven't you cancelled your > MCI service? You'd stand a better chance of getting it resolved if you > send written protests to the managers of each facility that billed you > incorrectly. If that doesn't work, write to the president of MCI. If > that doesn't work, file a written complaint with your state public > service commission and file a consumer fraud complaint with your > state's attorney general. I doubt you'll successfully resolve anything > over the telephone. The main reason we haven't canceled is that I think, perhaps irrationally, that my chances of resolving this are better if I remain a customer. Once I drop off, they can forget about me completely if they want to. Write to MCI? The company carefuly arranges things so ther is no way to contact them by snailmail. You call the 800 number, which refers you to other 800 numbers, each connected to offices in different states and which do not communicate with each other. In any case, we have never had a problem with MCI's phone service itself -- just with this one instance of double billing when we switched over from cash to Amex payment. Our LD usage is quite high, and almost all of it is internatinal. Is there any other company that can get us to Europe for 9 cents a minute? I have also tried the writing-to-officials route on one occasion before we went with MCI, when our AT & T service was slammed by a fly-by-night company in Easton, PA. I wrote to the FCC, the Attorneys-general of both AZ and PA. That approach turned out to be completely worthless. I got a form letter from each agency saying our complaint had been received, then nothing. Fortunately on that occasion, it was the slammer who claimed I owed them money, so I simply refused to pay and invited them to sue us. After going through several months of havingg the company call us at five a.m. screaming into our ears, they gave up on us. Or maybe they simply went broke, since I never heard of the company again. agore@primenet.com | "Giving money and power to the government Alan Gore | is like giving whiskey and car keys Software For PC's | to teenaged boys" - P. J. O'Rourke http://www.alangore.com ------------------------------ From: waynelorentz@/THOUSHALLNOTSPAM/worldnet.att.net (Wayne V.H. Lorentz) Subject: Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:29:04 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I have a similar experience when I get calls from my mother's office in New York. She's in 212, but my caller ID lights up as: OUT OF AREA 313-000-0000 or OUT OF AREA 613-800-0000 The "Out of aera" part is not unusual. When I lived in Bell Atlantic and Ameritech areas caller ID would at least pass the state for an out-of-state call ("WV CALL" or "NJ CALL") but Southwestern Bell flags everything as generic Out Of Area. They also pass all Sprint PCS phones in the Houston area as "Wireless Call" but I don't know if that's a Sprint or a SWB issue. Wayne V.H. Lorentz Television Producer "Runs with scissors." ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:24:04 EDT Subject: Re: Weird Wrong Number > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Call me dense I guess. I don't get it. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Reader's Note: Hi, Dense, welcome to the Digest. I think this is a reference to the urban legend about the guy who falls asleep after a date, wakes up in the tub missing a kidney. Pretty loose, though. WJL] Well I guess so. I had never heard that particular story before. By the way, I own the trademark, copyright and anything else regards open and close brackets [] and the notes contained therein. Don't try anything smart like that again or I will have to get one of the several attornies on retainer here at the Digest to order you not to read this column any longer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 13:52:03 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: My Phone Makes False 911 Calls!!! On 16 August, Bugsy wrote: > I have two lines coming into my home; one for personal use and the > other for business. I have a computer with a modem but the computer is > turned off when not in use. I don't have a cordless phone and I don't > have a fax machine. I have a security alarm that is monitored. I have > cable tv that is somehow linked to my phone line. My phones are wired to > the wall. > I have gotten three 911 calls reported by the police department. If your TV box is connected to a TCI Cablevision "wireless" extender, which plugs into the AC plug instead of the telephone line -- another plugs the telephone line into the AC -- then it's likely a problem. Many of these operate on an Amateur Radio band, and a ham radio station operating nearby may cause it to go on and off hook as he keys or speaks. If you get 9 off hooks in a row, a space, then one off hook, space and one off hook, it will be seen at the Central Office as a pulse dialed 911. Try disconnecting the TV box from the phone line for a while. You MIGHT let TCI know, so they don't think you are trying to steal service -- or the box! Cortland ------------------------------ From: Andrew Green Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Customer Service Enhancements Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:26:33 -0500 davidesan@my-deja.com writes: > Accounting informed me that it was not their fault that the > USPS was late in delivering the bills, and that it was my > responsibility to pay whether I got a bill or not! I asked > how was I supposed to pay an unknown amount? Speaking of this problem, I've just accepted an Ameritech invitation to participate in an interview (paid, of course :-) and evaluation of some on-line bill-paying programs they're developing which presumably would enable you to check and pay your balance over the Internet at any time. I'm trying to get permission to forward their invitation to the Digest in case they're still looking for more participants. This will occur in September; I'll report back. Andrew C. Green (312) 853-8331 Datalogics, Inc. email: acg@datalogics.com 101 N. Wacker, Ste. 1800 http://www.datalogics.com Chicago, IL 60606-7301 Fax: (312) 853-8282 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please provide some notes on the interviews and evaluations done for us. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:49:19 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: GPS Time Roll-Over I watched the epoch run out on my Garmin GPS III. No effect. I turned on my GPS II and it took several hours for it to autofind itself. The next day, on turning the GPS III back on, it had to autofind to catch up. I surmise that the Garmin GPS III firmware did not reinitialize its internal clock when the clock rolled over. However, the III, being a parallel receiver, took MUCH less time than the 8 channel, one-at-a-time GPS II did. Sometime this weekend I will reset my older GPS-38. Cortland J.F. Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot@videotron.ca) wrote: > I am surprised that this GPS roll over made so much noise. Talk > about HYPE. > The message was very simple: If your GPS receiver was built before 1994, > check with the manufacturer. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:24:00 EDT Subject: Going to Hell (Without a Handbasket) > For the benefit of persons who have never gone to Hell or been through > Hell, it is a tiny little rural community about 30 miles north and > west of Ann Arbor, Michigan. There is also a Hell on Grand Cayman Island. So named because of eroded coral or limestone (I forget) formations that look like ... well ... Hell, minus the flames. That one doubtless has a better climate than Michigan, but they sell the same assortment of tacky T-shirts and miscellaneous tchochkes; there's also a Cayman government post office that puts a Hell postmark on the overpriced postcards sold next door. Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I recommend that all lawyers go there for vacation, the same as you did. Have you considered setting up a practice there? Yes, I know your next comment is going to be have I considered moving to the one in Michigan, where doubtless I would feel right at home. Actually once I did toy with the idea, thinking it would be a clever place to publish an internet mailing list which I would call 'Straight From Hell, a Guide to Working in a Telco Back Office Environment'. Until next time then, wave bye-bye. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #349 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 28 15:49:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA27929; Sat, 28 Aug 1999 15:49:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 15:49:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199908281949.PAA27929@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #350 TELECOM Digest Sat, 28 Aug 99 15:49:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 350 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson IE 5 Security Hole (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Internet's 30th Birthday! (Ari Ollikainen) Re: Internet's 30th Birthday! (Michael Spencer) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Steve Winter) Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service (Jonathan D. Loo) Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? (Jim Van Nuland) Re: Who the Hell Makes AT&T Phones Now? (David Willingham) Network TV Newscasts (was: Newspaper/Magazine Distribution) (Ed Ellers) Re: NYT Site Requires Registration (Al McLennan) Re: Traceroute on Telephone Circuits (Daniel W. Johnson) Re: Traceroute on Telephone Circuits (Ed Leslie) Re: International Calls & CIDs (Steven) Re: Cisco to Spend ... (Bill Levant) Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) (Alan Boritz) Re: Wierd Call (Andy Berry) Payphone Surcharges Revisited :-) (Carl Navarro) Re: GSM in the US (Ed Ellers) Throwing Away Money? (Ed Ellers) Phone Companies Apparently the Same Worldwide: Clueless (Paul Robinson) Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling (John R. Levine) Call Re-routing Hardware Wanted (Jon Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 03:45:37 -0400 From: Jonathan D. Loo Subject: IE 5 Security Hole ZDNet has published a news story about an alleged security hole in Microsoft Internet Explorer which, according to the article, allows authors of malicious web pages or e-mail messages to gain access to computers that have Microsoft Internet Explorer installed on them. For the full story, please visit: http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2322425,00.html?chkpt=hpqs007 If this link does not work, go to http://www.zdnet.com/ (or http://www.zd.net/); this story is currently (as of Saturday, August 28 at 3:19 a.m.) linked to from the ZDNet home page. In my opinion, ZDNet is a source of valid information; however, I did not receive any information on this issue from Microsoft itself, and I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information presented in the news article. Jonathan D. Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. Internet: jdl@cais.com / Be prepared. Learn first-aid and C. P. R. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All ZDNet articles are also available at http://telecom-digest.org/news by clicking on the ZDNet category. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ari Organization: SPAMMERS BEWARE Subject: Re: Internet's 30th Birthday! Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 09:49:40 -0700 K. Paige O'Neill wrote: [...snip...] > By way of quick background: On October 2, 1969, the first electronic > communication was sent from UCLA to UC Berkeley, establishing the > foundation for email and marking the birth of the Internet. What has > transpired since has revolutionized our entire planet. Must be wishful thinking by the PR flack ... the actual event was a remote login from UCLA to a computer at SRI in Menlo Park using the facilities of the nascent ARPAnet. The login string characters were carried as "messages" between the two host computers by ARPAnet Interface Message Processors, IMPs. > Among those who have agreed to serve on UCLA's honorary committee for > the Internet's birthday party are: Marc Andreessen, Alan Baratz, Jim > Barksdale, Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos, Steve Case, Vinton Cerf, John > Chambers, John Doerr, Esther Dyson, Eric Hahn, Guy Kawasaki, Bob > Metcalfe, Kim Polese, Eric Schmidt, Tom Siebel, and Jerry Yang (to > name a few). Some of whom were involved and most of whom are beneficiaries of the work done by the pioneers. More details on this event can be found at http://www.uclanews.ucla.edu/Docs/DBJL308.html [...more snip...] > There are so many potential story angles for this! To name only a few: > -Internet as the century's most important invention; And, as we've seen, the most powerful method to spread misinformation ... > -Where were they 30 years ago: Take a look at where the forefathers and > the 2nd generation Internet pioneers were 30 years ago (for example, the > Yahoo founders weren't even born!); An interesting view of the events which led to the Internet can be found at http://www.ziplink.net/~lroberts/InternetChronology.html > -UCLA's role in the history of the Internet; Pivotal ... as the home of ARPAnet node #1 and the ARPAnet Network Measurement Center. > -The team that made it happen (I can arrange interviews with the senders > of that first message). They're out here ... > I think there is a hot story here and suspect this will be a widely > discussed topic. Please let me know if you'd like to speak with a > few members of the honorary committee, Ron Conway, or someone from > UCLA who was involved in the email that got everything started. Since it wasn't an "e-mail", you'll be hard put to find anyone who was involved. There are, however, a number of former members of the UCLA ARPAnet project team living and working in Silicon Valley. As are former members of the ARPAnet team at SRI ... AND other pioneer participants in the ARPAnet including Dr. Larry Roberts, was responsible for the design, initiation, planning and development of ARPAnet, the predecessor to Internet, while the Director of the Information Processing Techniques Office for DARPA. Reply to: Ari (at) usa (dot) net Ari Ollikainen OLTECO Networking Architecture and Technology [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A detailed collection of materials on how the internet was started and many other facts about the early days of the net can be reviewed at http://internet-history.org where there are dozens of links to people who know about these things. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael Spencer Subject: Re: Internet's 30th Birthday! Date: 28 Aug 1999 03:15:22 -0400 Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Um ... and the slogan for the event will be: Never trust anyone over 30 Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html ------------------------------ From: steve@sellcom.com (Steve Winter) Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 16:39:43 GMT Organization: WWW.SELLCOM.COM Reply-To: steve@sellcom.com agore@primenet.com (Alan Gore) spake thusly and wrote: > The main reason we haven't canceled is that I think, perhaps > irrationally, that my chances of resolving this are better if I remain > a customer. Once I drop off, they can forget about me completely if > they want to. Write to MCI? The company carefuly arranges things so > there is no way to contact them by snailmail. You call the 800 number, > which refers you to other 800 numbers, each connected to offices in > different states and which do not communicate with each other. I would suspect that your state public utilities commission and/or the FCC would have a way of getting in touch with them if you filed a formal complaint. Also, I have noticed that phone companies seem to "notice" such communications more than the do communications from "just customers". Steve http://www.sellcom.com Cyclades Siemens EnGenius Zoom at discount prices. SSL Secure VISA/MC/AMEX Online ordering Listed at http://www.thepubliceye.com as SELLCOM New Brick Wall "non-MOV" surge protection ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 02:41:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Jonathan D. Loo Subject: Re: MCI Worldcom Residential Customer Service In article Al Gore writes: > The company carefuly arranges things so ther is no way to contact them > by snailmail. You call the 800 number, which refers you to other 800 > numbers, each connected to offices in different states and which do not > communicate with each other. A search on Companies Online (http://companies.lycos.com) reveals there indeed are many offices in many states and it is not clear which is the correct office. This one looks promising: Gerald H. Taylor Chief Executive Officer MCI Communications Corporation 1801 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20006 (202) 872-1600 On InfoSeek (http://infoseek.go.com) the following is listed as an address for MCI: Bernard J. Ebbers Chief Executive Officer MCI WorldCom, Inc. 515 East Amite Street Jackson, MS 39201 (601) 360-8600 I suggest you send your complaint to both addresses, by U. S. registered mail, return receipt requested. The best response to postal letters is obtained if you use registered mail with return receipt. > I have also tried the writing-to-officials route on one occasion > before we went with MCI, when our AT & T service was slammed by a > fly-by-night company in Easton, PA. I wrote to the FCC, the > Attorneys-general of both AZ and PA. That approach turned out to be > completely worthless. I got a form letter from each agency saying our > complaint had been received, then nothing. Writing to officials is one of the least ineffective (notice how I word this) things you can do. You write to your state's public utilities commission or public service commission for complaints about local telephone service. You write to the FCC to complain about long distance service. Again, use registered mail with return receipt. When you send an informal complaint to the FCC, the FCC will forward your complaint *to the offending company.* If it is a dishonest slamming company you are better off filing a formal complaint which is expensive and requires an attorney. However, for reputable companies such as MCI the usual process is that FCC sends your letter to a company official *who has the authority to resolve the problem.* The official is responsible for sending a satisfactory reply to FCC which then closes the case. Disputing the charges through the credit card company is an excellent idea if you have documentation such as canceled checks that prove you are right. It is up to you whether or not you want to quit. If you are a very large customer the mere mention of the possibility of quitting may fix the problem. Jonathan D Loo, P. O. Box 30533, Bethesda, Maryland 20824, U. S. A. jloo@polaris.umuc.edu / Save a life: learn first-aid and C. P. R. ------------------------------ From: Jim Van Nuland Subject: Re: Why Do 66 Blocks Have That Name? Date: 28 Aug 1999 06:42:11 GMT Organization: Silicon Valley Public Access Link Shalom Septimus wrote: > On 15 Aug 1999 01:13:19 -0400, kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: >> We have all handled D batteries, and C batteries and many of us >> even handled B cells once upon a time. And while there are AA and AAA >> batteries, does anyone remember ever handling A batteries? > I once had a radio that used a 7.5-volt A battery (for tube filaments) > and a 90-volt B-battery (for Vbb, aka plate voltage). I never actually > saw the batteries in question, nor was I ever able to get the radio to > work on AC notwithstanding the fact that you could plug it in, so I no > longer have that unit. > A batteries, if I understand it correctly, had no specific voltage (or > size!); that was just the designation for anything that powered the > filaments. Ditto B batteries. > Now I wonder if C-cells were so named for Vcc (grid bias), which in > those circuits that required them was around 1.5 volts? Or was this a > coincidence of two different naming schemes? It's a coincidence. As you've stated, the A-, B- and sometimes C- batteries were of whatever voltage was needed for the particular vaccuum tubes. Note that AAA, AA, A, C, and D cells are all 1.5 volts (except that the NiCd of the same sizes are 1.2 or 1.25. So the cell letters are physical sizes, and only approximagely, voltages. The large ones with binding posts, often seen in telephony back then, were designated as "number 6" dry cells. They are also 1.5 volts. Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association ------------------------------ From: we202c3f@aol.com (David Willingham) Date: 28 Aug 1999 14:09:17 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Who the Hell Makes AT&T Phones Now? > THEN found a news article on Yahoo that the > Lucent-Philips joint venture was being cancelled, and the respective > businesses were going back to Lucent and Philips. But who makes the > phones???? Lucille, The AT&T residential phones were originally manufactured in Western Electric (later AT&T Technologies) plants in Indianapolis and Shreveport. Phones that you leased from the Bell companies were often not "new," but remanufactured by one of the 23 or so "Service Centers," formerly called Distributing Houses (of Western Electric.) Atlanta was home of the last Service Center, which closed a couple of years ago. So the old rotary and Touch-Tone hand-wired sets are no longer being manufactured, nor are they being rebuilt, though there are still lots of them being leased from Lucent. Some have been in the same house for 50 years or more, the title being transferred from the local Bell company, to AT&T at the divestiture, to Lucent when it was spun off. Nowadays, the phones marked Lucent or AT&T are manufactured in Mexico, China, etc. Some plants are apparently owned by Lucent, while others make phones FOR Lucent. David Willingham WE202C3F@aol.com (David Willingham) ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Network TV Newscasts (was: Newspaper/Magazine Distribution) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 05:06:36 -0400 PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor, wrote in reply: > (It's) always better to get the first edition of a paper each day > rather than the final edition; you will see the stuff that never makes > it into the final edition after all the errors have been purged and > corrected." The same is sometimes true of the ABC, CBS and NBC weekday evening newscasts. All three are broadcast live at 6:30 pm Eastern Time, and all three are repeated at 7:00 pm *by the networks* for those stations that choose to carry it later. (Many larger affiliates did until fairly recently, but these days most choose to show syndicated programming from 7-8 pm.) If a problem comes up in the 6:30 feed or a major story breaks, the networks can redo part or all of the newscast live at 7:00 to deal with the situation, though on most nights the 7:00 feed is a recording. (CBS used to regularly drop in different stories when the newscast was replayed in the West -- in fact they actually titled it "CBS Evening News Western Edition" -- but this was dropped due to budget cuts.) There have been a few cases where the second feed is drastically different from the first. In 1973 when Lyndon Johnson died, his press spokesman called the networks during the 6:30 feeds to pass on the story; he was on the phone to Walter Cronkite when CBS came out of a commercial break, so Cronkite relayed the news to the audience as he got it over the phone. The staff swung into action and put the finishing touches on a previously prepared obituary, which led the 7:00 feed. Cronkite told Bob Costas in the late 1980s (on NBC's "Later" interview series) that he wished they had repeated the impromptu report on the second feed. Another famous case was on the first day of Desert Storm in January 1991, when ABC got its first reports of the bombing by phone from correspondent Gary Shepard during the 6:30 feed of World News Tonight -- they broke into the middle of a taped report by Shepard to carry his live report. The first few minutes were only seen on stations (in the Eastern and Central zones) that carried the 6:30 feed; after less than ten minutes ABC went to a short commercial break during which they prepared to interrupt the rest of the network. The 7:00 feed never made it to air that night, nor did any scheduled programming for twenty-odd hours after that (actually they did have Nightline at 11:30, which they used as a roundup of the first few hours). ------------------------------ From: ljm3@lehigh.edu (Al McLennan) Subject: Re: NYT Site Requires Registration Date: 28 Aug 1999 09:58:58 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... > Sometimes even though the train did not stop, the guy would grab a > bundle of papers and as the train slowed down just a little he would > toss the bundle out the door into the back of a pickup truck waiting > by the side of the track and wave to the guy. Reminds me of the time when an express train would fly through a small town and toss out a bag of mail, or pick up a bag suspended from a hook. Al McLennan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Almost precisely the same procedures. The bags of mail were all lined up in order and ready to go as the train passed through the different communities. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Traceroute on Telephone Circuits From: panoptes@iquest.net (Daniel W. Johnson) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:16:23 -0500 Markus wrote: > It is very easily done on computers when tracing the route to other > servers/computers ip addresses. On a pc for example I just type > 'tracert ip#' (change the ip# to some ip address) in dos, and then I > can see all the hops my packets make. That's because the data goes over exactly the same network as the control of that data. > It must be possible to do something similar for telephone numbers > instead of ip addresses. Maybe with some extra hw connected to the pc > or something. No, because even when the control went over the same network, the control was basically finished by the time you started talking. And now, thanks to SS7, none of that comes near the voice path. Daniel W. Johnson panoptes@iquest.net http://members.iquest.net/~panoptes/ 039 53 36 N / 086 11 55 W ------------------------------ From: EdLeslie@EDU.YorkU.CA (Ed Leslie) Subject: Re: Traceroute on Telephone Circuits Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 01:49:41 GMT Organization: York University, Ontario, Canada On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:44:22 +0100, Markus wrote: > It must be possible to do something similar for telephone numbers > instead of ip addresses. Maybe with some extra hw connected to the pc > or something. I don't believe this can be done other than by Telco employees using special "gear" to query each phone switch. Your question brought back memories of an experience I had with a hacker who had broken into a VMS system with which I was affiliated "a number of years ago". After sufficient instances, we had the RCMP, Bell Canada, several Telcos in the US all "primed" for when the perp came online (in fact, building this path of Telcos took weeks -- we would trace from one to the next and then have a pause while the security people at one Telco primed the next) -- I would make a call and then could listen in as the various traces were done -- from Canada to one X.25 provider in the US, to another, and another, and eventually overseas. Once the trace got as far as Germany -- well, the whole thing just shuddered to a halt -- even when the perp stayed online long enough that the Bundespost could have made a trace (yes, I felt an incredible deja vue when I later read The Cuckoos Nest). Anyway -- back to the topic at hand -- at that time I wondered *why* the Telcos did not have a special "tone" or "signal" which could be sent from the originating end which would cause all the "switches" along the path to "freeze this call" so that it could not be "disconnected" while the trace took place. They obviously have something simliar now -- if you call 911, the 911 operator can "freeze the call" and prevent you from disconnectiing. EdLeslie@EDU.YorkU.CA ------------------------------ From: steven@primacomputer.com (Steven) Subject: Re: International Calls & CIDs Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 00:59:26 +0800 Organization: Prima Computer It depends if the boys at the telephone companies on each end have learned to properly implement the age old SS7 standard. There are some places where they have and you get Caller ID no problem. Otherwise it will give you "unavailable". Sometimes the miscommunication will end up giving you some bogus CLI, 0,000000,1,etc. This can sometimes give you a clue as to what network it was coming from, but I wouldn't count on it. Steven In article , NOtakmel@stratos.netSPAM says: > I assume that it's impossible to show the names on CID when a call is > foreign origin but at least will it show something useful? Will it at > least tell me it's an international call? ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 13:55:36 EDT Subject: Re : Cisco to Spend ... > Wonder from whom these corporations get their info of the companies > they target for take over? I know of some ocean front property in > Phoenix they can buy, real cheap. It's simple, really. Cisco isn't paying 7.4 billion bucks to buy these companies. It's issuing shares of its overpriced stock "worth" 7.4 billion bucks to do so. It doesn't *cost* them anything, really; it just dilutes the value of the shares already outstanding. In fact, since many companies now have various classes of stock, issuing new stock might not even erode the voting control held by current management, if (for example) they hold Class "A" shares with 1000 times the voting power of the Class "B" shares issued to mere mortals. No, I don't *know* whether Cisco has different classes of stock; I'm just pointing out that these high-priced acquisitions may not really *cost* anything in the traditional sense, and that the favored few among existing shareholders *may* be even less affected than everyone else. Bill ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Weird Caller ID Numbers (Illegal Prefixes) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:47:36 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: > In article , Victor R Pirozzolo > wrote: >> Kent K. Steinbrenner wrote: >>> What showed on my screen was: >>> UNAVAILABLE >>> 801-1599895 >> The "159" number is an outwats line. In many of the older switches, >> numbers beginning with "1" were used for outwats. Are you sure? I used to work at a place with a cord board and some jump lines began with a "1" (don't remember the rest of the exchange). ------------------------------ From: Andy Berry Subject: Re: Wierd Call Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 19:41:22 -0500 > I tend to get a lot of random calls where people just hang up when > one answers. (Most of which, I assume, are people wardialling, or > something similar) > The other day, I actually decided to call one of them back. The > number was (773) 847-8495. When you call it, it rings for a while, > then a recorded voice says "Thank you." > Does anyone have any idea what the heck this might be? If it is a metallic, undersampled female "computer"-type voice, it sounds like an Intellicall Ultratel 3003 (?, I forget the model number, the old A/C powered board) COCOT w/o the FSK modem. HTH Andy B. ------------------------------ From: cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) Subject: Payphone Surcharges Revisited :-) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 01:01:50 GMT Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America I got my "response" from the FCC regarding my request about payphones. Did you all know that the government is now allowing payphone operators to collect 24 cents to make up for providing "dial around" and 800 service? Yeah, tell me something new, like how a wrong number can get rewarded. If anyone wants to read the boring rule, I got it from some idiot drone in the FCC office. Carl "I'm going to order all COCOT lines" Navarro ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: GSM in the US Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:05:30 -0400 J.F. Mezei (jfmezei@videotron.ca) wrote: > But SPRINT will want to have the GSM net down for long enough that its > GSM customers will have had no choice but to convert to Sprints CDMA > network, losing the advantages of GSM." Which are? (Aside from being able to keep one's existing phone, that is.) And what about the advantages of Sprint CDMA -- such as being able to roam on other Sprint PCS systems? ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Throwing Away Money? Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:28:18 -0400 Steven (steven@primacomputer.com) wrote: > You can even pick up a disposable phone with a couple hours of time for > just over $100 in nearly any country. What have we come to, that a piece of high-tech equipment costing $100 is considered "disposable" after just a couple of hours of use. Single-use cameras were bad enough ... ------------------------------ From: Rfc1394a@aol.com (Paul Robinson) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:41:18 EDT Subject: Phone Companies Apparently the Same Worldwide: Clueless I have had my share of problems with various telephone companies including GTE and Bell Atlantic. But the following from the UK's Silicon.com indicates that the problem with telephone companies not knowing what they are doing is probably a worldwide situation: Note that in the following, 'Oftel' is the telephone regulatory authority, equivalent to a Public Utilities Commission in the U.S. ----------------------------- You know the phrase: 'When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun'? Well, it seems when people in IT hear the words 'British Telecom', a similar tendency towards violence ensues. We weren't going to cover BT mixups again, but ... well, this was irresistible. A Round-Up reader writes: "When we moved offices in August '98, we moved into a building that had an ISDN 30 box. 'Hooray!' we thought, 'the building is already wired for phones. Now all we need to do is get BT to reconnect it.' "We got in touch with BT and asked, 'Can you reconnect the ISDN 30 box at the offices we have just moved into?' To which the reply came, 'But our records show that there isn't an ISDN 30 box at this site.' "Despite screams of desperation and wondering whether we were hallucinating, BT insisted that a site survey would be required before an engineer could visit. Through a process of 'I know a guy who knows so and so, who knows the BT engineer, who knows the building like the back of his hand' type of thing, we got in touch with the BT engineer ourselves who very kindly called in. "We couldn't believe our ears when the BT engineer had precisely the same problem trying to convince the BT sales desk that the equipment was at the building, 'I'm looking at it now,' he exclaimed, 'and I installed it!' Well, as it turned out BT had wiped their database and to all intents and purposes the equipment no longer existed." The tale didn't end there, but we don't have room for anymore ... let's just say that this person is eagerly awaiting Oftel's response to his official complaint. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Aug 1999 22:49:20 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Is This Real? $60/Month Unlimited LD Calling Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > How about giving consumers a break and offering much lower long > distance rates and adding per-minute charges that reflect the cost of > terminating calls? That would eliminate cross subsidy to high-cost > areas, and encourage callers to call areas that are cheaper for you to > serve. Both consumers and you would win. I'm not thrilled at that plan, but it's not surprising considering that I live in a high termination charge area. (Please don't confuse the cost with the charge, it costs no more to terminate here than in Ithaca, 10 miles down the road, but we have different telcos that have different tariffs.) The theory of varying access charges is to average costs across the country to provide universal service. I agree that the current universal service setup is getting awfully creaky, but if we're going to fix it, we should fix it and not just dismantle it one piece at a time. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Jon Solomon Subject: Call Re-routing Hardware Wanted Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 14:21:10 -0400 I am looking for a peice of hardware which will do the following: Answer the line, say "press 1 for a, 2 for b, 3 for c" and then route the call to a number based on what was pressed. Can you help? Thanks, --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #350 ******************************