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TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 May 2005 21:38:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 227 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Our RSS Now Running Full Time (TELECOM Digest Editor) Why Does it Take So Long? (AES) OneSuite (NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO) Re: Foreign Exchange (FX) Lines Still in Use? (Robert Bonomi) Re: Foreign Exchange (FX) Lines Still in Use? (Al Gillis) Re: Switch Identification (Howard Eisenhauer) Re: Thinking About VOIP (John Levine) Re: Thinking About VOIP (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: An Incident Forty Years Ago at Bell Labs (AES) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Don Bowey) Re: PRI Problems (was Re: 1A2 Help Requested) (Don Bowey) Re: Cingular/SMS Ripoff Alert (MVL) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Our RSS Now Running Full Time Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 20:42:40 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) One of our long time readers here at the Digest spent consideable time and effort this past week in getting the TELECOM Digest RSS feed up and running. He knows who he is; he wishes to remain anonymous; but I owe him a very BIG _thank you_ for his work. The intent was to get the feed working directly from Telecom, rather than 'borrowing' a feed from Google Groups or Yahoo. It required a 'hook' through the Hypermail code which you see on our page: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/TELECOM_Digest_Online/atom.xml or its alias: http://telecom-digest.org/TELECOM_Digest_Online/atom.xml All the test feeds which were used in the past week have been scrapped; now _our_ feed comes back to the Online pages on the web site. So, if you experimented with this early on, you are going to need to go through your source code. Instead of the Google groups code I had been using, please go now to the 'atom.xml' address mentioned above. You can also get TELECOM Digest on your 'My Yahoo' page if you have one, and in a day or so, you will also be able to get the Digest on 'My MSN' as well, and a few other larger web sites. Look at http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html to see examples of how to structure a javascript as desired, and http://telecom-digest.org/TELECOM_Digest_Online/atom.xml for the atual feed itself. PAT and Lisa ------------------------------ From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu> Subject: Why Does it Take So Long? Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 10:05:46 -0700 Organization: Stanford University amazon.com routinely gets books delivered to my front door in just a day or two after they're ordered on line (even when the order is actually passed on to one of their affiliated used book sellers). Many other online vendors get physical products to me in the same length of time. But I just ordered a major American magazine subscription, and a major American weekly book review journal subscription through amazon, and been told to be patient: it may take CLOSE TO THREE MONTHS before either of these start arriving. Is there some reason for this bizarre situation? (And is there some other "comp" or other newgroup where people might have answers to this curiousity-driven query?) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The problem may be that amazon.com stocks most of their books and merchandise through their warehouse here in Independence/Coffeyville, and those guys work hard at filling orders each day. They try hard to 'turn around' orders within one or two days of getting the request. But, they are also vendors for a variety of magazine publishers, and Amazon passes those orders along to their publishers who then _do their own thing_ regards filling orders. Amazon cannot help how slow some others are at filling orders, so they give that disclaimer message on those orders they take. PAT] ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO Subject: OneSuite Date: 21 May 2005 22:35:24 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have been a very happy user of OneSuite for well over a year, maybe close to two. I have the affiliate thingy on two of my www pages and was getting 8-9 referrals a month. I also send a label I printed up with the same offer with all my bill payments for credit cards, cable TV etc. Heck they send me ads I send them some back. Maybe even people at my phone company have signed up for OneSUite. Everything was going OK until and of March when OneSuite changed their software. I got no referral credits for April and none for May so far. Anyone else have that problem? Also, now whenever I got to their web site at https://www.onesuite.com Adobe Acrobat reader boots up, even when I do not click on a .PDF link. Does that happen to anyone else? They seem surprised when I mention these things. Above Email is NOT valid, but private responses may be sent to OneSuite@XmasNYC.Info which I will kill when it starts getting spam. ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Foreign Exchange (FX) Lines Still in Use? Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 07:07:35 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article <telecom24.226.5@telecom-digest.org>, Robert Bonomi <bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com> wrote: > In article <telecom24.224.13@telecom-digest.org>, TELECOM Digest > Editor noted in response to Robert Bonomi: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As Robert knows, those four additional >> touch tone keys were known as A,B,C, and D. I forget the exact >> meaning of each, but my question is, did anyone with 'regular' >> service but with an Autovon phone ever try pressing those keys in >> a regular call? I did a couple times, and the immediate result was >> a 'fast busy' signal; the call would not complete. PAT] > On the PSTN, it somewhat depended on the switch and programming. > 'Reorder' was the very-common switch reaction. There were a few > switches that completely 'ignored' those signals. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But did you ever see/hear any that > neither ignored nor offered re-order, but instead actually _did > something_ ? I never did. PAT] I knew of a couple of PBXs that used 'em for some call-routing selections. Twas an easy way to make a particular feature 'not available' from most phones, -without- having to get into extended "class of service" restrictions. I never encountered a _telco_ C.O. that implemented any user-accessible functionality on them. I've got a vague recollection of some telco 'test' systems that used em _after_ the call to the test system was connected. Of course, that _wasn't_ the switch doing it. ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis <alg@aracnet.com> Subject: Re: Foreign Exchange (FX) Lines Still in Use? Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 10:31:30 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Robert Bonomi <bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com> wrote in message news:telecom24.226.5@telecom-digest.org: > In article <telecom24.224.13@telecom-digest.org>, TELECOM Digest > Editor noted in response to Robert Bonomi: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As Robert knows, those four additional >> touch tone keys were known as A,B,C, and D. I forget the exact >> meaning of each, but my question is, did anyone with 'regular' >> service but with an Autovon phone ever try pressing those keys in >> a regular call? I did a couple times, and the immediate result was >> a 'fast busy' signal; the call would not complete. PAT] > On the PSTN, it somewhat depended on the switch and programming. > 'Reorder' was the very-common switch reaction. There were a few > switches that completely 'ignored' those signals. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But did you ever see/hear any that > neither ignored nor offered re-order, but instead actually _did > something_ ? I never did. PAT] I've got a Western Electric 3666-1A key set (Autovon dial). I've tried pressing the A, B, C and D keys while connected to both a Nortel DMS-200 (CO Switch) and a Nortel Meridian-1 (PBX). In both cases I got reorder while listening to dial tone (that is, no call had been established yet) and no effect while an established call was in progress. The Names of the additional keys are: FO (Flash Override) adjacent to the 3 key F (Flash) adjacent to the 6 key I (Immeadiate) adjacent to the 9 key P (Priority) adjacent to the # key (See note) Note: My 3666-1A has a key designated as "A" where the # key is placed on a normal dial pad. I don't know if this is standard for "Autovon" dials. The tone generated by this key (according to a "digit grabber") is that of a # key, however. Another interesting thing is that the Star key (left of 0) is not an asterisk but rather it's a real star! That is, a five pointed star, white lines on the gray background (or is it a grey background?) with a hollow center. Al ------------------------------ From: Howard Eisenhauer <howarde@REMOVECAPShfx.eastlink.ca> Subject: Re: Switch Identification Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 19:35:40 GMT On Sat, 21 May 2005 17:39:42 -0400, Mike Cater <cater@cdvill66e.org> wrote: > Recently I switched service providers for my POTS line. We used to be > using a WECo 5ESS, with the older line cards (the better sounding > ones!). I switched to a cable provider and obtained a landline through > them. It's not VOiP. It is routed through the same switch I used to > use but it's not homed from that switch. So obviously this makes > finding the CLLI of the switch alot harder. > To get to the point, while messing around with the switchhook I got a > strange busy signal. It's 1600 Hz on for 0.5 seconds, off for 0.5 > seconds. Here's a wav file of it: http://tinyurl.com/4dk34/busy.mp3 > If you have any idea of what kind of switch this is, > please advise! Thanks. Obviously, while playing with the hook switch you managed to connect to the gate shack at a construction site- that sound is quite definately a '95 Mack 3 ton dump truck in the process of backing up :). H. ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 2005 22:12:17 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: Thinking About VOIP Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I'm thinking about subscribing to one of the many VOIP services > (Vonage, Callvantage, etc.) and have a few questions. > Are any of these good enough to replace a POTS line? I'll be using it > over Verizon's new Fios service. I don't think so, but it depends what you expect from a POTS line. None are as reliable as POTS, both because they depend on your ISP, and router all working, and because they all have the occasional flakeout. (Phone companies have spent the past 130 years learning how to make phones reliable, so it's not surprising that it's taking a while for VoIP to catch up.) Other than Packet8, none of them offer real 911, so you'd best have a cell phone for emergencies that you keep charged and working. > Lingo seems to offer the most for the least amount of money. Are they > worth considering? I dumped Vonage in favor of Lingo earlier this year when the call quality became unusable and their customer service turned out to consist of a 24/7 busy signal. Lingo's been OK, call quality and reliability are decent, support is OK. My only complaint so far is that through some screwup, a call to Argentina that I know was about one minute was billed as 3 1/2 hours. They reduced it somewhat, but not as much as I'd like. But since the rate was only 4 cpm, the actual amount at issue was on the order of two bucks. I have a web page at http://net.gurus.com/phone that has an overview of VoIP and some links if you're interested. It's not a formal comparison; the only ones I've tried are Vonage, Lingo, and Net2phone. R's, John ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Thinking About VOIP Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 01:27:45 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications I have been a Vonage subscriber for just over two years in my residence for home-office and personal long distance use. I also retained one SBC wireline phone as our residential incoming line. Based on my experience I would not consider replacing my primary wireline service with either VOIP or wireless. The Vonage is good, but it does go down on occasion, whether from Vonage problems or my broadband (cable) provider's problems. And, we have an average of 4-6 commercial power failures a year where I live. Only the wireline service and its robust access to E911 can survive all of that. William Cousert wrote: > I'm thinking about subscribing to one of the many VOIP services > (Vonage, Callvantage, etc.) and have a few questions. > Are any of these good enough to replace a POTS line? I'll be using it > over Verizon's new Fios service. > Where can I find a comparison of all the available services? I did a > quick google search and found nothing. > Do any of the services offer a discounted rate for a second or third > line? > Lingo seems to offer the most for the least amount of money. Are they > worth considering? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For myself, I go with Vonage, mainly > because of my advertising relationship with them. I do not know if > that makes them 'better' or not, just 'cheaper' for me. I still have > some Vonage e-coupons good for one month of free service. If anyone > wants to test out Vonage, email me and ask for an e-coupon. The deal > is, you click on the link in the email I send you; it then walks you > through the sign up process of getting a number assigned, shipping > out the telephone adapter (quite easy to install), etc. You use a > credit card of your choice to pay for the adapter and a month of > service. _Then_ the e-coupon kicks in, and whatever service you > bought, you get a second month of the same for free. Email me for > your coupon: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu PAT] ------------------------------ From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu> Subject: Re: An Incident Forty Years Ago at Bell Labs Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 07:42:57 -0700 Organization: Stanford University In article <telecom24.226.4@telecom-digest.org>, Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> wrote: > Forty years ago this month, at the Bell Labs offices in New Jersey, > the suspected origin of the universe was discovered, quite by > accident. They were not looking for that; it sort of just fell into > their laps, and later, it got them substantial recognition. > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4655517&sourceCode=RSS If you'd like to see pictures of the hardware and some of the history that goes along with this: http://www.stanford.edu/~siegman/cleo_plenary.pdf (Unfortunately you have to download the whole 2.5 MB PDF presentation; look for the two or three slides on either side of the one that says "A Nobel in the noise . . . ") <http://www.stanford.edu/~siegman/cleo_plenary_te.pdf> (Same presentation but with half-size slides and the speaker's notes.) One of the few fundamental physical phenomena the measurement of which was impeded by, among other things, bird poop. This wasn't the first time that someone measuring noise at Bell Labs had made a fundamental physical discovery. Physicists these days, and even electrical engineers, often call it "Nyquist noise": e_n^ 2 = 4 kTRB in the classical limit. But in fact it was a Bell Labs engineer, J. R. Johnson, trying to track down the source of noise in early triode amplifiers, who observed that some of this noise seemed to come from the grid bias resistor. So he performed extensive experiments using all kinds of different resistances (carbon, wire wound, even some liquid-cell resistors, at different temperatures); and concluded that they all seemed to contain a universal noise source e_n^ 2 ‰ 4.0 (+/- 0.07) kTRB After he published a lengthy, total experimental paper on this: [1] J. R. Johnson, "Thermal agitation of electricity in conductors," Phys. Rev., vol. 32, pp. 97--109, 1928. his Bell Labs colleague wrote a brief, remarkably simple quantum derivation of the same result, in its full quantum form. [2] H. Nyquist, "Thermal agitation of electric charge in conductors," Phys. Rev., vol. 32, pp. 110--113, 1928. and laid the basis for pretty much all of our understanding of thermal noise, circuit noise, maser and laser noise, and their connections to thermodynamics and blackbody radiation today. > Forty years ago this month, at the Bell Labs offices in New Jersey, > the suspected origin of the universe was discovered, quite by > accident. They were not looking for that; it sort of just fell into > their laps, and later, it got them substantial recognition. > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4655517&sourceCode=RSS In my first response I pointed out an earlier, related, and also quite fundamental discovery at Bell Labs made almost eighty years ago; and cited the references [1] J. R. Johnson, "Thermal agitation of electricity in conductors," Phys. Rev., vol. 32, pp. 97--109, 1928. [2] H. Nyquist, "Thermal agitation of electric charge in conductors," Phys. Rev., vol. 32, pp. 110--113, 1928. Just to push this a little further, if you want to read these early Phys Rev papers you can go to the American Physical Society's "PROLA" web site <http://prola.aps.org/> and download copies of these classic early Bell Labs contributions for free. In fact, the _entire_ massive print run of Phys Rev all the way back to Vol. 1, No. 1, in _1893_ is available on line at this site. But suppose you want to read about some of the Bell Labs work which laid the foundations for the forty year ago accomplishment that Lisa Minter has (very justifiably) noted above; two of them are [1] R. W. DeGrasse, E. O. Schulz-DuBois, and H. E. D. Scovil, "The three-level solid state traveling wave maser," Bell Sys. Tech. J., vol. 38, pp. 305--335, 1959. [2] A. B. Crawford, D. C. Hogg, and L. E. Hunt, "Project Echo: A horn antenna for space communication," Bell Sys. Tech. J., pp. 1095--1099, 1961. Well, the Bell System Technical Journal (BSTJ) -- which in its full print run since 1928 has presented not just these papers, but numerous fundamental papers on the invention of waveguides, Shannon's communication theory, North's fundamental noise and signal theory papers, important early papers in quantum theory and chemistry, many fundamental papers on lasers including all the pioneering papers on laser resonators, and many others -- IS NOT AVAILABLE ON LINE, IN SCANNED OR ELECTRONIC FORM, ANYWHERE. Trying to get this situation changed has been one of my pet hobby horses for some time. If any telecom readers and/or Bell Labs alumni have any way to help make it happen, it would be very much worth doing. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are able to make this happen, I'd feel honored to make them part of the Telecom Archives files, as was done with the Western Union Tech Review files. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 16:04:11 -0700 Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested From: Don Bowey <dbowey@comcast.net> On 5/10/05 12:06 PM, in article telecom24.207.7@telecom-digest.org, Matt <mattmorgan64@msn.com> wrote: > Thanks all, for the comments, links etc -- I've gotten several replies > from the people in this group via email. > My KSU should be here tomorrow ... and the phones to follow shortly. > There is a bunch of the 25 pair cable up in the attic of the building I > work in; I even found one with a female connector on one end. > Now I'm shopping for a good punchdown tool. Looks like it's going to be > the most expensive part of this whole endeaveor (Phone: $45. KSU: $55. > Punchdown tool: $65 - 75). I'm reading this a while after you seem to have gotten enough info to get started, but ... I have the full Bell "Key Systems Service Manual" and can provide some help if you run into a wall on your project. It contains wiring configurations for various uses of the Key System, and all the KTU, etc, schematics. Email me if you need something from it. Don ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 16:18:40 -0700 Subject: Re: PRI Problems (was Re: 1A2 Help Requested) From: Don Bowey <dbowey@comcast.net> On 5/11/05 6:03 PM, in article telecom24.210.10@telecom-digest.org, "Justa Lurker" <JustaLurker@att.net> wrote: > Although I suppose a timing/sync problem with clock slippage **might** > be the culprit, it's funny that it only manifests itself twice a day > rather than constantly [for severe uncontrolled slips] or at > evenly-spaced intervals throughout the day & night [for less frequent > slips]. Your entire post is well done, but the above slightly misses the mark. Big IF ... If one terminal is timed from a source traceable to a Stratum 1 clock and the other terminal is clocked from an unsynchronized Stratum 3 clock, it would not be unusual to see the stated trouble pattern due to the long-term frequency drift rate of the Stratum 3 clock. I've fixed a few of these sync problems. Don ------------------------------ From: mvl_groups_user@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Cingular / sms.ac Ripoff Alert Date: 22 May 2005 17:55:58 -0700 I had the same thing happen (see my post at alt.cellular.verizon). 1) First, I would suggest a complaint to the FCC. Per the FCC's website, the company has 45 days to respond to you. SMS.AC is a California company, so fully under the FCC's jurisdiction. SMS.AC should be fully liable for refunding all charges if you were not properly notified of pricing. 2) Second, there is information on cancelling your account on www.sms.ac. If you didn't set up an account (ie someone else put your number in), there is (under the pricing section) a way to send a "STOP ALL" text to a certain phone number. For all who have had problems with this company, please file an FCC complaint. The FCC has the power to levy severe fines on deceptive marketing practices such as those of SMS.AC, but prioritizes their efforts based on complaint volume. -MVL ------------------------------ 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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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. 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 #227 ****************************** | |