TELECOM Digest     Wed, 18 May 2005 00:46:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 219

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    FCC Set to Require 911 Dialing For Internet Phones (Jack Decker)
    Vonage Number Transfer (Nate)
    Re: Very Early Modems (Chris Kantarjiev)
    Re: Very Early Modems (Wesrock@aol.com)
    Re: AT&T Licensed the Transistor For Free (AES)
    Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (Joseph)
    Re: Vonage Improvement: No More Dial 1+ (Scott Kramer)
    Re: AT&T - Cingular - Alltel; They Broke MY Contract! (Steve)

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

From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld_on_request>
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 19:43:37 -0400
Subject: FCC Set to Require 911 Dialing For Internet Phones


http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/story/0,10801,101796,00.html

VoIP phone users reported problems getting emergency help
	
News Story by Jeremy Pelofsky

MAY 17, 2005 (REUTERS) - Internet telephone providers may soon have to
offer full emergency 911 calling services under an order that
U.S. regulators are expected to adopt Thursday in response to
incidents of customers having trouble getting help.

[Jack Decker COMMENT: If Reuters were reporting this truthfully,
they'd probably have to have changed that to, " ... in response to a
massive propaganda campaign by the traditional phone companies, their
public relations firms, associated astroturf groups, and other
assorted minions of Satan."  Oops, sorry, got just a little carried
away there.]

Internet calls, known as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), are sent
over a high-speed Internet connection but don't always provide 911
response centers with the caller's address and are often routed to
administrative lines.

Under pressure from state law-enforcement agencies and Congress, the
Federal Communications Commission plans to require VoIP companies to
provide 911 services to customers within 120 days of its order being
published, two officials familiar with the FCC plan said.

Full story at:
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/story/0,10801,101796,00.html

How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home:
http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html

If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/

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

From: Nate <nnord@maxitd.com>
Subject: Vonage Number Transfer
Date: 17 May 2005 17:38:36 -0700


Well ... it's been 2 1/2 months now waiting on my phone number to
transfer to Vonage.  I'm not sure who's holding up the transfer but
this is ridiculous.  Vonage claims it's not their fault (probably
isn't) but my question is, who do I complain to?  My current carrier
(MCI) doesn't want to hear about it and, again, Vonage claims it's not
their fault.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well again, like the other day, in this
case MCI is _probably not_ the underlying carrier, but probably just
a UNI-P operation. Like the guy using AT&T for 'local service' the 
other day, more than likely MCI in this instance is at the mercy of
whomever the 'real' carrier of record in your area is. Southwestern 
Bell perhaps?  When Vonage put in the transfer request to MCI, then
MCI in turn had to tell the 'actual carrier' about it. What does
Vonage say other than 'not our fault'? Can you get them to audit or
trace the transaction for you?  You also said 'MCI does not want to 
hear about it'.  Can you be more specific? Does your number actually
_belong_ to you? Do you have that part of it under control? Please
give us a few more details.   PAT]

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

Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 16:52:14 PDT
From: Chris Kantarjiev <cak@dimebank.com>
Subject: Re: Very Early Modems


> As we recall, many large organizations, especially railroads,
> maintained their own privately built and maintained telephone networks
> and such users could of course attach anything they wanted.  Railroads
> could use this IBM system to send in freight car movements punched at
> remote locations to a central site.

Don't forget that SPRINT originally stood for "Southern Pacific
Railway INTernal communications" ...


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is what I thought, and still
maintain also however some people have said that is not the case. It
is true that Southern Pacific RR _was_ the original owner, and the
telecommunications company was originally the railroad's telecommuni-
cations department up to sometime in the 1960's. The railroad did a
major overhaul of their telecom stuff, and the end result was so much
excess capacity the railroad decided to sell the excess capacity to
business places (but not the general public).  Some people have said
that when the railroad decided to sell their excess telecom capacity
(after the overhaul and remodeling of it, etc) they eventually decided
to go public with the stock, treating the new entity as a wholly owned
asset of the railroad and that a 'contest; was held to figure out a
new name, but that 'Sprint' (as in running fast) was only coincidentaly
only an acronym for Southern Pacific Internal Telecom. Now, I dunno.
I have heard it both ways and like yourself, prefer the acronymn,
coincidental or not.   PAT]

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

From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 20:42:31 EDT
Subject: Re: Very Early Modems


In a message dated 17 May 2005 07:10:57 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> The passage said that AT&T strictly controlled attachments to their
> lines; the IBM system was used mostly on private lines or leased
> lines.  As we recall, many large organizations, especially railroads,
> maintained their own privately built and maintained telephone networks
> and such users could of course attach anything they wanted.  Railroads
> could use this IBM system to send in freight car movements punched at
> remote locations to a central site.

Railroads (and other "right-of-way" companies) could use their lines
as they saw fit, including imterconnecting with Bell lines at their
PBX (including dial PBXs).  This was true whether the company owned
the lines or leased them from Bell.

> But I wonder if AT&T allowed private attachments to leased private
> lines it supplied.  I wonder if the rules were different for such
> lines as opposed to the switched network.  I also wonder if the
> independent telephone companies were as strict as AT&T regarding
> attachments.

The rules were indeed different on private lines.  Generally the
customer could hang anything they wanted on leased lines as long as
they did not cause interference outside the bandwith.  (Leased lines
included telegraph, teletypewriter, voice, program channels [audio
channels with wider bandwith than voice-grade channels], television
channels, and various grades of data channels.)

Most independent companies were even more restrictive than Bell in
their regulations, both for lines attached to the switched network and
for leased lines.


Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com

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

From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: AT&T Licensed the Transistor For Free
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 18:11:54 -0700
Organization: Stanford University


In article <telecom24.218.2@telecom-digest.org>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com 
wrote:

> From time to time critics of the old Bell System gripe that the
> company was "guaranted profits" by the regulators and as such, owed
> something back to the community.

> Aside from the fact that regulation actually limited profits, AT&T was
> indeed required to give things back.  One of which was the rights to
> its invention of the transistor, which were available free of charge.
> (Per Ziff-Davis history).

> I had always wondered why AT&T never seemed to make any money
> from the invention of the transistor.

> I presume other Bell Labs patents were also available free; indeed, I
> never knew of AT&T making money from licensing its many inventions.
> It appears patents were more for freedom of use than profit.  IBM
> adopted a similar policy in the 1950s.  Both did so from anti-trust
> settlements.

Bell Labs did attempt to exploit the 1958 patent on various laser
concepts assigned to it by Columbia Professor and consultant Charles
Townes, leading to the lengthy legal battle with independent inventor
Gordon Gould described in Nick Taylor's interesting book "LASER: The
Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War," Simon &
Schuster, 2000 -- a war which Gould eventually "won", at least in some
limited sense.

[Cross-posted to misc.int-property since there may be some interest 
there.]

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

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 19:13:24 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On 16 May 2005 22:42:36 -0000, John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

> 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.

Indeed you can get a prepaid SIM kit from corporate T-Mobile stores.
I'm not sure what the story is with cingular.  It's also possible to
get SIM kits on eBay for less than face value (less than $50 which is
what the corporate stores charge which includes $30 of talk time.)

> 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.

Subscription phones aren't usually available to visitors anyway since
most don't have US credit files or if a monthly plan is issued they
will charge a hefty deposit up front.

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

From: Scott Kramer <witheld@giganews.com>
Subject: Re: Vonage Improvement: No More Dial 1+
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 23:10:31 -0400


"John Schmerold" <john@katy.com> wrote some stuff in message
news:telecom24.218.3@telecom-digest.org:

Then PAT added:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Since there is no price differential
> on Vonage in most cases (I still have a 500 minute limited account
> but most users do not) the '1' is pointless and a waste of time.
> _Everything_ is ten digits; even locally, and the price is the same
> no matter what. However, some people do not know that Vonage can also
> be _seven digits_ with area code (where the box was installed, or
> 'home area') assumed. Like telco, if nothing is dialed after seven
> digits, then it sits there for a few seconds to time out, and deals
> with what it got.   PAT]

Pat,  You can also press # (pound) after the 7 digits to make it process
immediately! A nice tidbit for those who aren't aware of that!


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes you can, but then you are back to 
eight digits pressed, so why not just press ten?  Thet # pound or
'carriage return' as it is officially known is better used where it
makes a difference such as on a landline phone when you do 0# to
get the operator to time out to a live being instead of the system
waiting for collect/third party/overseas dialing strings to follow, 
etc.  By the way, that # pound does not do a thing on landline
phones where seven digits (only) is expected, for example on a local
call. # pound only works in 7-D _optional_ or zero _optional_
situations. In other words 10-D (but 7 sometimes okay) and strings
starting with zero (and sometimes you can stop there).  PAT]

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

From: Steve <sfsokc@softhome.net>
Subject: Re: AT&T - Cingular - Alltel; They Broke MY Contract!
Date: 17 May 2005 20:10:03 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to the original writer
about whom Steve Sobol later complained, saying:

>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think what you will find is the
>> contract you signed at some point or another expressly gives _them_
>> the right to assign your contract. It did not give _you_ any rights
>> like that however; just AT&T.  PAT]

> Yes, the cell phone contracts generally allow companies to assign
> contracts to third parties. Read your original contract.

I expected this type of answer.  And I'm sure _you_ read through your
entire contract letter-by-letter, yes?  You miss my point though.  I
know AT&T had the right to transfer the contract when purchased by
Cingular.  What I don't like is the regulatory issue that then forced
Cingular to divest to some "third party" (in this case, Alltel).  What
I am expecting is for them to at least continue the options I've had
with AT&T.  If you compare Alltel's offerings, you will find that
Cingular offers much better plans, as did AT&T I believe ... What irks
me the most is how Cingular originally lead consumers to believe all
AT&T customers were being adopted into the new family.  Heck, my phone
even still displays "Cingular"!

I look forward to the day when consumers have more power of choice and
are not locked into long-term contracts.  This is not a case where a
company is giving its customers what they want.  Under THESE
circumstances, we should have the RIGHT to change to another company.
We did not choose Alltel.  The contracts need to be changed
industry-wide.  Period.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, I did _not_ read through my 
cellular phone contract totally, but that's because I know the rules
of the game: Telcos and other large corporations have rights; you as
a customer have the right to pay your bill on time, to shut up and
not bellyache so much.  I do quite agree with your premise however. 
Consumers _should_ get a lot more 'rights' than we generally have. 
Or, as AT&T, Cingular, Southwestern Bell and even Alltel would say,
"Why don't you sue us before we can wreck your credit for non-payment?"
Take a knife and cut 'it' off before they have a chance to stick it
in you ... yeah sure ... Most of us cannot afford to do other than cook our
carrots and pee in the same pot (very unsanitary!!) let alone hire 
some lawyer to look after us. What's the point in reading the 
contract if you know what it says anyway?  PAT]

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #219
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