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TELECOM Digest     Tue, 17 May 2005 02:18:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 217

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Inflection Point (Monty Solomon)
    Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (John Levine)
    Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (Mark Crispin)
    Re: Very Early Modems (Wesrock@aol.com)
    Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You (Dean M.)
    Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (AES)
    Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Charles B. Wilber)
    Re: Original Definition of 'Class 5' (Kenneth P. Stox)
    Re: Verizon FiOS (Neal McLain)

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Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 23:41:43 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Inflection Point


This Week Changed the World of High Tech Forever, Though Most of Us 
Still Don't Know It

By Robert X. Cringely

It's an expression made popular in Silicon Valley years ago by Andy
Grove of Intel: "inflection point." It's that abrupt elbow in a graph
of growth or decline when the new technology or paradigm truly kicks
in, and suddenly there is no going back. From that moment, the new
stuff takes off and the old stuff goes into rapid decline, whether it
is a new standard of modem, a new video game, a new microprocessor
family, or just a new idea. I think we've just hit such an inflection
point and -- though most of us still don't realize it -- the personal
computer, video game, and electronic entertainment businesses will
never be the same.

There are three pieces to this puzzle.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050512.html

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 2005 22:42:36 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> phone (that is, with GSM 900/1800/1900 or GSM 850/900/1800/1900) then
> you can use your Australian cell phone in the USA and Europe.  All you
> need to do is buy a prepaid SIM card in from a cell phone provider in
> the country that you are visiting.  For the USA, the big two GSM
> providers are T-Mobile and GSM.

It appears that neither Cingular nor T-Mobile will sell you a prepaid
SIM in the US without a phone.  If you poke around on their web sites,
all the prepaid plans include a phone.  I realize there's no technical
reason that you couldn't just pop in a new SIM like you can in Europe,
but if they won't, they won't.  My guess would be that there are so
few unlocked GSM phones in the US and even fewer people who understand
what they are that it's not worth the hassle of supporting them.

A regular subscription phone is no good, since the subscriptions are
all for at least a year with a large penalty if you cancel early.

> So, your best bet is to go to a company-owned cell phone shops,
> explain that you're a foreign tourist (have your passport handy) and
> ask if they will sell you a phone.  Pay with a credit card; that
> serves as excellent identification.

Agreed.  With a credit card and a passport it shouldn't be a problem.

> Assuming that you're buying a phone in the USA, I would recommend
> against the GSM carriers.  GSM is primarily an urban service in the
> USA, and coverage can be spotty or non-existant outside of the large
> cities.

That used to be true, but Cingular is rapidly switching their whole
network to GSM, to the extent that they're selling GSM-only phones
now.  If you have a GSM phone, particularly if it's both GSM 850/1900,
it should work all over the place.

> Another reason for going with Verizon is you buy a phone in the USA is
> that a US GSM 1900 phone is of no use outside of the USA and Canada.

Hey, my US GSM phone worked great in Argentina.  The rates weren't
great, but that's a separate issue.  I looked at the phones that
Cingular and T-Mobile sell, and was surprised how many of them, not
just the ones sold as world phones, handle 900 or 1800 as well as 850
and 1900.  But if you can unlock your Australian phone, you don't
care.

> I would recommend against rental.  Renting is almost always much more
> expensive then buying a throwaway prepay phone, and the pre-minute
> rate isn't much less than roaming.

Agreed.  You can buy a used phone for what it costs to rent one for a
week.

R's,

John

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 15:52:11 (PDT)
From: Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU>
Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice
Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing


On Mon, 16 May 2005, John Levine wrote:

> It appears that neither Cingular nor T-Mobile will sell you a prepaid
> SIM in the US without a phone.

Local Cingular and T-Mobile stores here told me that they'd sell just the 
SIM card.  IIRC, it was $25 or $35.

>> Assuming that you're buying a phone in the USA, I would recommend
>> against the GSM carriers.  GSM is primarily an urban service in the
>> USA, and coverage can be spotty or non-existant outside of the large
>> cities.

> That used to be true, but Cingular is rapidly switching their whole
> network to GSM, to the extent that they're selling GSM-only phones
> now.  If you have a GSM phone, particularly if it's both GSM 850/1900,
> it should work all over the place.

It's still the case in the west coast that that analog, TDMA, and CDMA
coverage is quite a bit more thorough than GSM.  The GSM network here
is getting better, but it's not there yet.

In Alaska, a TDMA+analog phone is much more useful than a GSM or CDMA
phone.

In Canada, most of the analog-only holdouts now have CDMA.  GSM still
has a way to go.

>> Another reason for going with Verizon is you buy a phone in the USA is
>> that a US GSM 1900 phone is of no use outside of the USA and Canada.

> Hey, my US GSM phone worked great in Argentina.  The rates weren't
> great, but that's a separate issue.

Is your phone GSM 1900 (single band), or is it a tri-band
(900/1800/1900) or quad-band (850/900/1800/1900) phone?

The cheap phones tend to be GSM 1900 only in North American, and GSM
900/1800 only elsewhere.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

------------------------------

From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 20:30:07 EDT
Subject: Re: Very Early Modems


In a message dated 16 May 2005 13:14:42 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> In the IBM history series by Pugh et al, they said IBM converted
> punched cards to paper tape for transmission in the 1940s.  My guess
> is that that particular transmission used telegraph TTY lines (not
> voice) of either AT&T or Western Union.  Recall that AT&T maintained
> telegraph long distance lines as part of carrier long distance
> circuits.  Because of the low bandwidth, a telegraph channel could be
> carried on the low end of a carrier channel.  Accordingly, no
> modulation was required and thus no modem needeed.

Telegraph circuits were widely used, both Morse and teletypewriter,
well into the 1950s and 1960s by news services, stock brokers,
railroads, pipeline companies and no doubt many other users.  The use
of telegraphy pre-dated carrier systems and while many of the circuits
were later converted to carrier, many of them undoubtedly remained
copper.

There were also the TWX services (Bell) and Telex (Western Union)
which were similarly carried on telegraph circuits.

Incidentally, in later years Western Union was a big user of Bell
telegraph circuits, especially within a city but also many intercity
routes where they were either not able to finance their own circuits
to accomodate their growth or did not feel the rate of return would be
adequate.


Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com

------------------------------

From: Dean M. <cjmebox-telecomdigest@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You
Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 00:45:49 GMT


We're playing with words here, but more like Garbage In - Garbage-Out
I'd say. Too much information is available as input to decision aiding
systems of still evolving (dubious?) design. These systems are then
used to make potentially life changing decisions. With almost no
quality control on this information and no control of the information
by its subject (unless I'm missing something significant), it is a
recipe for disaster. 

In this context, I can't see the upside for Real ID, but neither do I
identify it as the main culprit (military personel have unique
identifiers, and I am not aware of any proof that they suffer from
proportionately more information quality problems than do the rest of
us).

I think we're putting the cart before the horse with this new law. It
seems to me we should have first strengthened our information
quality/information use/information liability and privacy laws, and
then debated the merits of yet another identifier (we already have
state ID, state DLs, passports, Social Security numbers, etc).

Dean

John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote in message 
news:telecom24.216.6@telecom-digest.org:

>> What I'm not willing to deal with is the same fallout because somebody
>> else (with the same name) had one of the above issues happen.

>> In this respect, a universal ID is a good thing, names simply aren't
>> unique enough.

> Gosh, I love people's naive belief in technology.  You know the
> acronym GIGO, which stands for Garbage In, Gospel Out?  That's what
> Real ID is.

> Mixups will still happen, because the people maintaining the files and
> databases will be the exact same sloppy error-prone people who
> maintain them today.  The cost of getting a fake Real-ID license will
> continue to be the price of bribing the most corrupt person in some
> state's DMV.  The difference will be that it'll be far harder to get
> mistakes fixed, because now everyone will know that licenses are
> perfect, so if the computer says that you are a crook, it must be
> right and you're just lying.

> R's,

> John

------------------------------

From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP?
Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 18:44:28 -0700
Organization: Stanford University


In article <telecom24.216.13@telecom-digest.org>, Dean M.
<cjmebox-telecomdigest@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I see now that your proposal is: since our communications are being
> decoupled from the copper wire anyway (or at the very least the low
> band part of it), we should not remove (on this point, see another
> posting about Verizon's FiOS offering and copper) or allow it to
> decay, but use it as dedicated conduit for "utility" services like
> 911, alarms etc. Anything which is first location dependent and then
> customer dependent as opposed to the other way around.

That's a fair enough summary.

> It's quite interesting so let's disregard any marginal issues. Perhaps
> someone with a better understanding of the maintenance costs for the
> copper loop can hazard a guess if these offerings could possibly make
> enough money so as to sustain themselves (i.e. pay for the service
> including loop maintenance and extension to new housing) without tax
> subsidies. It seems to me that this is the central issue if one was to
> decide such a policy shift.  

Also a fair statement -- and the reason I tried to think of multiple
services (like home security systems, services for the elderly, remote
meter reading) for which people or companies will (and currently do) 
pay repeated monthly charges.

Note that minimal basic telephone service can currently be obtained
for something in the range of $10/month, give or take (although I
don't know how much subsidy is in that number).  Suppose the telco
didn't have to provide the telephone service, handle the switching of
calls, do the billing, all that stuff -- just provide and maintain a
bare wire.  Wouldn't take much in the way of services to support
that monthly cost.

> If we want to solve the location problem, why not do it in the
> broadband world? 

Because it just seems to be intrinsically rather hard and complicated 
to do it on the broadband packet-based system -- whereas
the hardwired approach seems (to me anyway) in many ways
simpler, easier, more reliable, and more effective.

------------------------------

Date: 16 May 2005 21:53:45 EDT
From: Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber)
Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VOIP?


TELECOM Digest Editor noted:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would think if it ever got that
> critical (where 'everyone' went with VOIP instead of landline) the
> VOIP administrators would develop the equivilent of the 'Erlang
> tables' in an effort to develop the amount of capacity needed to keep
> up with it. ....

This tool already exists. It is very useful for PBX administrators who
are considering converting systems from TDM to VoIP.

Charlie Wilber
Dartmouth College

------------------------------

From: Kenneth P. Stox <ken@stox.org>
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Subject: Re: Original Definition of 'Class 5'
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 02:27:30 GMT


soren.telfer@gmail.com wrote:

> Can someone point me to a technical document that 'defines' class 5
> switch functionality?  Does one exist?  I somewhat understand the
> historical development, but I'm interested in some text, preferable
> from Bell.

> Thanks in advance.

Briley, B.,
Introduction to Telephone Switching,
Bell Telephone Laboratories,
Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1983.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 22:34:42 -0500
From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
Subject: Re: Verizon FiOS 


William Cousert <williamcousert@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a few questions about Verizon's new FiOS service.
> It was recently installed in my neighborhood and I'm
> thinking about switching over from Comcast.

A resident of Keller, Texas (screename "ELENgin"), who currently has
FiOS, posted a report about it on Broadband Reports on 08-25-04,
precipitating a thread that now runs 25 pages.  Many of the posts in
this thread address questions similar to yours.  ELENgin seems to have
been quite happy to answer all sorts of questions, so perhaps s/he
would be able to respond to yours.  http://tinyurl.com/4y9ca

As to your question 5:

> 5. Will they offer cable tv services? I'd like to dump
> Comcast completely. Will they have video on demand?

Verizon will definitely offer video services, and they're currently
negotiating with program suppliers.  But they probably won't call it
"cable TV" since they're doing everything they can to convince the
feds that their video service won't actually be cable TV; it will just
be "competitive to cable TV."

Their big problem is legal: telephone companies are regulated under
Title II of the Communications Act; Cable TV companies are regulated
under Title VI.  Under that Act, Cable TV companies must obtain a
franchise from the "local franchising authority."  Typically, the LFA
is a municipal or county government, although in some cases, it's a
separate legal entity operating under an interlocal agreement among
two or more local governments.  Or it might be a state government
(case in point: Connecticut's now-defunct statewide franchise to
SNET).

Verizon does not want to go through the hassle of getting a local
franchise from every LFA in its territory (and having spent a lot of
time in my cable-TV career dealing with LFAs, I certainly understand
with their position).  So they want Congress to "adopt a national
policy that preempts other levels of government."
http://tinyurl.com/4ldyt

How much success they'll have remains to be seen.  The entrenched
entities (LFAs; National League of Cities; National Association of
Counties; National Association of Telecommunications Officers and
Advisors) will fight it tooth-and-nail.  And, as I noted in a previous
post on this subject, you can rest assured that the cable industry
will oppose it too unless it gets similar relief.
http://tinyurl.com/dvk62

Neal McLain

------------------------------


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