From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 3 11:28:47 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iA3GSlP02856; Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:28:47 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:28:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411031628.iA3GSlP02856@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #528 TELECOM Digest Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:29:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 528 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Lever Voting Machines - What's Wrong? (Lisa Hancock) ENUM LLC - What's it All About? (George Bush) Cut-Through Connection (Ariel Burbaickij) Playing out DTMF Tone in a Dialogic Channel (Ruchit Garg) Vonage No Longer Shipping Linksys PAP2 (Dave) Nextel and Verizon Settle Legal Disputes (Monty Solomon) Re: Can a NEC IPK 192 Report DID to CallAnalyst (Justin Time) Re: How to Make the Right Call on Cell Plans (Lisa Hancock) Re: New Electronic Check Law Sinks 'Float' (DevilsPGD) Re: What Happened to Channel 1? (Neal McLain) Re: Pre-Recorded Phone Should be Illegal (Steve Sobol) Re: Web Site Renovation Complete! (Charles Cryderman) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Lever Voting Machines - What's Wrong? Date: 2 Nov 2004 19:47:13 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com My county uses "lever" voting machines, which are wholly mechanical. You simply push a lever for each desired candidate and when you open the curtain (a big lever) the votes are recorded on counters. The machines contain interlockings so you can only vote for the prescribed number of candidates for an office. That's usually one, but some offices you vote for three of five candidates (ie town councils). I understand some newer machines have no such protection and such overvotes ended up wasting a ballot. Another advtg is that you enter the machine with an open curtain, pull a master lever to close it and open the machine to accept your votes, then pull the master again to record your final votes and open the curtain. The curtains are large and fully enclosed -- it appears that modern electronic machines have very tiny curtains or just a small divider, limiting voter privacy. Yet I understand these machines are very old and not made anymore. Other counties went to punch cards and we know about their problems. Many counties are going electronic but sometimes those machines fail. Is there a reason mechanical machines are so out of favor? Sure, they would require maintenance and setup and there is a cost to that, but that is only twice a year. If the machines were in production, costs would be lower. A modern generation would probably have newer mechanical engineering and lighter better wearing gears. Does anyone know anything about the "Shoup" or "Jamestown" voting machine companies? They made the machines. (Some models even had electric curtains, where you flipped a switch and a motor closed the curtain.) [public replies please} [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In Chicago, many years ago we had those mechanical things, where one large lever closed and opened the curtains and you could not vote without that lever to close the curtains and the vote(s) was cast when the lever opened the curtains. There were a few 'medium size' levers inside on the panel (for 'straight ticket' voting) and many smaller levers for individual candidate voting. And when you approached the polling place (as close as they could get *without* blocking the door and at least 100 feet away [to avoid any charges of 'electioneering'] which is illegal) someone would try to shove a piece of paper in your hand advising you to 'pull lever X' (or whichever lever was assigned) to vote a 'straight Democratic ticket'. 'Straight' meant that you wanted to cast a ballot exclusively for all the Democratic candidates. I assume the medium size lever at the start of each row had the effect of mechanically pulling all the smaller levers which were behind it on that row. It was **so refreshing** to go vote yesterday and not have a dozen or more politicians standing in front of the door trying to stuff papers in your hand as you were trying to walk in. The only thing is, here in Independence, we vote on large sheets of paper using a special type of soft lead pencil where we have to totally fill in an oval circle next to the candidate's name and political affilitation. The other thing was where we used to go to vote in our ward/precinct at the SEK senior citizen place down the street from my house, yesterday they have *five* precincts all voting in one place in five separate areas of a large basement room in Memorial Hall downtown. I saw my 'ladies (the judges and clerk of election) for my precinct' over at one table in one area and went over to them, as signs everywhere told people where to find their precinct. Apparerently the government got after the city and told them all polling places had to be more handi- capped accessible, so they had to move out of SEK Senior Citizens. At first we got a letter in the mail from the county clerk saying our new polling place was in the basement of the County Detention Center (the 'jailhouse'), which is theoretically more accessible (no stairs, entirely at ground level) but further for *me* to have to walk. Then Charlotte Scott (county clerk) sent a second letter a few days later saying 'due to scheduling conflicts we have to move you again, this time to Memorial Hall, in the basement.' Not even in our precinct, (nor anywhere close to it) she said they would have put us in the hall at Epiphany Church (which is very close to me) 'except we already have a precinct voting in there, no room for a second precinct.' We have four wards in Independence, two precincts each ward, and five of the eight precincts in total had to go to Memorial Hall basement to vote, all the way downtown. But having the paper ballots which are optically scanned (assuming you correctly filled in the oval with your special lead pencil which the judge gave you) seemed like a good way. We went into little wooden stalls with curtains on the front of them which we pulled open or closed by hand, (I have always thought they were sort of flimsy; I joked once with the judge and told her a strong wind would blow them over) and our ballots went in metal containers which covered up the places where we had put marks. When we exited our little stalls, with the paper in the metal container we handed them back to one of the judges who slipped it into the voting box *in the metal container*. The paper fell out into the box then the metal holding container was taken back for someone else to use. When the judge put your ballot in the larger container there, then she picked a little sticker from a sheet of same saying "I voted today in Independence, have you voted yet?" with a little flag printed on it, and stuck it on your shirt or wherever. It was *so refreshing* not to be bombarded with phone calls and/or people in front of the election places stuffing literature at you, nor were there any police officers hanging around to maintain order, as you used to see in Chicago all the time years ago, but like Chicago, the saloons had to stay closed all day, and were allowed to open at 7 PM, after the voting had concluded. I stopped downtown on my way back home for a sandwhich (and I had hoped, a beer) but the server said 'no alcholic drinks of any kind allowed under law today until after election is finished, but I can get you a coke if you want', and the bar in the center of the room was totally abandoned. PAT] ------------------------------ From: macj201@netscape.net (george bush) Subject: ENUM LLC - What's It All About ? Date: 3 Nov 2004 01:15:24 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Well, I don't get it. What's the idea behind Godaddy linking up with all these carriers to for enum llc ? I thought enum was all about transposing the digits in a phone number, inserting full stops and forming a domain name (and vice versa) by following an algorithm. So what's the point of forming a body who apparently will go to tender to find someone to provide some form of 'directory' ? Surely, once enum is agreed, it's simply a question of a simple, real time translation ? Is this just a vehicle to help someone mop up all the revenues from the millions and millions of domain name registrations ? ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Cut-Through Connection Date: 3 Nov 2004 03:52:48 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello dear newsgroup participants, Could someone explain to me what does the term "cut-through connection" mean? Are there several meanings? With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij ------------------------------ From: ruchitgarg@yahoo.com (Ruchit Garg) Subject: Playing Out DTMF Tone in a Dialogic Channel Date: 3 Nov 2004 04:20:01 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi all, I want to play DTMF tone to a phone line opened by my dialogic card. How can I achieve this? Regards, ruchit ------------------------------ From: davidf@popmail.com (Dave) Subject: Vonage no Longer Shipping Linksys PAP2 Date: 2 Nov 2004 16:56:40 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Anyone else heard Vonage is no longer shipping the PAP2 due to "an excessive amount of problems and returns"? That's the exact information I got from a great tech support rep at Vonage who tried getting a PAP2 sent to me after I was default shipped the Linksys RT31PT. He called the warehouse and was told they have PAP2 on hand but they are not permitted to ship them due to all the problems. One thing the rep told me is buzzing on calls when using the PAP2. I use my Vonage as a fax line, so I made a regular "voice" call and sure enough, as soon as I dialed my first digit I hear a hum/buzz. The PAP2 was great because it was so small. Easy to throw in a bag to travel. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 08:57:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nextel and Verizon Settle Legal Disputes By BRUCE MEYERSON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Nextel Communications Inc. and Verizon Wireless unexpectedly resolved a heated dispute Tuesday over a federal proposal to clear up interference between cell phones and emergency response radios by moving Nextel's signals to a more valuable band of spectrum. In exchange for Verizon dropping its opposition to the spectrum proposal, Nextel is withdrawing its claim of trademark rights for the phrase "Push To Talk" and the word "push" to describe the popular walkie-talkie service which Nextel introduced to cell phones and which Verizon and other rivals now offer. The agreement announced Tuesday ends a very public argument in which each company nastily accused the other of putting business interests ahead of public safety concerns _ often invoking memories of Sept. 11 and the need for reliable emergency communications as an issue being exploited or ignored by the other side. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44706756 ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Can an NEC IPK 192 Report DID to CallAnalyst? Date: 3 Nov 2004 06:36:31 -0800 a0157202@yahoo.com (Dave Rupp) wrote in message news:: > We have an NEC Electra Elite IPK 192 with some card, sorry I don't > know more, which connects via a serial cable to a PC running > CallAnalyst, http://www.triviumsys.com. We got the card + s/w so we > could do DID reporting, but now our phone provider tells us the NEC > doesn't report the "called number". Does anyone have a URL or > information on whether or not this key system can provide this? Even > if I need a different card(or 2) in the NEC I'm open. > TIA, > Dave If by phone provider you are referring to your dealer, then what they are telling you is probably correct. If you want additional opinions, I would suggest you join the NEAX User Group. Their website is: http://www.neaxug.org and they provide a wide variety of services to their members -- including resolving technical issues. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: How to Make The Right Call On Cell Plans Date: 3 Nov 2004 07:12:26 -0800 Marcus Didius Falco wrote > The Washington Post > No other telecom service has seen this sort of ballooning value -- not > Internet access, not landline phones and certainly not cable or > satellite TV. But most other telecom markets don't benefit from the > intense competition of the wireless industry, with five strong, > nationwide carriers (down from six since Cingular's purchase of AT&T > Wireless) out to eat each other's lunch. I am far from an expert, but I disagree with some things in this article. In the short run, cell phone rates have dropped dramatically. But in the longer run, long distance telephone rates and telephone set costs have dropped dramatically, too. I don't credit competition but rather technology. Prior to divesture, AT&T's long distance rates were dramatically falling (esp when compared in constant dollars) because of improved technologies in switching and transport. For cellular, technology of high capacity within the radio bandwidth made it cheap. The first big jump was the cellular concept itself, then was digital to further split up the spectrum. Modern electronics allowed powerful but tiny and light phones. The high capacity allowed high volume which spread the unit cost of building towers among many subscribers. > This is why the first thing you should look at on a carrier's Web site > is its coverage map. While these generally can't tell you about the > annoying dead zones that only last half a mile on the highway, they > should indicate where a carrier just doesn't have service at all. I would love to see a _detailed_ coverage map for any cell phone carrier, but I never could find one. The maps in the stores are generally of a very wide area, impossible to identify the boundaries with any precision. One major carrier uses various shades of green which are hard for the viewer to separate. Digital phones require more towers than analog. Cell phone companies originally advertised digital as being superior quality, but it is actually superior for them, not for us users. > How important is it that the phone work at all times? There's no > common standard for wireless service, save the oldest technology of > them all -- analog cellular. Analog is what gave cell phones a bad > name: It kills a phone's battery life, sounds lousy and will run up > massive roaming charges. But as the lowest common denominator, it may > be available where digital service is not. Analog phones had bigger batteries. The older analog phones -- either in a bag or in a car, had much more powerful transmitters. AFAIK, the cell carriers will continue your service if you're already on with such an old phone, but will not give you analog service as a new customer with an old phone. My own analog phone sounds no different than digital phones. The issue of "roaming" is strictly marketing and has nothing to do with technology. When I got my cell phone service, the roaming charges and roaming territory was a function of my service plan. Cheap plans = low roaming, expensive plans = high roaming. The newspapers report many people get surprised by high roaming charges they didn't except today; many plans still have some sort of roaming charge. > Which carrier do your friends and family use? Many Cingular and > Verizon plans include unlimited calling to other phones on the same > network. Sprint sells that option for $5 a month, and Nextel's Direct > Connect Walkie-Talkie service, thanks to the unlimited usage the > carrier generally allows, offers a rough equivalent. In any of those > cases, you can opt for a cheaper plan if the people you'll talk to > most often will use the same network as you. Being on a single carrier can save a lot of money. My Verizon plan pre-dates that, but my carrier still didn't charge me when I made some peak-period calls to another cell phone of my carrier. I see contractors using the walkie-talkie feature often. > Cingular and Sprint have come up with two smart twists on standard > pricing. Cingular lets you carry over unused minutes into the next > month, while Sprint's customers can be automatically bumped to a > higher calling plan if they exceed their included minutes. My Verizon plan pre-dates rollover, but they did that for me anyway automatically one month when I went over on my minutes. > In one area, however, the competitive juices of the wireless market > aren't flowing properly: Under-$30 plans, once a commonplace offering > by carriers, have all but died out. If you need a phone only on rare > occasions, look into prepaid service. As we see, "competition" isn't always working as we expect. My old plan is $19.95 a month with 200 off-peak minutes. Great for my use since I would only make daytime calls in an emergency. To get a similar plan today I'd have to pay $40/month plus pay for a phone. There are a few $15/month plans but they are very limited, truly for emergency use only. While I bought my cellphone for emergency use, I have found it quite useful on weekends and obviously much cheaper and more convenient than payphones. I'm not sure the "pre-paid" phones are such a good idea because some have expiration dates on the time whether you use it or not. Plus you have to constantly recharge the time or you lose your number. Whatever plan you do, you are on your own. Get everything in writing! The cell phone sales people are interested in making commission, not the best plan/phone for you. Too often they say a phone/plan has features that it does not have or that something is free when it is a cost. Also, most aren't very well trained and would not know the answer to a specific question about coverage or technology. My experiences at stores of the major carriers has been most unsatisfactory. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: New Electronic Check Law Sinks 'Float' Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 18:01:17 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In message Isaiah Beard wrote: > I agree. It's going to be interesting. I have a check card and > occasionally use electronic bill payment, but I used to prefer sending a > check out in the mail to pay bills. Not because of float, but because I > liked the idea that a physical, tangible paper copy of my payment was > available, as well as a physical endorsement acknowledging receipt of > payment on the same piece of paper, in case there was ever any dispute. I use Visa for the opposite reason -- Lack of paper means I can reverse any charge at a whim, and it's up to the merchant to produce a signed paper or they'll eat the charges. Makes life easier when somebody messes up something somewhere along the line. In message Rick Merrill wrote: > DevilsPGD wrote: >> Isaiah Beard wrote: >>>>> IF these images were accessed it would give criminals access to an >>>>> image of the customer's signature. Said criminal could then use a >>>>> laser printer with 640 dpi resolution to print checks that would be >>>>> indistinguishable from the photo check after a 240 dpi Scan!? >>>> I'm curious, is there a requirement that the bank which accepted the >>>> cheque store it for any period of time? >>> Quite the reverse actually. If they send the check along >>> electronically, then the original is destroyed. >> Interesting -- So if I say I wrote a different dollar value on the >> cheque, and the electronic copy isn't sufficient to provide proof one >> way or the other, does the transfer of funds get reversed? > Hopefully you have your record (or write once) copy. The thing is, > would you notice if the check was changed from 10 to 100$? Many people > do not check that closely. - RM That's my point -- without the physical paper available it's likely difficult (if not impossible) to prove that the cheque was modified. ==================== Who is General Failure and why is he reading my disk? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 21:01:58 -0600 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: What Happened to Channel 1? I wrote [TD V23 #525]: > However, I still think that in the specific case at hand the > Coffeyville TV station was probably the primary reason for not > using cable channel 4 [in Independence, Kansas]. Given that > channel 4 is subject to interference from a television station > (even a weak one like W04EJ), it seems unlikely that the cable > company would have used that channel for an important service > like HBO or Showtime. Whereupon DevilsPGD wrote [TD V23 #526]: > Could it be that there wasn't a conflict at that time? According to PAT, channel 4 was in use in Coffeyville as far back as 1954-55 [TD V23 #519]: > I seem to remember channel 4 from *years* ago when as a young > kid I lived and visited in Coffeyville. It seems to me it was > a 24 hour per day transmission of some weather station. The > cameras always looking at the weather dials, and background > music. That would have been 1954-55. PAT] DevilsPGD continued: > Channel 4 isn't used for anything important here, just text > news last time I checked, but the picture is clear and sharp. Is there a local broadcast station on Channel 4 where you are? If so, that would be consistent with the cable company's use of cable channel 4 for a relatively unimportant service like "text news." It's certainly possible for a cable company to use a cable channel that conflicts with a local off-air station; indeed, that's the ideal situation. But the fact remains that in some situations, off-air interference *does occur*. For that reason, a cable company isn't likely to use it for an important service like HBO or Showtime. The two most common sources of off-the-air interference into a cable channel are: A LEAK IN THE CABLE NETWORK. Theoretically, cable TV systems are fully-shielded, closed networks. Nevertheless, breaks in the shield ("leaks") are inevitable. Searching out and fixing leaks is the cable company's responsibility, strongly enforced by the FCC. See: Leakage sources: http://www.sbe24.org/archive/c24aug98.asp#six Leakage control: http://www.sbe24.org/archive/c24sep98.asp#six FCC enforcement: http://www.sbe24.org/archive/c24oct98.asp#six FCC enforcement: http://www.sbe24.org/archive/c24nov98.asp#six DIRECT PICKUP (DPU) IN THE TELEVISION RECEIVER. Back in the 1950s and 1960, cable companies usually didn't provide converters; the incoming cable was connected directly to the TV set. TV sets in those days were generally poorly shielded (300-ohm twinlead was often used to connect the setback terminals to the tuner). This situation resulted in DPU: direct pickup of the off-air signal by the internal circuitry of the TV set. The introduction of converters solved the DPU problem (assuming that the converter itself was properly shielded). Of course, the converter output had to be on a channel that wasn't subject to DPU. To accommodate this situation, converters were fitted with dual-channel modulators, so that a vacant local channel could be selected. Most converters could be switched between channel 3 or 4; Pioneer converters used channel 2 or 3. So if your cable company's channel 4 is "clear and sharp," that's great: it means your cable company is doing a good job with leakage control. But I still wouldn't use it for HBO. Neal McLain [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But this area did not have cable TV (nor, for the most part) any over the air TV in 1954-55. Coffeyville had that *one* station (channel 4) over the air in that time period, Independence had nothing. Even today, Coffeyville and Independence can receive at best *two* over the air television signals, one from Joplin, MO/Pittsburg, KS (90 miles straight east), and one from Tulsa, OK (85 miles almost straight south), and possibly a third one from Wichita, KS (110 miles northwest). Those are our three 'major' cities. Coffeyville of course still gets channel 4 with its weather dials, etc. Your choices here are (a)cable (b) *very high* antenna most likely amplified or (c) nothing at all. On over the air signals, the two out of the three possible depends on how your antenna is turned. Turned sort of east and south for Joplin and Tulsa, or sort of east and south for good Tulsa and crappy Wichita. When cable moved into rural southeast Kansas in the 1970's, we had Time-Warner's prede- cessor. Then Coffeyville about 1990 got Cox Cable. In 2002, Time-Warner traded their territory here to Cable One in exchange for some larger area which they wanted (and Cable One) had. Our cable also serves the little towns of Neodesha, Kansas and Cherryvale, KS which are near here. Cox Cable has Coffeyville and all the southern part of the county. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Pre-Recorded Phone Should be Illegal Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 19:38:59 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Bob Goudreau said: >>> However, I think pre-recorded phone calls, of any kind, should be >>> illegal. >> Me too. > Not me. I actually find the prerecorded announcement calls that we > choose to receive weekly from my kids' schools to be useful. OK, let me clarify. I meant any kind of pre-recorded TELEMARKETING calls. Political tele-spam is included in that category. > Perhaps you actually meant "UNSOLICITED pre-recorded phone calls, > of any kind". Even then (and leaving aside the constitutional issues of > political speech raised by campaign calls) I've said this about email spam, and I'll reiterate it here. Freedom of speech does not trump my personal rights as the owner of the phones that are being dialed, the person who is billed for the phone lines, etc. > and white, since I can envision various emergency scenarios (storm > evacuation, water contamination, armed-and-dangerous suspect at large, > etc) where public safety might be aided via mass robo-calls to the > affected areas. My clarification should exclude those types of calls. It's rather like the difference between your Internet provider sending mass unsolicited emails regarding system outages or sending mass unsolicited emails telling you how wonderful their great new service is, and you really ought to try their three-month free trial. (a) is ok, (b) is not. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The trouble here, Steve, is that like telephones, email requires *two* parties to make it work, unlike other utility services. How you use your electric, or water, or gas has no affect on me at all. How you use your *telephone* or *email* does have an effect on me. With no one to communicate with, my telephone and email are useless. Not so with my other utility services. I quite agree that telemarketing phone calls are a scourge, but like email, what you think is a useful communication, I think is spam. So where do we start your rights and end my rights? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Web Site Renovation Complete! Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 16:32:04 -0500 From: Charles Cryderman Our Esteemed Moderator wrote: > And this being the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November > that is an important distinction; voting can occur anytime between > November 2 and November 8, but *never* on November 1) please go to > your polling places when you wake up sometime Tuesday and vote for > the Demopublicans or the Republicrats of your choice. As Mayor Daley > would say, 'vote early, and often'! I would personally suggest you > try out the Libertarian candidate for president, Mr. Badnarik; he is > the only *real* alternative to the present system, but do as you > wish, just go do it. As you have told us before Pat, that you have voted for democrats most your life but now are going to vote your conscience. I too followed suit this AM and I wrote in John McCain and Colin Powell. Now as we both know our choices won't change the end results but I do feel much better following my conscience then choosing the lesser of two very big evils. Chip Cryderman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly do not expect any Libertarians to get elected anytime soon. The United States government isn't set up to allow anything but a centrist candidate to get into office. Either one that leans a little bit left or one that leans a little bit right. Those are our only two allowed choices. When I went to vote yesterday, I stroked the paper ballot with every Libertarian candidate who was on the ballot. Were there -- Goddess forbid! -- even a slight chance of a Libertarian candidate getting elected and that person did get elected, I suspect the Secret Service would arrange to have the person assassinated his first day in office, if not before. There is no room for any changes in our system of government, except one, and they have taken care of that with their bizzare interpretations of the Second Amendment. And in case you have not yet checked out our newly resdesigned web page please check it out today at http://telecom-digest.org and if you have Jeff Mattox's email address, write him and tell him thanks for the work he did on it. PAT] ------------------------------ 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, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #528 ******************************