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TELECOM Digest Sat, 26 Mar 2005 17:51:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 132 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Amazon.com Knows, Predicts Shopping Habits (Monty Solomon) Writer of Retracted Stories Faces Review (Monty Solomon) As File Sharing Nears High Court, Net Specialists Worry (Monty Solomon) Purloined Lives (Monty Solomon) FCC Extends 'Truth in Billing' Guidelines to Cellphones (Monty Solomon) Announcing EEPI - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative (M Solomon) TSA Work Sloppy, but Not Illegal (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.7: Hearing Friday Could Determine Future (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.8: Action Alert Best E-voting Bill Reintroduced (M Solomon) EFFector 18.9: Action Alert Stop the Trademark Act (Monty Solomon) EPIC Alert 12.06 (Monty Solomon) VOIP or PBX? (Smokey) Verizon FiOS Blocking Ports? (andyrankin@gmail.com) FCC: We Don't Need no Steenkin Line Sharing (Danny Burstein) Dealing With Vonage (David B. Horvath, CCP) Re: Our Telephonic Primacy (BobGoudreau) Re: Our Telephonic Primacy (AES) Re: Our Telephonic Primacy (Dave Garland) Re: What's Historic? (LB@notmine.com) Re: Texas Sues Vonage Over 911 Problem (John Levine) Re: Some Concerned About Privacy Implications of E-ZPass (G Wollman) Re: New Long Range Cordless Phones? (Robert Bonomi) Re: CDR Collection (Carl Navarro) If You Work at RCN, Read This (Anonymous) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:19:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Amazon.com Knows, Predicts Shopping Habits By ALLISON LINN AP Business Writer SEATTLE (AP) -- Amazon.com Inc. has one potentially big advantage over its rival online retailers: It knows things about you that you may not know yourself. Though plenty of companies have detailed systems for tracking customer habits, critics and boosters alike say Amazon is the trailblazer, having collected information longer and used it more proactively. It even received a patent recently on technology aimed at tracking information about the people for whom its customers buy gifts. Amazon sees such data-gathering as the best way to keep customers happy and loyal, a relationship-building technique that analysts consider potentially crucial to besting other online competitors. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=47926794 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:21:24 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Writer of Retracted Stories Faces Review By MARK JEWELL AP Business Writer BOSTON (AP) -- A freelance journalist who authored two online news articles that Technology Review magazine retracted over questions of veracity is also facing review of stories she wrote for other publications. The journalist, Michelle Delio, is a 37-year-old New York City freelance writer specializing in technology. Delio said Friday that Technology Review's online version was correct in retracting the two stories because they were based on an anonymous source who misrepresented himself to her. But she defended the rest of the work she has written over her 15-year career as truthful. WiredNews.com, for whom Delio has long been a contributor, published a note to readers citing this month's retractions by TechnologyReview.com and saying it had assigned a journalism professor to review articles written by Delio. The online publication has not, however, removed any of the hundreds of stories Delio has written for it, said Wired News' managing editor Marty Cortinas. Adam Penenberg, a New York University professor who also writes a media column for Wired News, was to do the review. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=47925733 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:40:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: As File Sharing Nears High Court, Net Specialists Worry By JOHN MARKOFF SAN DIEGO, March 16 - As the bitter debate over computer file sharing heads toward the Supreme Court, the pro-technology camp is growing increasingly anxious. Some technologists warn that if the court decides in favor of the music and recording industries after hearing arguments in the MGM v. Grokster case on March 29, the ruling could also stifle a proliferating set of new Internet-based services that have nothing to do with the sharing of copyrighted music and movies at issue in the court case. Some of those innovations were on display here at the Emerging Technologies Conference, attended by about 750 hardware and software designers. The demonstrations included Flickr, a Canadian service that has made it possible for Web loggers and surfers to easily share and catalog millions of digital photographs. And Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief of executive of Amazon.com, demonstrated a set of new features in the company's A9 search engine designed to make it extremely simple for Web users to share searches specially tailored to mine everything from newspapers to yellow pages to catalogs of electronics parts. Software designers from iFabricate, a small company in Emeryville, Calif., displayed a new Web service intended to make it simple for home inventors to share instructions for complex do-it-yourself garage construction projects. Projects can be documented and shared with a mixture of images, text, ingredient lists, computer-animated design files and digital videos. There was also a demonstration of Wikipedia, a volunteer-run online encyclopedia effort that now has generated 1.5 million entries in 200 languages. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/technology/17soft.html?ex=1268715600&en=542d867283a2fb4c&ei=5090 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To read NY Times on line each day with no login or registration requirements please check out our section here http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:43:16 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Purloined Lives By GARY RIVLIN March 17, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO, March 16 - The phone lines are seldom quiet for long at the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. But lately they have been ringing almost continually. The calls come from people like Warren Lambert, who phoned on Feb. 18, the same day he received a letter conveying alarming news from ChoicePoint, a company that compiles data on millions of citizens. It was only one of more than 140,000 such letters ChoicePoint has mailed in recent weeks, informing people like Mr. Lambert that computer files containing their names, addresses and Social Security numbers, among other critical personal data, had been inadvertently sold to "several individuals, posing as legitimate business customers." Mr. Lambert, a 67-year-old retiree living in San Francisco, called the identity theft hotline to ask not only what immediate steps he should take but, more important, "what I'm going to be exposed to." The immediate steps were clear, according to Jay Foley, who with his wife, Linda, runs the ID theft counseling center from their home in San Diego. Mr. Lambert needed to phone the three major credit reporting agencies to find out if any credit cards or other accounts had been opened in his name -- none had, so far -- and then place a "fraud alert" on his accounts, to warn potential creditors not to open additional accounts in Mr. Lambert's name without fuller verification. But Mr. Lambert also needed to understand that the privacy breach meant he now had something similar to an incurable virus -- a chronic condition he would need to monitor for the rest of his life. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/business/17private.html?ex=1268715600&en=ed495f886c4621c7&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:59:42 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: F.C.C. Extends 'Truth in Billing' Guidelines to Cellphones By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 11, 2005 WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (AP) - Regulators voted Thursday to extend "truth in billing" guidelines to cellphone bills in hopes of promoting clearer, shorter statements devoid of confusing add-on fees. All five members of the Federal Communications Commission gave their support to a measure requiring cellphone bills to be "brief, clear, nonmisleading and in plain language." The guidelines already cover bills for traditional phone service. The F.C.C. said it was misleading to suggest that any fees in addition to the base rate for cellphone service were caused by taxes or government-mandated charges. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/business/11phone.html?ex=1268283600&en=42d7faeec224862d&ei=5090 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To read NY Times, USA Today and other national news publications on line each day with no registration or login requirements, go to http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:21:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Announcing EEPI - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative Lauren Weinstein lauren@vortex.com March 25, 2005 I'm pleased to announce "EEPI" ( http://www.eepi.org ), a new initiative aimed at fostering cooperation in the areas of electronic entertainment and its many related issues, problems, and impacts. I've teamed with 30+ year recording industry veteran Thane Tierney in this effort to find cooperative solutions to technical, legal, policy, and other issues relating to the vast and growing range of electronic technologies that are crucial to the entertainment industry, but that also impact other industries, interest groups, individuals, and society in major ways. There are many interested parties, including record labels, film studios, the RIAA, the MPAA, artists, consumers, intellectual freedom advocates, broadcasters, manufacturers, legislators, regulators, and a multitude of others. The issues cover an enormous gamut from DVDs, CDs, and piracy issues to multimedia cell phones, from digital video recorders to Internet file sharing/P2P, from digital TV and the "broadcast flag" to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and "fair use" controversies. Working together, rather than fighting each other, perhaps we can all find some broadly acceptable paths that will be of benefit to everyone. For more information, please see the EEPI Web site at: http://www.eepi.org A moderated public discussion list and an EEPI announcement list are now available at the site. Public participation is cordially invited. Thank you very much. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lauren Weinstein was a charter subscriber to TELECOM Digest, back in 1981, and was a regular participant here for many years. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:27:36 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: TSA Work Sloppy, but Not Illegal By Ryan Singel 02:00 AM Mar. 26, 2005 PT Homeland Security officials failed to keep millions of airline passenger records secure and repeatedly made false denials of their involvement in data transfers to the media and Congress, but they did not violate federal law, according to a report released Friday. The report (.pdf) by acting Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner found that the Transportation Security Administration was involved in 14 different data transfers totaling more than 20 million records in 2002 and 2003. The report describes an array of data dumps from airlines to TSA contractors and paints a picture of an agency unable to keep track of its own operations, leading to false denials of data transfers to the media and inaccurate sworn testimony to the Senate. However, the department did not violate the Privacy Act, which prohibits secret databases on Americans, since the agency used the records in bulk and did not look up individuals by name, according to the report. Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways and American, Frontier, Continental and America West airlines -- along with three airline record processing firms, all secretly turned over data directly to the TSA and government contractors. The data included names, addresses, dates of birth, itineraries and credit card numbers. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,67031,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:13:37 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: EFFector 18.7: Hearing Friday Could Determine Future EFFector Vol. 18, No. 7 March 3, 2005 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 323rd Issue of EFFector: * Hearing Friday Could Determine the Future of Online Journalists' Rights * Press Conference on Supreme Court File Sharing Case Now Online * Keep RFIDs Out of California IDs * Support EFF - Bid on "Freedom to Connect" Pass on eBay! * CFP 2005: Panopticon - April 12-15 * MiniLinks (14): European Commission Ignores Opposition to Software Patents * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/07.php ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:15:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: EFFector 18.8: Action Alert - Best E-voting Bill Reintroduced EFFector Vol. 18, No. 8 March 11, 2005 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 324th Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert: Best E-voting Bill Reintroduced - Lend Your Support! * EFF Giving and Activism Pages Improved * Court Crushes Online Journalists' Rights * WIPO Shutting Out Public Interest Organizations * EFF to ITU: DRM Is Dangerous for Developing Countries * Slowly, Sunshine Creeping Into Texas E-voting Process * Grokster Send-off Party - You're Invited! * IP Attorneys: EFF Wants You * Staff Calendar: 03.16.05 - Fred von Lohmann speaks at "IP and Creativity: Redefining the Issue," Washington, DC * MiniLinks (16): Discontent in the Cult of Mac * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/08.php ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:14:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: EFFector 18.9: Action Alert - Stop the Trademark Act from EFFector Vol. 18, No. 9 March 17, 2005 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 325th Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert: Stop the Trademark Act from Diluting Free Speech! * Counting Down to Grokster with EFF * Grokster Send-off Party - March 24 * CopyNight.org: Meet-up for Copyfighters - March 29 * EFF Advises US Army on Soldiers' Email Legacy * CFP 2005: Panopticon - April 12-15 * MiniLinks (14): Apple Tightens DRM Noose * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/09.php ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:17:45 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: EPIC Alert 12.06 ======================================================================== E P I C A l e r t ======================================================================== Volume 12.06 March 24, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_12.06.html ======================================================================== Table of Contents ======================================================================== [1] EPIC Calls for Regulation of Choicepoint; Coalition Demands Action [2] Madrid Summit Urges Democratic Response to Threats of Terrorism [3] Google's Gmail Subject of EPIC West Testimony in California Senate [4] Transportation Biometric ID Raises Privacy Concerns; Review Urged [5] EPIC Introduces EPIC FOIA Notes, 2005 FOIA Gallery [6] News in Brief [7] EPIC Bookstore: J.J. Luna's "How to Be Invisible" [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_12.06.html ------------------------------ From: Smokey <mummy@gummy.com> Subject: VOIP or PBX? Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 06:20:17 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Looks like we will be moving our company soon and growing a lot so I have a need for a new system. We currently have an old key (Meridian) system and a Call Pilot. I anticipate we will have some remote offices around the country and we make heavy use of phones. I would like something that will work well in this scenario and not take rocket scientist to manage. Adds, removes, moves, should be easy. We have a robust network with all Cisco switches, etc. So any ideas? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: andyrankin@gmail.com Subject: Verizon FiOS Blocking Ports? Date: 26 Mar 2005 08:08:12 -0800 I'm very lucky to be in an area where Verizon's FiOS fiber to the premises service is available. I have the 15/2 Mbps service and it works great. I'm wondering if anyone knows if Verizon blocks are inbound ports (80, etc.)? Also, I'm using the Verizon provided DLink DI-604 router. I'm not having any luck getting the router to forward WAN traffic through to specific machines on the LAN. For example, I've tried passing traffic on port 8080 to a linux box running Apache on that port and I think I have the router configured properly but it doesn't seem to be letting the traffic through. I'm a bit of a novice so I'm not sure how to determine if this is something Verizon's blocking before it gets to my router or if I just haven't figured the router out yet. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com> Subject: FCC: W Don't Need no Steenkin Line Sharing Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:53:18 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC "The Commission has before it a petition for declaratory ruling filed by BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. (BellSouth) regarding issues stemming from the Triennial Review Order. As explained below, because the Commission's national unbundling rules in the Triennial Review Order directly address the primary issue raised by BellSouth, we grant BellSouth's petition to the extent described in this Order. "Specifically, applying section 251(d)(3) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the Act), we find that a state commission may not require an incumbent local exchange carrier (LEC) to provide digital subscriber line (DSL) service to an end user customer over the same unbundled network element (UNE) loop facility that a competitive LEC uses to provide voice services to that end user. "For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that state decisions that impose such an obligation are inconsistent with and substantially prevent the implementation of the Act and the Commissions federal unbundling rules and policies set forth in the Triennial Review Order that implement sections 251(c) ..... rest at: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-78A1.txt [a] http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-78A1.doc [b] http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-78A1.pdf [c] [a] messy ascii [b] Word Doc [c] PDF (most FCC material is available in all three forms. URLs are identical except for the trailing extension). Further info on the main FCC page: http://www.fcc.gov ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:05:29 -0500 From: David B. Horvath, CCP <dhorvath@withheld on request> Subject: Dealing with Vonage PAT - please remove my email address -- too much SPAM. I signed up with Vonage a while ago (taking advantage of PAT's offer). I decided that I wasn't using it enough (plenty of minutes with free LD on my cell) and tried to cancel. I called on 3/18, sat on call for at least half an hour, got transferred to regular customer service who could not take the cancelation order. I was given a tracking ticket and a promise that I'd get a call back in a day or two. At the same time I also requested cancellation using their web page. I finally called again on 3/24, sat on hold for a while and finally was connected to the "retention department". It took about 5 minutes (mostly on hold) to handle the actual cancellation. The clerk was very helpful. When I mentioned my 3/18 call, she told me that they had over 3,000 tickets in queue waiting for calls back and that it was "a staffing issue" (they need more people). - David David B. Horvath, CCP Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor Member: ICCP Educational Foundation Board and ICCP Test Council; Chair of LPR&GC CMP ------------------------------ From: BobGoudreau@withheld on request Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:34:16 -0500 Subject: Re: Our Telephonic Primacy [As always, please block my email address=2E] John Smith wrote: >Dave Garland wrote (about infant mortality in Cuba): >> It's true, but the US has far more heroic interventions among extremely >> low birth weight and extremely premature infants than Cuba=2E Which, of >> course, are far more likely to die than normal births. I suspect that >> in Cuba, those get counted as miscarriages, not infants. > Is this just a guess, or do you have reason to suspect that the > medical definition of "birth" is different in Cuba? Or perhaps it' > the definition of "death"? Actually, yes, he does have reason. Many (perhaps most) other countries, even developed ones, use a different standard than the US does in distinguishing between live births and stillbirths. Infant mortality figures apply only to live births which subsequently die, so stillbirths don't count. See http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110006161 for more info. For example, almost one-third of US infant deaths happened to very premature babies (less than 1 kg) who wouldn't have even been counted as live births in Switzerland. > It seems to me, considering an equal number of premature births, that > heroic intervention should produce a benefit in the statistics. Only if they're counted as live births, not stillbirths. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu> Subject: Re: Our Telephonic Primacy Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:10:34 -0800 Organization: Stanford University In article <telecom24.131.15@telecom-digest.org>, John Smith <user@example.net> wrote: > Dave Garland wrote (about infant mortality in Cuba): >> It's true, but the US has far more heroic interventions among extremely >> low birth weight and extremely premature infants than Cuba. Which, of >> course, are far more likely to die than normal births. I suspect that >> in Cuba, those get counted as miscarriages, not infants. > Is this just a guess, or do you have reason to suspect that the > medical definition of "birth" is different in Cuba? Or perhaps it's > the definition of "death"? It seems to me, considering an equal > number of premature births, that heroic intervention should produce a > benefit in the statistics. If it doesn't, then why do it? Or is > there a higher percentage of premature births in the U.S.? Demographics, specifically distribution of ages at which women conceive and deliver, could be significantly different in the two societies, and have an impact on the resulting statistics. (But don't ask me for specifics; I don't know them.) ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> Subject: Re: Our Telephonic Primacy Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 00:19:46 -0600 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when John Smith <user@example.net> wrote: > Is this just a guess, or do you have reason to suspect that the > medical definition of "birth" is different in Cuba? Yes, I suspect the definitions are different. Shoulda given my source: http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2002/000019.html None of which diminishes Cuba's tremendous successes in infant health. But the statistics for the two countries are not directly comparable. Which I think was Lisa's point, that you need to know all the details in order to be able to judge statistical comparisons. And, alas, none of which actually has much to do with telecom. So this will be my last post on the subject. ------------------------------ From: LB@notmine.com Subject: Re: What's Historic? Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 07:29:52 -0500 Organization: Optimum Online Wesrock@aol.com wrote: > This item forwarded from another list (and which apparently > originated in a newspaper) calls Basking Ridge "historic." > To many of us 195 Broadway would be historic. Basking Ridge was > a johnny-come-lately and I remember the panic among Manhattan workers > and how AT&T held driving lessons for employees from NYC. > Wes Leatherock > wesrock@aol.com > Verizon to pay $125M for AT&T's 'Pagoda' Offspring to buy former > telecom giant's HQ > Tuesday, March 22, 2005 > BY GEORGE E. JORDAN > Star-Ledger Staff > Verizon has agreed to pay about $125 million for the sprawling Basking > Ridge campus that once served as the historic headquarters of AT&T, > according to five people with knowledge of the transaction. > Verizon, the nation's biggest telephone company, eventually could move > its operations center and up to 1,000 employees from Manhattan to the > 10 interconnecting buildings in Somerset County, said the sources. I think the "historic" appellation comes from the design. It is a pretty spectacular set of buildings. LB ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 2005 23:59:50 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: Texas Sues Vonage Over 911 Problem Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > It's not just that. To actually do the interconnection, Vonage would > need to build some infrastructure: they'd need trunks into every LATA > in which they offered 911. But they already do. The phone numbers they offer are all from facility based CLECs. I know that my number was on the Paetec switch in Syracuse, in the same building with all the other CLEC switches and probably the cell switches, too. > It seems everyone pays a fee to support the PSAP except the VOIP > people who claim their having to pay the fee would be > anti-competitive "because they are not a phone company." If it walks > like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, the obvious > conclusion would be that it is what it puports to be - unless it is a > VOIP provider. ... Agreed. > The VOIP carriers are using the telephone number assigned to the > adapter for routing to the PSAP rather than the location of the > router/gateway or whatever is the first unit to handle the call. I see you've never tried VoIP service. When I signed up for Vonage, they told me fairly clearly that they needed to know my physical address for 911 service, so I gave it to them. Didn't ever try it, and I'm not sure how informative a test would have been since the PSAP for my house is the same one for the phone's rate center. Same for Lingo, where part of my account profile is my physical address, separate from the billing address (my po box) and the address where they shipped the adapter. Collecting the address is a minor problem compared to the real problem, most VoIP carriers, with the notable exception of Packet8, won't pay for a real E911 connection to the PSAP. > So let me get this straight. Local (and state) gov'ts pretend that a > 911 PSAP (Public Safety Answering Position) isn't part of the standard > functions of government, and therefore they get the telcos to pass > through a separate "911 fee" (read tax). Don't be silly. Governments tax all sorts of stuff. Since PSAPs are uniquely useful to people who use phones, there's some logic in taxing phones to support them. I agree that the amount of 911 tax could be better matched to the cost of the PSAPs. > What's next? Perhaps the county will claim that libraries are > special, so there needs to be a separate tax, excuse me, fee, on all > book sales? Don't be silly. We have library districts for that. R's, John ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Some Concerned About Privacy Implications of E-ZPass System Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:48:44 +0000 (UTC) Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article <telecom24.131.17@telecom-digest.org>, Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote: > Massachusetts doesn't give a discount for FastLane, Actually, the Turnpike does. The resident discounts on the harbor tunnels now require Fast Lane (and have since it was introduced, IIRC), and the two toll barriers on the Extension give a 25-cent discount for Fast Lane customers. > but last year they instituted a tax deduction if you use it enough to > be considered a commuter (I think $150 or $250). I believe it's actually written such that you don't have to use Fast Lane, but you're unlikely to have saved all those receipts in any other form. -GAWollman Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. ___ (2003) ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: New Long Range Cordless Phones? Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 14:13:49 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article <telecom24.131.12@telecom-digest.org>, Dave <newsgroups@dave!!!christense!!n.o!!!r!!!g> wrote: > If I set up another computer with Asterix running, this kludge isnt > going to be terribly cost effective. The rate for the additional > electricity (38-43 cents per KWH) will negate the advantages. > The other problems with sourcing VOIP from a provider in Alaska is > that a) all high speed connections are metered and b) no VOIP carriers > offer TN's in the 907 NPA, and being in a small rate center the odds > of having a local TN are even less. > Other then costs and time involved in getting a tech class ham > license, can someone estimate what the costs and legalities involved > in setting up a mobile radio system with a (pseudo-encrypted) PSTN > gateway? Then I could 'legally' do what these devices do. The > terrain is pretty open and flat and I have a barn that I could mount > my equipment on which is above the treeline. At least if i'm going to > burn additional dead dinosaurs I can have a higher 'gee-whiz' factor. There's a matter of finding an "available", legal, radio channel to operate on. Given that you're out in the boonies, this may not be a problem. You've got some recurring costs for license fees, etc. to the FCC. There's an annual "regulatory" fee that will be maybe a couple of bucks; might be as low as $0.40 or so. (looks like between $.08 and $0.26 per radio per year) Then there's the license fee, itself; Looks like $55-$155. "depending" I think that's good for 5 years. "Renewals", for like period, same cost. Then, there's the equipment cost. Buying new, you'll spend beaucoup thousands. On the used/surplus market, you can probably find equipment in the low hundreds. Transistorized gear uses a few tens of watts on standby. Maybe a couple of hundred when actually transmitting. Good antennas make a *BIG* difference in range. They, cost, too. The higher in the air you can get them, the better, of course. Depending on _how_far_ up in the air, you may have to worry about legal requirements for lighting, at night. Those requirements are *no* fun. Aim for "just under" that 'lighting required' height. The interconnect to the PSTN is fairly simple -- In the ham radio community, it's called an "autopatch". There are various kinds of 'access controls' possible, so that you, and nobody else, can enable the telephone interface. Generally, they let you *originate* calls from your radio, only. Except for 'mobile phone' service, there are legal issues with a transmitter going on because the phone rings. "Pseudo encryption" is problematic. The law requires you to announce the station call-sign "in the clear" at the beginning/end of any period of activity, and at stated intervals during activity. Technically, minimal 'speech scrambling' is relatively trivial. I'm *NOT* sure about the legal issues. Going the 'ham radio' route has its problems, too. It's, legally, *strictly* 'recreational'/'hobby' usage. Something like calling a pizza joint, to place a pick-up order, is technically illegal. 'In the clear' transmission is required at all times. > Or should I just say forget this idea and go back to Iridium? I'd suggest trying a "better" roof antenna on the cell-phone. Speculating -- you've got an 'omnidirectional' antenna, like a 'mag mount' one for a car. just mounted way up in the air. A directional "beam" antenna, pointed at the cell tower, can make a *lot* of difference. > Tony P. wrote: >>> I'm living in a rural Alaskan town and traditional cell service is >>> spotty to none, even with an old bag phone and roof antenna so I was >>> thinking that this could be an interesting approach to local mobile >>> phone service. >> I highly doubt that it is legal in the U.S. However, modifying your >> 802.11 gear and using say a PalmOS type machine with an 802.11 card >> you could probably cobble together a VoIP solution that has a linear >> range of 11 miles or so, depending on what type and pattern of >> radiator you decide to use. >> From what I've read about these units they operate in the amateur >> radio band so I take sort of strong offense to that. ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro <cnavarro@wcnet.org> Subject: Re: CDR Collection Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 14:47:46 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On 25 Mar 2005 09:28:45 -0800, Matt <mattmorgan64@msn.com> wrote: > I have a NItsuka PBX (Not sure of mod # yet); from which I would like > to pull incoming CDR records, for the purposes of parsing the phone > number and bringing the customer up automatically in our customer > system. > The PBX has a PC attached to it, which I believe is used for voice > mail. > None of the phones have any sort of data port. > Any idea where the most likely place for a port to obtain this data > would be? Given the age of the thing, If there is a port at all, I'm > guessing it will be a DB9 or 25 serial port. You sort of answered your own question. Pretending that you have an Onyx, (black plastic cabinet, modular plugs for lines and amphenol for stations), you ought to find a serial port on the AUX board ... if you have one. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: someone@netscape.net Subject: If You Work at RCN Read This Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 17:00:00 EST Mr. Townson, please remove my name. I have been in this business for almost forty years, but yesterday took the cake. I didn't think the bullshit could get any deeper than it's been lately, but I was wrong. If you work at RCN, and I hope you do and I hope you are high up, I've got a bone to pick with you. I work for a small clec -- never mind which one -- and we've been doing ports to and from RCN for years. Used to be it was no big deal: I could do it, my mates could do it, we all work together and it's a small outfit but we do a good job. But yesterday, I got handed the biggest blivot in the world. I called up the guy we used to deal with at RCN and said we're porting a couple of numbers out, they want it for next week, I guess you know the routine. Like I said, it used to be no big deal -- you get customers porting in, you got customers porting out, it's just business and no big fuss, especially with it being mud season and lots of summer folks getting ready to come back. The guy I called said they got a new central department that handles this now, and I have to call an 800 number. OK, I figure, they just got out of bankrupcy so they probably contracted out some LNP stuff. I figure they went to a gooey like Verizon has, which is a pain but it works, and I make the call. I get switched to someone who's name I won't say, but he tells me I have to fill out a form and send it back and can he have my email to send it to me. Sure, no problem, I give the email address and a few minutes later I get the shock of my life. When I get the email, it has a form attached to it that opens up in Microsoft Excel. The first page is instructions, and I nearly crapped my pants when I read this. Here's what it says: "Put one letter in each box. YOU MUST HIT TAB AFTER EVERY LETTER" Now, like I said, I have been in this business since the panel days, and I have seen some stupid things, but four hours and forty minites later I know that this takes the prize. Whoever set up this form used ONE SPREADSHEET SQUARE for EACH LETTER OR NUMBER. Every goddamm time I type two letters one after the other, I have to go back and erase, and half the time I had about twenty things typed before I remembered to look. It took the best part of the afternoon, and my boss said we got to get it down today and I had to type a letter and hit tab and type a number and hit tab and type a letter and type a letter and oh shit goddamm it again! I had a plan for yesterday afternoon, and you screwed it up, RCN. I was gonna pop a few and watch the wwf with my grandchild, but instead I wound up halfway up a roof trying like hell not to slip and finding my way with a flashlite because I was stuck in the office all damm day and I have a guy out of service and it's that kind of a job. RCN, you used to know what kind of job it is. You used to be pros. You just went through a bankrupcy, so I can understand how you got a lot of fresh faces in there, but this takes the prize. Tell me RCN, since when does a company that just got out of bankrupcy court have time to use a five thousand dollar computer to make a carbon copy of a form that looks like it came out of my typewriter while I was in the Navy? Hell, I learned to type on a Smith-Corona, and I'm pretty good at it still, and I passed the po3 test four months early because of it, but your form wasted my whole day. Tell me, please, that whoever wasted my day and a lot of other guy's days is getting called on the carpet. I won't sign this. Just act like it came from all your old customers who are calling me now. ------------------------------ 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. 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