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TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Apr 2005 00:55:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 175 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson QUALCOMM Announces Second Quarter Fiscal 2005 Results (Monty Solomon) Cingular Wireless Posts Solid First-Quarter Results (Monty Solomon) Motorola Announces Record First-Quarter Sales and Earnings (M Solomon) America Online Launches Major Campaign Against Phishing (Monty Solomon) VeriSign Reports First Quarter 2005 Results (Monty Solomon) Google Launches Personal History Feature (Monty Solomon) Re: Can I Port an 800 Number Without Old Carrier's Permission (A Gillis) Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam (Bob Goudreau) Re: AOL to Block Identity Theft Sites (mc) Re: New Technology Poses 911 Peril (Dave Garland) It Happened Again (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:03:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: QUALCOMM Announces Second Quarter Fiscal 2005 Results Revenues $1.37 Billion, EPS $0.31 Pro Forma Revenues $1.37 Billion, EPS $0.29 SAN DIEGO, April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, today announced results for its second fiscal quarter ended March 27, 2005. Total QUALCOMM Second Quarter Results: * Revenues: $1.37 billion, up 12 percent year-over-year and down 2 percent sequentially. * Net income: $532 million, up 9 percent year-over-year and 4 percent sequentially. * Diluted earnings per share: $0.31, up 7 percent year-over-year and 3 percent sequentially. * Effective tax rate: approximately 16 percent for the quarter. Fiscal 2005 estimated tax rate of approximately 24 percent. * Operating cash flow: $821 million, up 6 percent year-over year; 60 percent of revenue. * Dividends: paid $230 million in cash dividends and announced a 29 percent increase in quarterly dividends payable starting in the third quarter. * Stock repurchase: on March 8 announced a two-fold increase in stock repurchase authority to $2 billion. From the date of announcement through April 19, 2005, repurchased approximately 19.5 million shares at a net cost of approximately $688 million. Sold a put option that may, if exercised, require us to repurchase an additional 5.75 million shares at approximately $33.75 per share for a net cost of approximately $194 million. QUALCOMM Pro Forma Second Quarter Results: Pro forma results exclude the QUALCOMM Strategic Initiatives (QSI) segment and a one-time tax benefit recorded in the second quarter of fiscal 2005 and are presented as if the "New Method"(1) of recording royalties had been in use in the prior year. * Revenues: $1.37 billion, up 15 percent year-over-year, and down 2 percent sequentially. * Net income: $487 million, up 14 percent year-over-year and 3 percent sequentially. * Diluted earnings per share: $0.29, up 12 percent year-over year and 4 percent sequentially. * Effective tax rate: approximately 27 percent for the quarter. Fiscal 2005 estimated tax rate of approximately 28 percent. * Free cash flow: $741 million, up 3 percent year over year; 54 percent of revenue. (Defined as net cash from operating activities less capital expenditures.) Detailed reconciliations between total QUALCOMM results and QUALCOMM pro forma results and cash flows are included at the end of this news release. Prior period reconciliations are presented on our Investor Relations web page at www.qualcomm.com . - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=48509924 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:07:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Cingular Wireless Posts Solid First-Quarter Results: -- Net subscriber additions of more than 1.4 million -- 50.4 million subscribers at quarter's end -- Gross subscriber additions of 4.8 million -- Monthly subscriber churn of 2.2 percent overall and 1.9 percent in postpaid -- 210 basis-point sequential improvement in normalized OIBDA margin -- Continued progress in GSM conversion, with 84 percent of minutes now on Cingular's GSM network -- Integration initiatives continue on schedule ATLANTA, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless provider, today posted solid first-quarter results driven by continued strong subscriber growth, improved churn and sequential margins, and strength in data and enterprise services. Cingular delivered net subscriber additions of more than 1.4 million and ended the first quarter with 50.4 million subscribers. Gross additions were nearly 4.8 million while churn was 2.2 percent -- a sequential improvement of 20 basis points. In addition, OIBDA margin -- normalized to exclude direct merger integration costs -- increased to 25.5 percent, which is a sequential improvement of 210 basis points. ("Pro forma" results reflect the acquisition of AT&T Wireless, plus related acquisitions and dispositions, as if they had occurred on January 1, 2003.) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=48492342 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:02:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Motorola Announces Record First-Quarter Sales and Earnings First-Quarter 2005 Financial Highlights - Sales up 10 percent: Sales of $8.16 billion, compared to first-quarter 2004 sales of $7.44 billion. - Earnings Per Share up 47 percent: Earnings of $.28 per share, versus $.19 per share from continuing operations in the year-ago quarter. - Gain of 1.4 percentage points in global mobile device market share: Mobile device shipments of 28.7 million units, representing an estimated market share of 17.1 percent, an increase of 1.4 percentage points versus the year-ago quarter and 1.2 percentage points versus fourth quarter of 2004. SCHAUMBURG, Ill., April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) today reported record sales of $8.16 billion in the first quarter of 2005, an increase of 10 percent from sales of $7.44 billion in the first quarter of 2004, and reported record first-quarter earnings of $.28 per share, versus earnings from continuing operations of $.19 per share in the year-ago quarter. First-quarter 2005 earnings include pre-tax income of $234 million, or $.06 per share, from the sale of an investment. First-quarter 2004 earnings from continuing operations included pre-tax income of $143 million, or $.04 per share, from the sale of an investment and other items highlighted in that release. During the quarter, the company continued to strengthen its balance sheet, generating operating cash flow of $438 million and ending the quarter with a record net cash(1) position of $6.0 billion. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=48510374 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:06:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: America Online Launches Major Campaign against Phishing DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 2005--America Online Inc.: -- Round-the-Clock Blocking of Suspected Scam/Identity Theft Sites Supplements Other Anti-Phishing Tools, Ongoing Member Education Campaign -- AOL Partners with Online Security Company Cyota to Help Identify Web Sites That Attempt to Steal Passwords, Financial Information America Online today announced a major new initiative to combat "phishing" -- the practice of using fraudulent e-mail and fake web sites to solicit sensitive personal information from users. As part of that campaign, America Online has partnered with Cyota, Inc., the leading anti-fraud and online security solution provider for financial institutions, to help identify and block access to suspected phishing sites through a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week monitoring process. AOL is also working internally and with other partners to identify and block phishing sites. This effort supplements the other steps AOL has taken to help protect its members against phishing, including spam blocking, cooperation with law enforcement, member education, and tools like AOL(R) Money Alerts, AOL(R) Passcode, and AOL(R) Official Mail. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=48490983 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:19:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: VeriSign Reports First Quarter 2005 Results MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks, today reported its results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2005. VeriSign reported revenue of $401 million for the first quarter of 2005, a 75 percent increase compared to the same period of 2004. On a GAAP basis, VeriSign reported net income of $49 million for the first quarter 2005 and earnings per share of $0.19 per fully-diluted share. This compares with net income of $9 million and earnings per share of $.04 per fully-diluted share for the same period of 2004. On a non-GAAP, after tax basis, using a 30% effective tax rate on non-GAAP pre-tax income of $95 million, earnings per share for the first quarter was $0.25 per fully-diluted share, as compared to non-GAAP pre-tax income of $50 million and earnings per fully-diluted share of $0.14 for the same period in 2004. These non-GAAP results exclude the following items, which are included under GAAP: amortization of intangible assets related to acquisitions, the net gain or loss on the sale of investments or the impairment of investments, restructuring and other recoveries/charges, and stock-based compensation charges related to acquisitions. A table reconciling the non-GAAP to GAAP numbers reported above is appended to this release. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=48510821 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:26:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Google Launches Personal History Feature By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Business Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. is experimenting with a new feature that enables the users of its online search engine to see all of their past search requests and results, creating a computer peephole that could prove as embarrassing as it is helpful. Activating Google's "My Search History" service, unveiled Wednesday afternoon at http://labs.google.com , requires users to create a personal login with a password. Users of Google's e-mail, discussion groups and answer services can simply use their existing log-ins. The service allows users to decide if they want Google to automatically recognize them without having to log in each time they use the same computer. Those who prefer to log in on each visit can use a link that will appear in the right-hand corner of Google's home page. Whenever a user is logged in, Google will provide a detailed look at all their past search activity. The service also includes a "pause" feature that prevents it from being displayed in the index. Users will be able to pinpoint a search conducted on a particular day, using a calendar that's displayed on the history page. The service sometimes will point out a past search result related to a new search request. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=48520265 ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis <alg@aracnet.com> Subject: Re: Can I Port an 800 Number Without the Old Carrier's Permission? Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 18:41:42 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com William's difficulties may lie in his remarks in Question #2, below. He said he'd been paying the invoice on the Toll-Free number since he "bought the company". It could be that the previous owner of the business ordered the T-F number (and thus is the true "owner" in the eyes of Cloacal since they may not have been notified of the businesses sale). So Cloacal is doing their job, being sure that our new friend William doesn't hijack the T-F number from the original and true of the number. I'd guess William needs to convince Cloacal that he bought the business and its assets (including the valuable Toll-Free number). Once that happens they'll probably honor his RespOrg documents. If this is actually what's in play in this case then Hooray for Cloacal! They're doing their job, protecting one persons assets from another who (right now) has no right to take that asset. Pat's advice to draw Judith Oppenheimer into the fray is great! She, of all people, will know how to beat this problem into submission! Al <william_warren@withheld_on_request> wrote in message news:telecom24.163.6@telecom-digest.org... > Pat, > Please strip my email address and name; TIA. > Here's a question about 800 number portability which I hope you or > the other readers can answer. > I have switched to a small CLEC for my service -- call them ma-pa-telco. > I told ma-pa-telco that I was unsatisfied with the service I was getting > from my old carrier -- let's call them "Cloacal" -- so I asked ma-pa-telco > to take over my 800 line. > I signed a "Letter of Agency", and thought it was all done. Today, > however, ma-pa-telco tells me that after seven or eight false starts, > Cloacal refuses to transfer my 800 line, saying that my signature on > the letter of agency is "Unauthorized" and that they won't tell me who > is "authorized" to sign it. > So, some questions: > 1. Can ma-pa-telco force a switch? I mean, can they tell the > company-in-charge-of-the-800-number-portability-database to just > move the number over? > 2. Can I force Cloacal to release my 800 number even though they say > I'm not the "authorized" person? It's my number, right? They've > certainly got plenty of signatures to check: I've been paying the > bill for this ever since I bought the company. Can I just tell > Cloacal to grow up and consider me as authorized? > 3. Is there a procedure in place to resolve this kind of issue? When > they set up the 800 portability database, someone must have thought > of things like a CEO retiring or a company like Cloacal refusing to > play nice with the other children. > This has been going on for over a week, and now it's just silly: as > far as I'm concerned, Cloacal is dragging their feet just because I > got tired of them acting like Ma Bell's idiot baby bell brother and I > said so to their face. At this point, the FCC should spank them and > tell them to get over it. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For starters, problems like this are > often times handled very satisfactorily by Judith Oppenheimer, a > reader here with several excellent web sites (begin your review of her > work at http://judithoppenheimer.com which is the ICB Consultancy home > page.) She has successfully cleared up things like this now and then. > Generally, yes, the _owner_ of an 800 number can take it where he > wants. One caveat: *who is the owner*? Signing a letter of agency > does not an owner make, if the true owner has a sticky widget. Think > back to when you first got the number ... did you sign any papers > telling Cloacal they were the owner? Did you originally get the > number from them? Who told _you_ that you are the owner of the number > (not the user of the number, but the _owner_ of it?) Another caveat: > do you owe any money to Cloacal on your bill with them? Telcos have a > right under the rules pertaining to number portability to hold a > number hostage if you do owe money. Under the law, telco has > protection to assure they get paid. Still a third caveat: Is the > number 'popular' or easy to remember, dial, etc? If it is -1212 or > -2345 or -1234, etc and etched on people's minds and quite 'easy to > remember or use', if Cloacal otherwise has any rights to the number, > they are going to fight more than ever. Genuine 800 numbers (as > opposed to 888, 877, 866 and yes! even 855) are not usually given up > by their 'owners' without some effort. Ms. Oppenheimer will need to > know all that in order to help you. But she seems to know her stuff > and _who_ to talk to. Good luck with your problem. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau <BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com> Subject: Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:08:58 -0400 Paul Vader wrote: >>> 'authority' for specific functionalities of the greater Internet, >>> _none_ of them have any authority with regard to the 'content' of >>> packets. >> Well then, who IS responsible to do the job? If no such job >> exists, why isn't one created? > A) Why would anyone living in a free country want controls on what people > can say? > B) Do you really misunderstand the internet so badly that you think that > there's any place you COULD create controls? > C) Who says what's allowable or not? I vote for NOBODY. Well said! This thread reminds me of something Arkady Shevchenko touched on in his early 1980's book _Breaking_with_Moscow_, in which he recounts his experience as a high-level defector from the Soviet Union. He described a school of thought to which certain members of the Soviet 'nomenklatura' belonged to. This group believed that just as the Soviet economy was all controlled and directed by the government central planning agency called GOSPLAN, that a similar (but apparently very top secret!) economic planning agency must exist to run the US economy at a similar or even deeper level of detail. Given that the American economy was so much larger and more dynamic than the Soviet one, this agency must therefore be worth copying/stealing secrets from/etc.! A non-trivial amount of intelligence effort was subsequently expended trying to ferret out details of this supposed American counterpart to GOSPLAN. Of course, those spying efforts came to naught, because (to paraphrase Gertrude Stein) "there was no there there"; no government agency in Washington was in charge of deciding every little low-level economic detail such as how many shoes must be made this week or how many tons of coal must be mined next month in order to meet the Five Year Plan. But to the adherents of this belief, steeped in nothing but their own experiences of rigid centralized control of everything, it was simply inconceivable that an economy with *no one at all* in charge could not only work, but indeed actually work much *better* than one run in a top-down fashion by a select group of alleged economic experts. And so it is with the internet. It turns out that just letting different private networks work out for themselves the terms of how they wanted to connect (or not) with other such networks became far more attractive to customers than the old centrally controlled "walled garden" private commercial networks that were around in the early 1980s (Compuserve, the original AOL, etc.) No one is "in charge" of the internet, any more than someone is "in charge" of a market economy. Yes, both of them need a certain amount of rules in order to function (e.g., consensus on which currencies/protocols are popular enough to merit being used to exchange value/data; rights to own physical property/address numbering and name-space resources; rules against fraudulent behavior that would deprive someone of their property, etc.) But you can't go too crazy with the rules, or else you end up either with rules that don't/can't get enforced (see: Prohibition, or the "CAN-SPAM" act) or you have to implement such an onerous overweening system of control that you lose the benefits of the free exchange of property/data (see: the North Korean economy, or the rigidly-controlled Chinese internet). Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu> Subject: Re: AOL to Block Identity Theft Sites Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 19:43:39 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) In my opinion, all browsers should block or warn about references of the form: <a href="xxxxx">yyyyy</a> where yyyyy is a URL that does not match xxxxx. Simple - why don't they do it? ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> Subject: Re: New Technology Poses 911 Peril VOIP Not Part of Emergency Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:43:52 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > My county charges a $1/month 911 tax as part of the phone bill. Will > a VOIP provider serving me also charge that fee? I doubt it because > they're exempt from regulation. Seems to me VOIP wants a free ride -- > no fee but full service. That's wrong. Perhaps. But perhaps the financing mechanism is wrong. It's reasonable to look at the alternatives. Why does your county charge as part of the phone bill? Why not as part of the property tax (that would seem most equitable), or a county income tax, or a portion of the sales tax? Do they charge for fire protection by a surcharge on matches and lighters? Do they finance the libraries by a tax on books and magazines? > Please don't tell me my 911 tax on my phone bill shouldn't be there. > It IS there and until it goes away, you have no argument. I don't > think it's fair that people like me have to pay this tax while VOIP > comes in, without paying such taxes, and demands a free ride. True. So why aren't you belaboring your county about the unfair way they've chosen to charge for something that you deem a general community necessity? > As far as VOIP goes, be honest with your customers and tell them > you're running a discount store. You gotta schlep home the washer > yourself, hook it up yourself, and get it serviced yourself. For some > people, that's a great deal. Years ago discount stores made no > pretense of being anything else. Please don't pretend you're a mature > full service company because you're not. Of course. But is *sounds* like Vonage is in fact telling people. There's no reason why the county 911 can't use CID on a non-911 line to access their database, except that they don't want to be bothered. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 00:26:51 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor <ptownson@telecom-digest.org> Subject: It Happened Again Again, today, Wednesday, late evening, spam rolled in so heavily here at massis, about 6 or 8 messages got lost in the shuffle, including one from Robert Bonomi. When the last issue before this came out, around 7 PM Wednesday evening, it was a larger than usual issue and the queue totally cleared out. Then midnight Wednesday, start of Thursday, we were hit again with a spam attack. So if you responded Wednesday evening sometime and it is not here, please replace it. I think it is quite ironic that one of Bonomi's messages got lost this time around, somewhere between a couple of the phishing attacks and one of the 'God Bless You from Nigeria Where my Late Husand was Killed by the Rebels' messages. 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 V24 #175 ****************************** | |