TELECOM Digest     Thu, 15 Sep 2005 14:38:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 421

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Microsoft in Talks on AOL Link (Kenneth Li)
    Yahoo Blends Web E-Mail With Speed of Desktop (Reuters News Wire)
    U.S. Senate Turns Aside Web Gambling Problem for Now (Reuters News)
    Email to Former AT&T Phones Now Cingular (NOTvalid@XmasNYC.Info)
    Report: Microsoft in Talks to Buy AOL Stake (USTelecom dailyLead)
    Its the Spam Problem, Again (TELECOM Digest Editor)
    Re: Back to the Future in 845-268 Land (John Levine)
    Re: How a Telephone Works (Neal McLain)
    Re: PECO and PSE&G Power Companies Merger (Wesrock@aol.com)
    Re: Last Laugh! How Many Members of Bush Administration (Tim@Backhome)

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We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we
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               ===========================

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and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest.  

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

From: Kenneth Li <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Microsoft in Talks on AOL Link
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:31:24 -0500


By Kenneth Li

Time Warner Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are discussing cooperation
between their Internet search and advertising networks, a source
familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

"There have been talks on ways Microsoft and AOL assets can be better
leveraged and they've taken place over the normal course of business
 ...," the source said, calling reports of a joint venture "way
overblown."

Although talks, which have taken place over several months, could
advance, nothing was imminent, the source added.

Time Warner shares rose 2.7 percent after the New York Post reported on
Thursday the two were talking about a joint venture.

Time Warner declined comment. Microsoft was not immediately reachable.

Discussions started some two years ago after the companies settled a
long-running antitrust suit that America Online, a unit of Time
Warner, filed against the software giant, the source said.

Time Warner has been under pressure to boost its stock price, which
has fallen 70 percent over the past five years. Corporate raider Carl
Icahn this week said he planned to seek one or more shareholder-
nominated board seats at the company to force changes.

Icahn has demanded that the company raise its stock buyback program to
$20 billion from Time Warner's existing commitments of up to $5
billion and completely spin off its cable division.

One investor was cheered by the discussions and said anything that
could add some $4 per share to the stock price from improvements at
AOL was a good sign.

"Management is not asleep at the switch," said Larry Haverty, a
portfolio manager at Gabelli Asset Management, which has a stake of
about $286 million in Time Warner.

"Anything you can do to move the needle in that direction is terrific
for shareholders."

Low ball estimates for AOL are about $10 billion with improvements
possibly doubling that valuation, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at
Fulcrum Global Partners said.

Time Warner shares were up 55 cents at $18.47 in late morning trading on
the New York Stock Exchange.

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.

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

From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Yahoo Blends Web E-Mail With Speed of Desktop 
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:32:30 -0500


Yahoo Inc. said it is upgrading Yahoo Mail, the most popular Web
e-mail program, to make it run more efficiently than other Web-based
systems and nearly as fast as desktop e-mail.

The new version of Yahoo Mail works in a browser, just as existing
versions of the program do, but Yahoo has developed ways to
short-circuit the multi-second delays that typically delay any action
taken in Web-based e-mail programs.

It replaces the need to repeatedly refresh a browser to open e-mail,
move it into folders or take other actions that require the user to
wait for the browser to redraw the page.

Instead, it works similarly to desktop computer e-mail clients, with
features such as drag-and-drop organization of e-mails into folders
and a message preview window that displays selected messages nearly
instantaneously.

"The process of going through the inbox is much, much faster," said
Ethan Diamond, product manager for Yahoo Mail and a co-founder of
Outpost, the company which supplied the underlying technology used in
the Yahoo Mail upgrade.

Yahoo acquired Outpost in July 2004.

Analysts said Yahoo appears to have a sizable head start over other
major consumer e-mail providers such as Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail,
Time Warner Inc.'s America Online and Google Inc.'s Gmail in speeding
up the experience of managing Web-based e-mail.

GREATER LOYALTY

"This is a fairly significant step ahead for Yahoo," said Charles
Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Yahoo Mail contains keystroke shortcuts that reduce use of a mouse
pointer, faster searching through e-mail and an auto-complete feature
for addressing e-mails to frequent correspondents. Yahoo Mail remains
free and ad-supported.

Users of Microsoft Outlook, the desktop e-mail program that is the
most popular way for office-workers to manage their e-mail, will
recognize many similarities between Yahoo Mail and the Web-based
version of Outlook.

Golvin said Yahoo is looking to keep existing customers happy more
than winning new Yahoo Mail users. "This is more about cementing
greater loyalty of customers that might have been casting their eye at
(rival) Gmail," he said.

It will be offered initially to heavy e-mail users in the United
States and then be progressively offered to all Yahoo e-mail users
over the next several months, a spokeswoman said.

The upgrade will become available to Yahoo users in Europe, Asia, and
around the world in coming months. During a test period, users will be
able to switch between the new version and the existing version of
Yahoo Mail to compare features.

The new version of Yahoo Mail is available on the Microsoft Internet
Explorer browser for Windows and on Firefox for both Apple and
Windows-based computers.

Further details can be found at http://whatsnew.mail.yahoo.com/

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.

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

From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: U.S. Senate Turns Aside Web Gambling Ban for Now
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:32:53 -0500


The U.S. Senate on Thursday turned aside an attempt to restrict
Internet gambling in a procedural move, but Sen. Jon Kyl vowed he
would try again and said he expected the legislation would become law
eventually.

The Arizona Republican tried to attach language restricting Internet
gambling to an annual spending bill that must be passed this year, but
an unnamed Democrat objected to attaching an unrelated matter to the
spending measure under consideration.

Kyl said his legislation would require banks and credit card companies
to block payments to online Internet gambling sites. He said some
firms were already voluntarily blocking money transfers.

"We will proceed with this, it will become law at some point at some
time," the Arizona Republican said on the Senate floor. "There should
be no reason why we can't move forward on this."

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, said that a member of her
party had objected to attaching Kyl's language to the spending bill
but she was not sure who. Kyl urged the lawmaker to come forward so
the concerns could be addressed.

The U.S. Justice Department has said the laws that prohibit interstate
gambling apply to the Internet. But Americans have turned to offshore
gambling Internet sites as an alternative.

The Senate and U.S. House of Representatives have passed similar
legislation in the past but have been unable to reach agreement on a
single, identical bill, Kyl said.

Shares of online gambling sites in Britain moved higher on Thursday in
anticipation of the Senate action. Partygaming Plc moved up 5 percent
to 105 pence while Sportingbet.com Plc moved up 11.3 percent to 321
pence on London trading.

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.

For other news headlines, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html  (and)
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/othernews.html

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

From: NOTvalid@XmasNYC.Info
Subject: Email to Former AT&T Phones Now Cingular
Date: 15 Sep 2005 10:25:10 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


>> 1XXXXXXX ....@mmode.com works for my former AT&T now Cingular
>> phones.

A couple of months ago I replied,

> Thanks.

> I tried a whole bunch of different ways and the one above is the only
> one that worked. Receiver said she couldn't reply though. Maybe she
> doesn't know how.

Now the person switched to a Blackberry wih same phone number and
messages to her bounce.

Any reason that with a Blackberry it would be different?

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

Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 13:42:33 EDT
From: USTelecom dailyLead  <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: Report: Microsoft in Talks to Buy AOL Stake


USTelecom dailyLead
September 15, 2005
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=24640&l=2017006


		TODAY'S HEADLINES
	
NEWS OF THE DAY
* Report: Microsoft in talks to buy AOL stake
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* GSN inks carriage deal with Verizon's TV service
* Report: TV's future is IPTV
* AOL to unveil new VoIP service next week
* Analysis: Nokia's new e-mail package puts heat on rivals
* Motorola may unload auto-products business
* ESPN in eight-year deal with MLB
* RIM faces another patent lawsuit
USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT 
* Telecom Crash Course -- The must-have book for telecom professionals
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
* Verizon launches global 3G cellular data access program
* S-A, Motorola, Tropos team up on Wi-Fi mesh networks for cable
REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE
* SBC takes franchise-exemption case to FCC
* FCC meeting puts spotlight on communications networks
* RIAA to P2P companies: Cut it out
* Korea's FTC fines carriers

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=24640&l=2017006

Legal and Privacy information at
http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp

SmartBrief, Inc.
1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20005

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

Subject: Its the Spam Problem, Again
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 13:43:31 EDT
From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor)


Today, Thursday, I was confronted with 153 spam items in the _regular_
mail box; not the 'spam box' where Spam Assassin throws its stuff; I
am speaking of the items which got through into regular mail. These
spam items were so wound up and intermixed with the regular, good
stuff that a half-dozen or so good items got lost in the process,
including one of the regular features here each day, 'cellular-news'. 

I use the old-fashioned Unix mail program called 'mailx' here on the
Digest stuff, and I guess I am going to have to switch to something
more modern, rather than continually battling with the spam (and
occassionally losing, due to my clumsy fingers) as I did today.

PAT

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

Date: 15 Sep 2005 02:42:16 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Back to the Future in 845-268 Land
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> I tried it a few more times and at one point even came up with a
> 1960's style ring tone with no answer. Is it possible the old gear is
> still in the little brick telco building by Rockland Lake and taking
> overload calls ?

> 845-268-xxxx.

Rather unlikely.  The switch is a nice modern DMS-100 with vastly more
capacity than whatever electromechanical thing it replaced.  I can
think of a variety of possible explanations, none terribly plausible.

I do know that when you get a busy signal, as often as not the signal
you hear is generated by the switch at your end and the circuit is
dropped as soon as the remote switch can tell your switch to give you
a busy.  (This is why calls to Europe produce US busy signals rather
than the local European busy signal.)  They don't do that for ring,
but of course the ring tone is all digital, so who knows what sort of
recording some wag might have installed.

R's,

John

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

Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 05:34:19 -0600
From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
Subject: Re: How a Telephone Works


eagle_speaks@yahoo.co.uk [TD 24:417] wrote:

> Though I am in the telecommunications field ( software side) I
> am a bit confused about how everything works, though I have a
> high level overview. So I am stating my undestanding, so that
> someone can correct or fill up the gaps.

> 1. Each home suscriber has a twisted copper pair that runs
> from his telephone to a cable containg thousands (why no
> multiplexing here and send it through a single wire??)
> thousands of such pairs; to the local excahnge or the central
> office.

William Warren [TD 24:418] responded:

> There's no multiplexing because it means putting active
> equipment at the end of the wire, and that means the company
> has to build a weather protection enclosure, connect power,
> maintain batteries, and pay for easement(s), maintenance, etc.
> It's more cost-effective to have the pair go back to the CO.,
> at least for most single-family homes.

Furthermore, the telco has to apply DC bias voltage and AC ring
voltage across nthe loop.

The typical bias voltage for loop-start lines in North America is:
         Tip  = ground
         Ring = -48 volts (approximately)

This voltage causes a direct current to flow in the loop.  Originally
this current was needed to operate the old carbon "transmitters"
(microphones); more recent electronic telephones use other types of
microphones (e.g. electret), but DC is still required to operate the
electronic circuitry.  The loop current is also used for signaling
functions such as on-hook/off-hook status, call supervision, and
rotary dial pulses.

The minimum loop current for proper operation is about 23 ma. [1] The
maximum permissible loop current is 120 ma., but currents far below
that value can cause problems with some terminal equipment.  Mike
Sandman Enterprises has a comprehensive article about all this at
http://www.sandman.com/loopcur.html .

The typical ring voltage is 90 volts at 20 Hz applied across ring and
tip, but variations in voltage and frequency exist.

Even ground-start PBX trunks carry DC loop current and AC ring
voltage.  Although loop current isn't needed to operate the PBX (which
presumably has its own source of power), it's still needed for
signaling.  http://tinyurl.com/788uv

It is indeed possible to multiplex many POTS lines onto some other
medium; e.g., copper pairs, coax, fiber, or microwave.  But no matter
what medium is used, there still has to be some sort of equipment at
the far end to convert the multiplexed signals into individual POTS
lines.  This equipment has to apply DC bias voltage and AC ring
voltage on each line, and deal with the signaling functions associated
with loop current.

Here in the USA, we call these systems "pair gain."  There are many
types of pair-gain equipment in use, but the most common in current
use is "Digital Loop Carrier" (DLC); I assume you have something
similar in the UK.  The simplest DLC uses a T1 carrying 24 voice
channels, often on two copper pairs, at 1.544 Mbps.  The European
equivalent is the E1 which (as I understand it) carries 30 voice
channels at 2.048 Mbps.

[1] John L. Pike et al.  Understanding Telephone Electronics.  Dallas:
Texas Instruments, 1983.  Table 1-6, p. 1-35.

Neal McLain

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

From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 09:21:53 EDT
Subject: Re: PECO and PSE&G Power Companies Merger


In a message dated 14 Sep 2005 13:27:42 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
writes:

> Highland Park, NJ is across the Raritan River from New Brunswick.  Not
> to be confused with Highland Park, Mich, where Henry Ford had his
> first big automobile plant

and not to be confused with Highland Park, Texas, a very upscale
suburb of Dallas ("inurb" maybe?  It and University Park -- the "Park
Cities" -- are totally surrounded by Dallas).


Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And there is also Highland Park,
Illinois which is also rather upscale and the home of the Ravinia
Festival (summer home of Chicago Symphony Orchestra).  PAT]

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

From: Tim@Backhome.org
Subject: Re: Last Laugh! How Many Members of Bush Administration
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:31:11 GMT
Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, Debbie is not to be blamed. 
> She is a member of another list to which I belong, and she sent that
> item around with one of those 'pass it along to all your friends'
> tags. Considering that Debbie and I share certain parts of the same
> agenda (?!) I took her suggestion and 'passed it along'. If you took
> umbrage to it, I am sorry!  Seriously.  PAT]

George W. Bush is probably the worst president of all, or at least in
modern times.  His neocon pals are ugly, too.

But, as to his Administration, so what?  Look back at the Carter 
Administration, and so forth.

The leftie liberals are as bad as the neocons in many ways.

I am at the point in my life as a life-long Republican (almost age 69)
that I have come to believe neither major party serves us well.

And, when I came here to read about telecom issues I'd rather not be
confronted with political emotions unless some political event, such
as at the FCC, directly relates to telecom issues.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think either party serves
us very well, either. That is the reason I always vote Libertarian
when there is a Libertarian candidate on the ballot, which there
nearly always is on national and statewide elections, but usually
not on municipal or county wide elections. Anyway, if a Libertarian
actually got elected to a national office (that will be the day!)
IMO it is very likely the 'system' would have him assassinated the
day he was to take office, if not sooner. Our system is not designed
to have any real alternative candidates; as Mayor Daley would phrase
it, 'just will not do'. Your choices (and 'they' do humor you with
a small choice) is to elect a Demopublican or a Republocrat; two
different sides to the same rotten barrel.  PAT]

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #421
******************************