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Add this Digest to your personal
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TELECOM Digest Sun, 19 Jun 2005 02:12:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 277
Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
'80' Country Code (Geoff)
ISP Hunting (DevilsPGD)
Inscription: Surveillance Turned Inside Out (Monty Solomon)
Treo 650 Updater 1.12 (for Sprint PCS) (Monty Solomon)
MasterCard Says 40 Million Files Put at Risk (Monty Solomon)
Re: Worst Phishing Fraud Attack Ever! 40 Million Cards (Steve Sobol)
Re: Worst Phishing Fraud Attack Ever! 40 Million Cards (Robert Bonomi)
Re: New Free Database Has _Everyone_ Listed (jared)
Re: New Free Database Has _Everyone_ Listed (Steve Sobol)
Re: DSL Speed (John R. Levine)
Re: DSL Speed (Robert Bonomi)
Re: DSL Speed (William Warren)
Re: Sprint, Verizon Opening Doors to Mobile Content (Steven Lichter)
Re: Bell Divestiture (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com)
Re: Cellphone Tax Started in Alexandria, VA (Joseph)
Re: Need Help on Wireless (Joseph)
Re: Monitor/Recorder for Residential Power Line Outages? (Robert Bonomi)
Re: Sprint, Verizon Opening Doors to Mobile Content (Steve Sobol)
Re: 700-555-4141 Does Not Work (LAalone@aol.com)
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Geoff <nospam@nospam.com>
Subject: '80' Country Code
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 21:46:08 GMT
Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net
I was looking at my call logs and have an international call from
Spain and another country. The number for the other country starts
with '803' but there is no country with an '80' and '803' dialing
code. Any ideas where the call came from?
Thanks.
-g
------------------------------
From: DevilsPGD <spamsucks@crazyhat.net>
Subject: ISP Hunting
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:47:15 -0600
Organization: Disorganized
I'm going to be just outside of Chicago (Skokie, if you must know) for
an unknown period of time and looking to find out what the cheapest
way to get internet access would be.
I have no need for anything other then basic connectivity, and the
ability to establish HTTPS connections to a known IP and PPTP
connections to another known IP (not even DNS is required) and I
certainly will not need ISP provided email, webspace, or anything of
the sort. I also absolutely refuse to install any crapware provided
by an ISP.
I'm eyeballing dialup access through ISP.COM which offers $8.95 - 56K
Regular Dial-up -- any thoughts, good or bad? Can I do better?
Any thoughts?
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:58:31 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Inscription: Surveillance Turned Inside Out
http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=101694
By Howard Rheingold, Thu Jun 16 08:15:00 GMT 2005
Using mobile devices to snoop on ourselves could augment our memories,
improve our health and better our lives, says a Microsoft researcher.
Keep your eye on Marc Smith, the new manager of the social computing
group at Microsoft Research, who is thinking about ways to use
tomorrow's panoptic snooping technologies -- cameras, microphones,
even sensors of your bodily processes -- as a new kind of authoring.
"Inscription," he calls it, an artifact of his sociology background.
Smith is worth watching because of his prescient research instincts as
well as for the place he works: 15 years ago, he was one of the first
sociology graduate students to study social cyberspace: check out
Netscan if you want to see a mind-blowing graphical representation of
Usenet's hundreds of thousands of discussions. Five years ago, he
encouraged me to look into mobile phones and collective action (and
suggested that I use the term "smart mobs" to describe what I
found). The last time I was at his house, Smith turned me loose with a
mobile barcode Googler.
http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=101694
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 17:06:49 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Treo 650 Updater 1.12 (for Sprint PCS)
Excerpt from
http://www.palmone.com/us/support/downloads/treo650updater/sprint.html
New with version 1.12:
* Enables Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking
* Updates VersaMail to version 3.1 to enhance stability and add
improvements
* Adds support for more Bluetooth carkits including Acura, BMW,
Chrysler, Toyota Prius (see all compatible car kits)
* Reduces post-dial delay before a call is connected
* Send SMS messages from Missed Call Alert or Call Log
* Now there's a new user guide that incorporates the changes
after running the Treo 650 Updater: Treo 650 User Guide (PDF)
http://www.palmone.com/us/support/downloads/treo650updater/sprint.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:29:49 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: MasterCard Says 40 Million Files Put at Risk
By ERIC DASH and TOM ZELLER Jr.
June 18, 2005
MasterCard International reported yesterday that more than 40 million
credit card accounts of all brands might have been exposed to fraud
through a computer security breach at a payment processing company,
perhaps the largest case of stolen consumer data to date.
MasterCard said its analysts and law enforcement officials had
identified a pattern of fraudulent charges that were traced to an
intrusion at CardSystems Solutions of Tucson, Ariz., which processes
more than $15 billion in payments for small to midsize merchants and
financial institutions each year.
About 20 million Visa and 13.9 million MasterCard accounts were
compromised; the other accounts belonged to American Express or
Discover cardholders. The accounts affected included credit cards and
certain kinds of debit cards. The F.B.I. said it was investigating.
A MasterCard spokeswoman, Sharon Gamsin, said an infiltrator had
managed to place a computer code or script on the CardSystems network
that made it possible to extract information. She would not elaborate
on how long the breach might have lasted, on when the inquiry began
or on whether any infiltrators had been identified. She did say that
the breach occurred this year.
Deborah McCarley, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. field office in
Phoenix, said that her agency was trying to establish the scope of
the breach and that "the investigation is just beginning."
MasterCard said its investigation found that CardSystems, in
violation of MasterCard's rules, was storing cardholders' account
numbers and security codes on its computer systems. That information,
MasterCard said, was supposed to be transferred to the bank handling
the merchants' transactions but not retained by CardSystems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/business/18cards.html
------------------------------
From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net>
Subject: Re: Worst Phishing Fraud Attack Ever! 40 Million Cards Affected
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:07:18 -0700
Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com
jared wrote:
> The problem with this article's title is that it was not a phishing
> attack.
> Note that the article says virus-like, the following is an excerpt
> from an article attributed to the LA Times. Reportedly someone planted
> a harvesting programme which is virus like in the sense that it
> operates stealthily but may not be like a virus in how it propagates.
The report seems to indicate it was a trojan, not a phish attempt,
actually.
But I misread - CardSystems DOES process for merchants as well as
financial institutions.
My statement still stands, however, since it'd be tough to find out
who does the processing for any given merchant. Often, the merchant
won't even know because it's not important to them as long as the
payments get processed. Being someone who's worked with e-commerce
systems that are only compatible with certain processing platforms, I
often have to know, but I'm not Joe Average, of Uncle Joe's Gift Shop,
who only needs to swipe cards and have the payments go through...
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)
"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"
------------------------------
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: Worst Phishing Fraud Attack Ever! 40 Million Cards Affected
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 02:23:22 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.
In article <telecom24.276.3@telecom-digest.org>,
Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote:
> Lisa Minter wrote:
>> "Hardly a week goes by without startling new examples of breaches of
>> sensitive personal data, reminding us how important it is to pass a
>> comprehensive identity theft prevention bill in Congress quickly,"
>> said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.
> Startling? I am not even surprised by junk like this anymore.
>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My thanks to Lisa for rounding up this
>> item. So what do we do now? Discontinue any/all shopping on the
>> web where Card Systems is the processor? What information _is_ safe
>> to give over the net any longer? Any at all? PAT]
> ???
> Who said anything about the Internet? This particular breach would
> affect much more than just Internet transactions. This is apparently a
> backend system that was breached. Non-Internet transactions could also
> have been exposed.
> And there's no way to avoid Card Systems, because we don't do business
> with them directly, and as far as I know, neither do the
> merchants. They deal with the card issuers.
Not exactly. Card systems is a payment clearinghouse. Merchants
submit transactions to a clearinghouse, who route things to the
correct card company, who route it to the issuing bank. A few "very
large" retailers (e.g. sears, walmart) may deal directly with the CC
companies, but it is unlikely. Some card issuers _also_ run a payment
clearinghouse, and thus short-cut the processing of their cards, when
processed through their clearinghouse.
The merchants that use Card Systems, know who they use to processes
card charges.
Customers of those merchants, however, have no way of telling, nor of
finding out, who the merchant uses to 'clear' the CC transactions.
Folks like Card Systems serve a similar purpose to "aggregators"
and/or "freight forwarders" in the shipping business. They provide
access to the high-volume channels, for those who don't have the
justification for 'direct' access to those channels.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And other than that one sort of skimpy
and guarded press release they gave out (and we printed here on
Saturday), they have had nothing more to say about it. PAT]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:52:07 -0600
From: jared@nospam.au (jared)
Subject: Re: New Free Database Has _Everyone_ Listed
> The database is found at http://www.zabasearch.com
Chasing a link for an address the following came up; interesting.
> TerraServer.com Is Not Affiliated With ZabaSearch ATTENTION: You have
> redirected to this page because we have detected that you have come
> ZabaSearch.com. Although ZabaSearch.com did not make this clear, when
> you clicked the Get Satellite Photo button you were transferred to our
> website.
> TerraServer.com is not affiliated in any way with ZabaSearch, nor does it
> endorse it. We do not have access to any of the databases that ZabaSearch
> accesses on their site to display personal information on a person's name,
> so we cannot remove any of your information. As ZabaSearch says they pull
> the information for the searches from public domain databases, we have
> doubts if you can completely remove yourself. We have discovered that
> e-mailing info@zabasearch.com will get you an automated response with
> removal instructions. You will have to decide for yourself based on the
> amount of information you have to give them if you follow through with
> their removal instructions.
> Although most of the data they use already existed out there, what
> ZabaSearch has done is bring it together in one location on the Internet
> for free, removing all the legwork someone would have to do in the past.
> Yes, we do feel that it brings up many, many privacy issues. Plus, their
> linking to existing mapping tools out there, like TerraServer.com, has
> made it even more powerful.
> It appears that ZabaSearch modified their page on June 11th to link
> address searches into our address search tool and get a list of search
> results. This was done after the previous site they linked to requested
> them to stop. It is done quite transparently that many Internet users do
> not realize that they have gone to a different website. Because of the
> misdirected frustration from Internet users directed at us instead of
> ZabaSearch, we are currently working to get them to cease and desist using
> our logo and linking to our site. In the meantime, we have "broken" the
> method ZabaSearch was using to link to us so that address results are not
> seemlessly displayed and you are taken to this page instead.
> TerraServer.com, Inc. is a reputable company headquartered in Raleigh,
> North Carolina. Our business is to sell custom selected aerial and
> satellite imagery and this imagery is browsable on our site at 8 meters
> and above for free and below that for subscribers. Now that you're here,
> please feel free to look through our website and do not hold us
> responsible to the methods used by ZabaSearch.com.
> Thank you,
> TerraServer.com
------------------------------
From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net>
Subject: Re: New Free Database Has _Everyone_ Listed
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:01:40 -0700
Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com
Patrick Townson wrote:
> Some email I got from a family member this past week:
> Beginning this month (May '05) a new database will be available to the
> general public, free of charge, that displays your personal
> information (names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates).
> The database is found at http://www.zabasearch.com. I urge you to forward
> this email to family and friends. Check to see if your name and
> information is in their database. If so and you want it removed, send
> them an e-mail at info@zabasearch.com to request it be removed. I do
> not know how our names are appearing there, but I checked my own and a
> few other random ones, and they are all in this database!
> After opting out by email, check back after a few days to make certain
> your information has been removed.
> Displaying such information should be a crime.
Give me a break. The information is publically available anyhow.
I looked up Steven Sobol ...
Among others, I found Steven J. Sobol at 2000 Cottage Grove Drive,
Cleveland, OH, 216-397-9396.
That's an old address and phone number of mine. It was listed in the
phone book. Note that the street sign at Cottage Grove and Cedar Road
actually says Cottage Grove *Avenue*, which is the correct street
name, but I listed myself with the phone company at 2000 Cottage Grove
*Drive* because at the time, that's what I thought was correct (the
big street sign hadn't gone up yet, and the signs on the poles didn't
say "avenue" or "road" or "drive" on them back then). So this listing
is obviously from the phone company's database ...
I also found myself at 26241 Lake Shore Boulevard, Euclid,
Ohio. 216-289-6586.
I was also in the phone book when I was listed there.
My current address and phone number, which we have chosen not to make
available in the phone book, isn't listed, and I've lived in Apple
Valley, California for two years now.
Background searches are available to anyone paying for them, not just
over the web either; employers routinely run background checks. I've
had to do background and drug tests for several organizations I've
worked for recently.
> Well, I dunno how much of a crime it should be, except that a random
> check of my own information and a few test, controlled cases show that
> although it is _generally accurate_ there are some mistakes and
> omissions, about like any such database. Anyway, its all there at
> http://www.zabasearch.com. It appears they have put a lot of 'hooks'
> into the cgi-bin things of _other_ databases so you do not have to
> keep re-entering the names/addresses to look in different areas of
> interest. For instance, you put in your name, some information is
> provided, then links are given to take you off to various other data
> bases, directly to information about the name you (originally)
> entered.
That is my impression too.
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)
"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"
------------------------------
From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine)
Subject: Re: DSL Speed
Date: 18 Jun 2005 20:59:17 -0400
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA
> I thought 56K was the fastest speed possible with conventional
> telephone cable. How can DSL be so much faster with the same old
> cable?
The 56K is the limit of a voice channel on a phone switch, not of a
copper cable. Rather than going through the phone switch, the DSL
signal is split out at the central office and feeds into a device
called a DSLAM which is sort of a super duper high speed modem that
can run several megabits/sec over a good enough copper pair.
------------------------------
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: DSL Speed
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 01:47:39 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.
In article <telecom24.276.9@telecom-digest.org>,
Choreboy <choreboyREMOVE@localnet.com> wrote:
> A relative has a farm. His phone service comes in on 700 yards of
> ordinary telephone cable buried along his driveway. Last week he got
> Bellsouth DSL. It comes in on the same conductors as before, but I've
> seen speeds fifty times faster than dialup.
> I thought 56K was the fastest speed possible with conventional
> telephone cable. How can DSL be so much faster with the same old
> cable?
You thought 'wrongly'. <grin>
"56k" is the theoretical maximum speed you can get across a (mostly
analog) POTS service circuit. The limit is not in the wiring, per se,
but in the _equipment_ (the 'switch' in the telco 'central office')
that that signal has to pass through. "Voice" calls, including data
modem, and fax, over POTS PSTN, leave your house as analog signals. at
the telco, the first thing that happens is that they are converted to
a _digital_ data-stream. this conversion is done at a rate of 8000
samples/second., with 8-bits of data 'precision' for each sample.
This means that there is 64,000 bits/second of digital data flowing
through the switch for a voice line. You cannot send more data than
that via _analog_ origin signalling, And, to achieve that 64,000
bit/second, your signalling must exactly match (and be synchronized
with) the intervals used by the analog-to-digital conversion gear in
the C.O. If there is _precisely_one_ analog/digital conversion in the
path, then, with some fancy games on the 'digital' end, you can come
'close' to that 64,000 bit/sec limit, _without_ requiring the exact
synchronization.
The _wire_, itself, is capable of passing a much broader range of
signals. *If* the signal doesn't have to go through the 'voice'
switching equipment, you are not restricted by the limits of _that_
equipment.
This is how DSL works, it bypasses the _voice_ switching gear. It
uses just the 'bare wire' between the telco C.O. and the customer
premises. The special eqipment in the C.O. puts a *different*kind* of
signal on the wires, that the "DSL modem" at the customer premises
understands, and the 'modem' at the customer location does 'something
similar', to communicate back to that special equimpent at the Telco
offices.
Voila! the limitations/restrictions of the telco _voice_ switching
equipment are bypassed, and thus 'not relevant' to this communication.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 17:36:56 -0400
From: William Warren <william_warren_nonoise@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: DSL Speed
Choreboy wrote:
> A relative has a farm. His phone service comes in on 700 yards of
> ordinary telephone cable buried along his driveway. Last week he got
> Bellsouth DSL. It comes in on the same conductors as before, but I've
> seen speeds fifty times faster than dialup.
> I thought 56K was the fastest speed possible with conventional
> telephone cable. How can DSL be so much faster with the same old
> cable?
How can a Porshe be so much faster than a Volkswagon on the same road?
------------------------------
From: Steven Lichter <shlichter@diespammers.com>
Reply-To: Die@spammers.com
Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co.
Subject: Re: Sprint, Verizon Opening Doors to Mobile Content
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 22:04:46 GMT
I have Sprint and have been able to D/L ringtones and screensavers from
sites like 3GForfree for sometime.
Lisa Minter wrote:
> By Antony Bruno
> Sprint and Verizon Wireless may soon lower the walls on their
> networks, allowing their subscribers greater access to third-party
> content, including ringtones and graphics.
> The mobile phone giants are responding to U.S. cell phone users'
> growing interest in buying content from sources other than their
> wireless carrier.
> Allowing subscribers to access non-network content is a common
> practice for mobile operators in Europe, as well as U.S. carriers
> Cingular, Nextel and T-Mobile.
> Sprint and Verizon, however, have taken a "walled garden" approach,
> restricting content to that offered directly through their own
> delivery portals.
> Sprint is testing a system that would let content providers target its
> subscribers with sales and marketing campaigns through premium SMS
> messaging, otherwise known as "short codes."
> A short code is a four- or five-digit number that works like an e-mail
> address but across various wireless carriers. Companies can place the
> short code in their advertising to generate customer responses.
> In turn, subscribers can send a text message to a short code to
> request information or make purchases. The reply is delivered to the
> subscriber as a text message attachment. The charge is added to the
> mobile bill.
> TEST RUN
> According to John Styers, Sprint director of data communications
> services, the carrier is conducting short-code delivery trials with
> various partners, including Sony BMG and Warner Music Group.
> "Both of them are in the midst of launching a premium SMS service," he
> says. "They want to be able to offer on their artist-specific Web
> sites the artists' content in ringtone fashion through SMS. So we are
> working with them to launch some of their artists' Web sites as well."
> He says Sprint will slowly open its network after these trials, based
> on technology performance and customer feedback.
> Verizon, which has operated the most tightly controlled network of all
> U.S. carriers, uses a content delivery system called BREW. Only
> content written and delivered via the BREW system can operate on
> Verizon's network and phones.
> But Qualcomm, which created the BREW technology, has introduced a new
> version that would support non-BREW content. Sources say Verizon has
> told content aggregators that it intends to open its network to
> off-portal content before the end of the year. The carrier declined to
> comment for this story.
> According to executives at QPass, a wireless transaction management
> firm, off-portal sales in the United States are beginning to
> explode. The company manages the off-portal sales activity for
> Cingular, Nextel, Boost Mobile and other carriers that together
> represent about half of the U.S. market.
> In the last year, these carriers have seen off-portal content sales
> grow at a compound annual rate of 410 percent. In the last six months,
> total off-portal sales activity skyrocketed 1,024 percent, with a
> month-over-month growth of 141 percent this past quarter alone.
> Even with the crumbling of these garden walls, however, less than 10
> percent of all wireless content transactions in the United States are
> non-carrier. This pales in comparison with Europe, where about 80
> percent of all mobile content sold is off-portal.
> Reuters/Billboard
> Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.
> NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
> daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
> http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
> articles daily.
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co.
------------------------------
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Bell Divestiture
Date: 18 Jun 2005 13:50:37 -0700
Robert Bonomi wrote:
> I _guarantee_ that AT&T and the Bells were not 'voluntarily' reducing the
> prices just because of a decrease in costs.
> There were precisely *two* possible reasons for a price reduction:
> 1) pressure from competition.
> 2) enough 'pent up demand' that the price reduction brought in 'more
> than enough additional volume' to make up for the reduction in
> profitability.
Neither of those make sense. There was not significant competition
before divesture except from other modes (ie writing a letter,
telegram). If you say the Bell System had no interest in the
customer, then it would not have lowered rates to meet that "pent up
demand", rather just put in more lines and made all the more money.
>> I maintain it was mostly technology -- cheaper
>> terminal equipment and >carrier media followed by higher call
>> volume and greater economies of >scale -- that caused and still
>> cause long distance rates to fall.
> The _rate_ of deployment, however, was driven by the competition
> _doing_it_ FIRST.
Again that fails to explain the continual rate reductions before
divesture.
> Can you name a single railroad that had a developed long-haul telecom
> network that _voluntarily_ converted to AT&T service? The one that I
> am aware of where that happened did it _because_ the railroad was
> *sold*, but the prior owner _kept_ the telecom operation *(including
> R-O-W on all that railroad's trackage) rather than including it in the
> sale.
The Pennsylvania Railroad/Penn Central network was privately owned,
maintained, and operated, then turned over to AT&T.
Other systems include private networks of SEPTA and the City of
Philadelphia.
> There were numerous big-city locations where you _could_not_get_ RBOC
> phone lines in quantity, when you wanted them. 'Rationing' _was_ in
> effect. For a variety of reasons -- lack of field workers to do
> physical interconnects, lack of C.O. capacity, among the big ones.
Would you name those big city locations and the time frames for which
rationing was in effect?
> Home computers didn't *exist* until the mid 1970s. The Altair 8800
> plans ran in PE's Jan 1975 issue. The APPLE-II didn't exist until
> late 1977.
But businesses and schools were heavy users of time sharing by the mid
1960s -- using dial-up Teletypes. Businesses were also getting dial
up dataphone services between computers.
> The first BBS went online in Feb 1978. Within two years, the operator
> of that system had crossed swords with the local telco
> _at_least_three_times_, where they refused to install the additional
> residential lines he wanted. Claiming he "had" to be running a
> business. Public-utility commission complaints ensued, and the telco
> did, in each case, end up installing the additional lines.
> Other large-scale "hobby BBSs" across the country reported similar
> problems.
That is a tarrif issue. Rates for a business and residential line are
based on expected use. A non-profit is still considered a business.
Seems to me a high volume BBS should've been classified as a business
line due to high volume of use.
> The mid-90's debacle _was_ Internet driven.
That was after divesture and the Bell System no longer existed at
that point.
> Even prior to divestiture, the 'road signs' were there for anyone to
> read. "Measurements" for quality of U.S. service were flat-lining,
> and in some cases, actually declining.
Could you provide specifics of the measurements, areas in question
(presumably representing significant population centers, not just an
isolated location), and the time frames?
> Space was not an issue, generally. Possibly in a few central-city
> facilities in a few of the largest cities.
Space IS a MAJOR issue. Real estate is expensive in growing areas,
whether city or suburb. ESS takes up a far smaller footprint than the
equivalent No 5 crossbar location.
> "Speed" is not related to call-handling capacity.
Yes, it is. I believe you yourself said it was the to the advtg of
common control equipment to get in and out of the call as quickly as
possible. A faster common control can handle more calls.
> The Bell system, like any regulated monopoly was _guaranteed_ a
> certain minimum rate-of-return on investments.
Regulated monopolies were NOT _guaranteed_ a minimum rate of return.
If they were Western Union would not have gone broke nor would the
railroads. In some locations of the Bell System and even today,
regulators mandate below-cost services for social reasons or deny rate
increases.
> Very, *very* rarely was 'how' that money was spent questioned.
*NO*, <that> is _not_ true.
As Pat pointed out, Ma Bell was under constant scrutiny by the news
media and govt and advocates. Shareholder gadflies made a point of
disrupting stockholders' meetings every year. Activists filed
constant lawsuits against the system.
> Can you name a feature/capability introduced by the Bell System after
> 1970 that was not present in third-party-provided, customer-owned, PBX
> equipment first? The only one I can think of is the "picturephone".
I guess to really answer that claim one would have to list the latest
PBX offerings of the Bell System of 1970, their cost, and the
competition's offerings.
How many third party PBXs were available in 1970?
Getting back to your claim the Bell System did nothing it didn't have
to, let's not forget the Princess, Trimeline, Panel, Home Interphone,
and Bell Chime units.
The Eng & Sci history of the Bell System describes a multitude of PBX
systems and features.
> 3-way calling, conference calling, call waiting, speed-dial, call
> 'camping', etc. Standard features on PBXs years before there was
> Centrex availability. And even longer before they were offered on
> plain-jane POTS service.
All available on Bell PBXs of the 1960s.
> 'Native touch-tone' was far less expensive for the telco than native pulse
> dialing.
Not in SxS, which required extra equipment. See Eng & Sci book.
> To "sell" more extensions, they _had_ to have something that was
> 'acceptable' decor-wise to the decision-maker in the household.
Most families we knew did not bother paying extra for "premium"
telephone *sets*, BUT *did* pay +extra+ for _extensions_ in various
_rooms_ and particular <floors> of a house. Having three (3) phones--
'basement', 1st fl, 2nd fl, was very _common_ to -save- steps.
Most families we knew did not bother paying extra for premium
telephone sets, but did pay extra for extensions in various rooms and
particular floors of a house. Having three phones -- basement, 1st fl,
2nd fl, was very common to save steps.
[Side note: Are the emphasis symbols really necessary? Compare
the two paragraphs above.]
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Before Charlie Brown became Chairman of
> AT&T, he was President and CEO of Illinois Bell. At that time, he
> lived about two blocks from me in Rogers Park, a north side
> neighborhood in Chicago. In chatting with him at his home one day, he
> said to me basically what Robert Bonomi claims above.
I'm not sure which claims you're referring to.
I'm not claiming the Bell System was perfect, however, my own
experience as a customer in large organizations was that the service
was generally excellent and the company responsive, and that rates
were on a decline before divesture.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was talking about Robert Bonomi's
claims that Bell System did just what the law required of them, and
not much else, unless it worked to their advantage. PAT]
------------------------------
From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Cellphone Tax Started in Alexandria, VA
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:00:54 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com
On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:22:21 -0500, Lisa Minter
<lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> quoted a news report:
> By Robert MacMillan
> Special to The Washington Post
> Using a cell phone is Alexandria is about to become more expensive --
> $3 a month more expensive.
If you copied this you sure didn't proofread it. If the original
article was like this they didn't bother to proof it either!
On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:22:21 -0500, Lisa Minter
<lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> continued quoting the news report:
> The City Council approved a new tax on cell phones as part of the
> fiscal 2006 budget. It will help make up some of the money that the
> city will lose after the real estate tax rate was lowered in order to
> provide relief to homeowners.
Can we say telephone gravy train? This is about typical though isn't
it?
------------------------------
From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Need Help on Wireless
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:06:48 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com
On 17 Jun 2005 05:23:42 -0700, PatETC <Telecom Digest editor wrote>:
> You _can_ use AOL or any other ISP on a high speed connection, such as
> you have probably read about. To your modem (or router and modem) the
> WiFi 'base station' is the computer, although you often times have to
> 'register' the MAC address of the wireless device with the ISP, as a
> 'new computer being used at your location'. At least, that is needed
> on cable internet or DSL.
As another alternative you can use data cables or bluetooth
connections with your mobile phone and access the net. Depending on
the service and the way you set up the connection you can have
connections with speeds of 9600 bps up to several hundred bps
depending on whether you use "dial up" GPRS with a GSM provider, EDGE
which is much faster with a GSM provider, UMTS with 3G service
providers, EVDO with CDMA providers all give faster speed.
------------------------------
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: Monitor/Recorder for Residential Power Line Outages?
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 22:16:56 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.
In article <telecom24.276.15@telecom-digest.org>, AES
<siegman@stanford.edu> wrote:
> In article <telecom24.275.11@telecom-digest.org>,
> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
>> It should be obvious that any such device will need to be powered by
>> some sort of UPS. Whereupon you may as well use a UPS. <grin>
> I don't see why a simple power monitor/logger gadget can't be battery
> powered, or more precisely, line powered with battery power to carry
> it over the hopefully rare occasions when the line power fails,
<sigh> That battery "back-up" _is_ a UPS. A "simpleton" DC-output
variety, but a UPS nonetheless *grin*
> preserving the already logged data and keeping its internal clock
> running. We're talking about logging mostly short losses of voltage
> in household electric service that's mostly on -- and battery backup
> should keep a simple logger gadget running for days if not months.
> In my household the built-in wall oven apparently has a built-in
> battery;
Usually a 'super-cap', rather than a real battery.
> it's clock and other settings will still be valid after a 20
> minute outage. Some electric clocks and most of the cordless and cell
> phones will retain settings for a day or more; and of course all the
> laptop computers for much longer. The thermostats for the HVAC ditto.
> The microwave oven's clock display, however, is flashing "==12.00=="
> over and over after even a sub-second glitch, as are many other
> electric clocks. The coffee maker with a built-in auto-start feature
> to make coffee just before 6:00 am each morning has lost all its
> settings -- but comes back up with its heating element still on if it
> was on when the power failed; lovely safety feature, that.
> Most annoying is the expensive, highly touted Bose radio: it loses all
> its settings -- time, station presets, etc -- on even the slightest
> power glitch. (Lots of other things not to like about this overpriced
> radio as well -- DON'T BUY BOSE is my recommendation.)
>> Most modern "smart" UPS systems have a capability for signalling a
>> host computer about the state of the incoming power, and the state of
>> the UPS batteries. Allowing, among other things, 'controlled'
>> shutdown of a UPS-protected device when the UPS batteries are about to
>> expire.
> Sounds like I'll have to look at this -- but I don't really want UPS,
> especially for the household appliances, and would initially just
> like to assemble some data on how badly PG&E is really doing.
Right. Use the UPS to supply power to an 'always on' computer, that
logs the data reported by the UPS. UPS for a microwave, or a coffee
maker is _expensive_, not to mention sort-of silly -- they draw a lot
of power.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now wait a minute! I have a Bose radio
> and that does not happen. The radio has a battery compartment which
> keeps everything in place. The battery does _not_ continue to play
> the radio, but when our power goes out here, I do not have to reset
> the clock or the presets, etc. Do you have a battery in your Bose
> radio? PAT]
Depends on the model, Pat. Bose does make more than one. ;)
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have the expensive one which came
out about 4-5 years ago; charcoal grey, with buttons on the top
of it in addition to the remote control. I do not have the very new
one advertised in the past year which has remote control only and
no buttons on the top which can play several CDs one after another.
Mine has green LEDs which brighten or dim according to the amount of
light in the room. I also have my television set (a separate thing)
plugged into it via the AUX switch to get pseudo-'stereo' sound from
the television audio. PAT]
------------------------------
From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net>
Subject: Re: Sprint, Verizon Opening Doors to Mobile Content
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:05:29 -0700
Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com
Lisa Minter wrote:
> Sprint and Verizon Wireless may soon lower the walls on their
> networks, allowing their subscribers greater access to third-party
> content, including ringtones and graphics.
> Sprint and Verizon, however, have taken a "walled garden" approach,
> restricting content to that offered directly through their own
> delivery portals.
This is so incorrect it's outrageous. It's true of Verizon, but unless
Sprint's drastically changed things in the past six months, it's
nowhere near true of Sprint. Sprint has, in the past, allowed me to
download *my own Java apps* to *my own phone* from *my own website.*
I've used other third-party websites to facilitate downloading content
too. And in the case of my own website, I'm registered as a developer
with Sprint PCS, but have not added the website with my app on it, and
I'm not an officially-approved Sprint content provider.
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)
"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"
------------------------------
From: LAalone@aol.com
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 20:42:18 EDT
Subject: Re: 700-555-4141 Does Not Work
In Glendale, CA (SBC: 818-500-XXXX), I get "Thank you for being an SBC
Long Distance customer."
------------------------------
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