For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
Moderator replies when issued appear in BROWN.
Previous Issue (just one)
TD Extra News
Add this Digest to your personal
or  
TELECOM Digest Tue, 11 Oct 2005 15:18:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 462 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Yahoo Expands News Searches to Include Blogs (Eric Auchard) Internet Enters Bold Second Act (Mark Trumbull) Cellular-News for Tuesday 11th October 2005 (Cellular-News) BellSouth Expands Wireless Broadband Service, (USTelecom dailyLead) NEC 2400 Out of Extensions (Jason Wasser) PocketDISH Portable Media Companion (Monty Solomon) Location Tracking - For People, Products, Places (Monty Solomon) Re: Device That Interfaces Between Phone/CallerID - Serial Port? (anon1) Re: United States Says No! Internet is Ours! (Gordon Burditt) Re: Dispute Leads to Internet Woes for Thousands of Users (Henhouse III) Re: Life Beyond Earth (Linc Madison) Re: Vonage and the 500 Minute Plan (DevilsPGD) Re: Vonage and the 500 Minute Plan (J Kelly) 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: Eric Auchard <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Yahoo Expands News Searches to Include Blogs Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 12:00:03 -0500 by Eric Auchard Yahoo Inc. said on Monday it will begin featuring the work of self-published Web bloggers side-by-side with the work of professional journalists, leveling distinctions between the two. Yahoo News, the world's most popular Internet media destination, is set to begin testing on Tuesday an expanded news search system that includes not only news stories and blogs but also user-contributed photos and related Web links. The move will further stoke the debate between media traditionalists who want to maintain strict walls between news and commentary and those who argue such boundaries are elitist and undervalue the work of "citizen journalists." Blogs, short for Web logs, are easy-to-publish Web sites where millions of individuals post commentary from political analysis to personal musings, creating a grassroots publishing medium that challenges established media's authority. Yahoo said its move to combine professionally edited news alongside the work of grassroots commentators promises to enrichen the sources of information on breaking news events. "Traditional media doesn't have the time and resources to cover all the stories," Joff Redfern, product director for Yahoo Search said. "It really does add substantially to what you are looking at when you are looking for news." Yahoo has, in effect, created a three-tier system for finding news that starts with the links to top ten stories and related photographs produced by mainstream news organizations on the main Yahoo News site. Readers searching for further details will be taken to a second-level news site, which splits the page between news from 6,500 professional sources and links to the hundreds of thousands of blogs available from its syndication service. Thus the expanded search stops short of blurring all lines between edited news and self-publishing. "We do try to demarcate what is mainstream media and what is user-generated content so that there is no confusion there," Redfern said. Those choosing to dig still deeper can click on "More Blog results..." to be taken to purely user-generated news from blogs, photos and links. This allow the user to search 10 million blogs listed on Yahoo's blogs blog tracking service. The search includes links to many of the 42 million photos on the popular Flickr photo-sharing site, which Yahoo acquired this past spring, as well as to My Web, Yahoo's mechanism for allowing its users to learn from the Web searches of others. FIGHTING TO DEFINE JOURNALISM Robert Thompson, a media studies professor at Syracuse University, said it was important to preserve the distinctions between professional journalism and personal commentary. He defined professional journalism as reporting which adheres to standards of accuracy and writing subjected to an editorial process, and all done with an eye to journalistic ethics -- however often journalism falls short of these goals. "There is a distinction between something that has gone through an editorial process as opposed to something put up by someone that has been through none of those processes," Thompson said. But media critic Jeff Jarvis, author of the blog Buzzmachine (http://www.buzzmachine.com), said major Internet sites such as Yahoo and Google continue to patronize bloggers by treating them as secondary sources of news. Jarvis, who is a former TV critic for TV Guide and People magazines, mocked the notion that journalists live by a shared set of professional standards, that they are better trained or more trustworthy than the anyone-can-join blog movement. "What made the voice of the people somehow less important than the paid professional journalist?" he asked. "You don't need to have a degree, you don't need to have a paycheck, you don't need to have a byline," Jarvis said. "If you inform the public, you are committing an act of journalism," he declared. 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: Mark Trumbull <csm@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Internet Enters a Bold Second Act Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:59:47 -0500 By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Across the high-tech landscape, tectonic plates are shifting. Google, the company that's king of the online search, recently offered to provide wireless Internet access to the entire city of San Francisco -- for free. Apple Computer now offers an iPod music player so tiny it could get lost in your wallet. And the British Broadcasting Corp. is starting to offer many of its TV programs in digitized formats online. In their own ways, these developments point to a common theme: Led by the Internet, the high-tech industry appears to be entering a vibrant new phase of both growth and upheaval. This is a far different boom from the dotcom craze of the late 1990s. It is the Web's sober second act, characterized not by soaring stock prices but by forces that are challenging traditional industries -- from publishing to telecommunications -- to adopt new business plans. Consumers seem to be the only sure winners. "We've taken a huge step forward and moved from a stage of concept to a stage of product and service delivery," says Brooks Gray, vice president of Technology Business Research in Hampton, N.H. His warning is clear: "There are some sizable risks to companies that don't evolve." The maturing of the Internet as an engine of the global economy is being driven by a handful of important forces: Prices and sizes shrink. Miniature "flash memory" technology, for example, is enabling the rise of little gadgets that link people to the Web. Transferring songs from the Internet to a shirt-pocket music player is just one example. Next, in an announcement Wednesday, could come iPods that show music videos. And cellphones will soon display TV episodes. Information goes digital. Lines are blurring between computers and traditional consumer devices such as phones, television sets, or even printed books and newspapers. Finally, "digital convergence" -- the fusion of computing with other traditional industries foreseen in the 1990s -- is happening in earnest, challenging traditional communications industries. Mobility expands. Wireless services, such as the network Google envisions in San Francisco, are making the Web portable, not just a desk-bound tool. Shopping for shoes? A smartphone will help navigate as you hoof it from store to store. As all these trends shower consumers with new products and services, corporations face both risks and opportunities. The good news, experts say, is that the online realm has reached critical mass. As of this fall, an estimated 1 billion people worldwide have Web access. In the US, the share of Internet users with high-speed connections is passing 50 percent. Online advertising revenue is soaring, and consumers are getting used to the notion of paying for services online. But as information is digitized, profit margins can get squeezed. The Internet may be maturing, but it's not yet yielding the rich rewards that top companies typically reap when an industry reaches full bloom. Instead, it's shaking up a host of traditional industries. Consider telecommunications. Businesses and consumers are increasingly flocking to upstart providers like Vonage, which send calls over the Web for a fraction of the traditional land-line cost. The rise of wireless online networks adds to the potential for price wars. These networks compete with phone and cable wires to take people online. They also could give consumers an alternative to traditional cellphone voice traffic. "It's good for everybody except possibly the providers" of all these networks, says Allyn Hall, an expert in wireless technologies for the market-research firm In-Stat, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Advertising revenue may help Google or some other bidder to finance a free wireless network that San Francisco hopes to create. Such efforts, under consideration in other US cities, represent a direct challenge to traditional phone companies. So it's likely they will fight back not only with rival service plans but also by lobbying lawmakers and regulators. "Never bet against the regulated providers," Mr. Hall says. But in this battle to provide access to an array of online services, the winner will be "perhaps less dependent on technology than on other factors like marketing," he says. The providers of content, such as media conglomerate Time Warner, face a different set of challenges. As content goes digital, these firms are learning to get consumers to pay for the information and news they get online. And they're finding more advertisers who will help foot the bill. By 2010, online ad revenues are expected to more than double from last year's $9.3 billion. The problem of illegal copying, which has plagued the music industry, must be solved anew for video products as TV goes online. Whatever the hurdles, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons recently said the Web -- specifically his company's troubled merger with Internet service provider AOL -- is where the "growth opportunity" lies. Mainstream high-tech companies are also scrambling for their place in the wild wild Web. The most closely watched battle pits Microsoft, the dominant software provider for personal computers, against Web-search giant Google. "Google is certainly the best candidate that's come along in a long time to displace Microsoft," says Joe Wilcox, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. That doesn't mean it will. Microsoft is famous for tenaciously fending off threats, and has recently reorganized, in part to strengthen its MSN Web services. The company has also discussed a possible alliance with AOL. But Google embodies a whole new model of computing. Where Microsoft has traditionally helped people make the most of their own PC, Google wants the Internet to be a giant personal computer for the planet. It's stated mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible." The more the Internet becomes such a tool, the less important traditional desktop software like Microsoft's becomes. The PC becomes just a way to get on to the Web. Mr. Wilcox isn't counting Microsoft out just yet. But "Google could be in a very good position if it executes well," he says. And as all these battles shake out, consumers stand to be in the best position of all. Their main challenge may be the old one of competing standards. Remember Betamax vs. VHS? Today, consumers could pay $299 for an iPod, only to find that next year's music player comes from a different company. Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor 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. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, The Christian Science Publishing Society. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Read NY Times, CS Monitor and NPR News headlines and stories each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Tuesday 11th October 2005 Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 07:41:05 -0500 From: cellular-news <dailydigest@cellular-news.com> Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Alcatel Wins Cambodian GSM Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14349.php Alcatel has signed a US$8.8 million contract to expand and upgrade the GSM network of Cambodia's CamGSM. With this agreement Alcatel becomes CamGSM's sole supplier of radio network solutions. Alcatel will also extend the... Cingular Wireless Corrects Subscriber Count Reports http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14350.php Cingular Wireless says that it has corrected the number of customers it reported at the end of the second quarter of 2005 from 51.596 million to 51.442 million. This change has no impact on the company's previous financi... Specialist Phone Insurance Overpriced - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14351.php Just under 2,000 mobile phones are stolen in the UK every day making it important for customers to consider insurance. But the British Insurance Brokers' Association warns that mobile phone insurance policies can prove e... Italy Getting Digital TV on Mobiles http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14352.php Mediaset and Italy's TIM have reached an agreement that will become the basis for a commercial launch of digital terrestrial TV on mobile phones using DVBH (Digital Video Broadcast Handheld) technology.... New Smartphone from SonyEricsson http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14353.php Sony Ericsson is launching an upgraded smartphone, the P990 - which will be the first commercially available smartphone to adopt the enhanced Symbian OS version 9.1 and UIQ 3 software platform. This flagship UMTS smartph... Use SMS to Boil Water http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14354.php The tea seller, PG Tips has teamed up with Orange UK to develop a PG Tips branded kettle - that can be switched on by sending it an SMS. Inspired by loveable inventors Wallace & Gromit, PG Tips, best known for the innova... FOCUS: Russia mulls fighting mobile handset thieves http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14293.php Russia is facing a rising problem of mobile handsets theft. In 2004, the Moscow police officially registered over 7,000 mobile handset thefts. However, analysts consider that the real number of stolen mobile handsets is ... Belarus MDC mobile subscriber base up 4.1% in September http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14297.php The subscriber base of Belarus mobile phone operator Mobile Digital Connection (MDC) increased 4.1% on the month in September to 1.645 million users, the company said Tuesday. ... Ukraine's Jeans mobile subscriber base up to 5 mln users Sep 30 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14300.php The subscriber base of Ukraine's Jeans rose 74% since the beginning of the year to 5 million users as of September 30, Ukrainian Mobile Communications (UMC) said in a press release. ... Russia's Euroset to cooperate in MVNO project with MTT http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14301.php Russia's largest mobile handset retailer Euroset has concluded an agreement with Multiregional Transit Telecom (MTT) on cooperation in the development of Euroset's mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) project, an MTT... TeliaSonera says holders to invest $60 mln in Moldova's Moldcell in 5 yrs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14303.php Shareholders of Moldova's mobile service operator Moldcell plan to invest U.S. $60 million in the company within five years, Anders Igel, CEO of TeliaSonera, Moldcell's key shareholder, said Wednesday. ... Belarus' BeST to buy $234 mln equipment from Alcatel Shanghai http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14313.php Belarus state-controlled mobile operator Belarus Telecommunications Network, or BeST, has signed an agreement with China's Alcatel Shanghai Bell to purchase the Chinese company's telecommunications equipment for U... Russia's VimpelCom to launch tariff with free cell phone in Dec http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14316.php Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom plans to launch a tariff with a free mobile handset included in the price of the subscription fee, the company said in a press release Thursday. ... Russia's VimpelCom user base in Far East hits 1 million people http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14319.php The subscriber base of Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom in the country's Far East Federal District has exceeded 1 million people, the company said on Thursday. ... Russian court freezes SMARTS' shares once again http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14325.php Russia's regional court in St. Petersburg has frozen 100% of the shares of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS, Kommersant business daily reported Friday, citing Gennady Kiryushin, the company's general director. ... Finland's Elcoteq opens telecom equip plant in Russia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14326.php Russia's ZAO Elcoteq, a subsidiary of Finland's electronics manufacturing company Elcoteq Network Corporation, opened a telecommunications equipment plant in St. Petersburg on Friday, Elcoteq's CEO Antti Piippo said at... Hong Kong Hutchison Whampoa Says 3G Subscribers Surpass 10 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14338.php Jones)- Ports-to-telecommunications conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. said Monday its third-generation mobile phone subscribers surpassed 10 million worldwide. ... Hong Kong Hutchison Telecom Plans US$1 Billion Loan - Sources http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14339.php Jones)- Hong Kong-listed telecom operator Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. (HTX) is planning to launch a US$1 billion syndicated loan this week to finance expansion in India, Indonesia and Vietnam, people ... EUROPE MARKETS: Telecom Equipment Shares Climb In Europe http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14340.php s) -- Telecom equipment shares gave European markets a lift Monday amid reports that Ericsson is near a deal to buy smaller rival Marconi and on optimism from the chief executive of Nokia, the world's leading mobile-hand... Dobson Communications Puts 3Q Net Subscriber Base Down 24,100 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14341.php Dow Jones)- Dobson Communications Corp. (DCEL) expects to report a net subscriber reduction of about 24,100 for the third quarter, compared with a net addition of 1,200 in the year-earlier period, and the company announc... PRESS: Russia's VimpelCom may start ops in 9 Far East regions http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14342.php Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom may get frequencies for operation in GSM 900 frequencies in nine regions in the Far East Federal District, Vedomosti business daily reported Monday, citing a letter fro... CWA Members On Strike At Sprint In Four States http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14343.php Jones)- Nearly 1,000 Communications Workers of America members working at Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) went on strike early Monday protesting the company's calls for benefits cuts in contract negotiations for workers at its ... MegaFon says ups base stations in Moscow to 1,500 units http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14344.php Russia's third largest mobile operator MegaFon has increased the number of base stations in the Moscow License Area (MLA) to 1,500 units as of now from 1,000 units as of January 1, the company's General Director Sergei... Nextel Partners Responds To Sprint Nextel Lawsuit http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14345.php ones)- The dispute between Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) and affiliate Nextel Partners Inc. (NXTP) got uglier Monday as Nextel Partners fired back a response to Sprint's legal action. ... AC&M says Russia's mobile user base up to 111.74 mln on Sep 30 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14346.php The number of mobile phone service subscribers in Russia increased to 111.74 million people as of September 30 from 107.33 million people as of August 31, Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M) said in a report released ... Russia's SMARTS launches EDGE technology in test mode http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14347.php Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS has launched Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) technology in test mode, the company said Monday. ... America Movil Launches New Claro Trademark In Peru http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14348.php Mexican wireless communications provider America Movil SA (AMX) launched its new Claro mobile-phone trademark in Peru on Monday. ... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:02:58 EDT From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com> Subject: BellSouth Expands Wireless Broadband Service, Strikes Deal USTelecom dailyLead October 11, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/vvhUatagCrppyVMalM TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * BellSouth expands wireless broadband service, strikes deal with Sprint BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Marconi won't comment on reports of Ericsson bid * Carriers see gold in mobile gaming market * AT&T offers 911 solution for roaming VoIP users * Icahn boosts stake, increases pressure on Time Warner USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Free Tomorrow: CALEA Update - Impact on VoIP and Broadband Telephony HOT TOPICS * Sprint Nextel sues Vonage * Texas grants first state-issued cable franchise * More big companies consider own fiber networks * Report: Verizon Wireless to roll out live TV in 2006 * Report: SBC to use AT&T brand TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Wi-Fi group seeks approval for new tech specs * Coming wireless TV boom could benefit Qualcomm REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Pay phones live on in some rural towns * Sprint Nextel asks court to review Nextel Partners deal Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/vvhUatagCrppyVMalM ------------------------------ From: Jason Wasser <jasonwasser@gmail.com> Subject: NEC 2400 Out of Extensions Date: 10 Oct 2005 12:54:29 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com We have an NEC 2400 and we're running out of extensions. How do we get more? We're currently only using three digit extensions. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:42:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: PocketDISH Portable Media Companion DISH Network Introduces PocketDISH Portable Media Companion; Three Handheld Styles Play Music, Store Photos, and Display TV Entertainment, Anywhere - Oct 11, 2005 08:02 AM (BusinessWire) ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 11, 2005--EchoStar Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:DISH) and its DISH Network(TM) satellite TV service announced today the rollout of its PocketDISH(TM), a new line of portable media companions. Enhancing the most on-the-go lifestyles, the handheld PocketDISH downloads and plays thousands of MP3s, stores and displays photos and is one of the industry's first video players. PocketDISH gives TV viewers the ability to take their favorite sitcoms, reality shows or even last night's game with them to watch anywhere. The sleek, silver PocketDISH is available in three models: two portable media recorders and a portable media player. With the choice of a crystal-clear 2.2-inch, 4-inch or 7-inch LCD screen, PocketDISH is one of the most advanced portable media devices available and provides consumers the ultimate convenience in how they watch television. Compatible with most TVs and consumer electronic devices on the market today, the units can download or record content from a PC or Mac, digital cameras, mass storage devices, as well as other video or audio sources such as DVD players, camcorders and VCRs. DISH Network customers will enjoy a special feature of ultra-fast video transfer speeds when attaching PocketDISH to select DISH Network digital video recorders (DVRs) via a USB 2.0 connection. For instance, an hour of DISH Network programming can be transferred to the PocketDISH hard drive in about five minutes. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52278962 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 14:07:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Location Tracking - For People, Products, Places Location tracking -- for people, products, places -- is fast coming into its own It's 11 o'clock. Do you know where your _______ is? By Andrew Caffrey, Globe Staff | October 10, 2005 In one operating room at Massachusetts General Hospital, doctors and nurses wear radio tags that register their comings and goings on a 42-inch television screen so other members of the medical team know who is attending the surgery at any given moment. At an old-soldiers home in King, Wis., elderly residents who are at risk of wandering off carry a small wireless beacon that signals their location within a residential facility, and triggers an audio alert over the public address system when one gets close to a potentially risky area, such as a stairwell. At the Illinois Institute of Technology, prospective students could take a self-guided tour using a tablet PC that spits out information on activities happening near where they are standing on the Chicago campus or gives them architectural highlights of the Mies van der Rohe building as they walk by. Such tracking technologies, including new applications for Global Positioning Systems, are coming to a campus, cafe, or care center near you. After years of false starts and underwhelming results, systems for locating people, places, and objects are finally finding themselves. Once the province of the fanciful imagination of Q from the James Bond series, location technologies are wending their way into ordinary business practices and extraordinary human applications, from monitoring the elderly to connecting a cardiac patient admitted to the emergency room with the nearest surgeon. The advances are being aided by upgrades in hand-held and other mobile devices, which can now process prodigious amounts of data generated by navigation and related technologies. Communications networks are more robust and can provide more saturated coverage, and the costs of chip sets for GPS and other tracking technologies have fallen steeply. Indeed, consumers are now so accepting of mobile devices such as cellphones that industry analysts predict they won't be reluctant to adopt this next wave of newfangled technologies. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/10/10/location_tracking____for_people_products_places____is_fast_coming_into_its_own/ ------------------------------ From: anon1@sci.sci Subject: Re: Device That Interfaces Between Phone/CallerID and Serial Port? Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:53:17 -0700 Organization: UseNetServer.com > Assuming you are looking for a device that receives Caller-ID, and the > voice menu stuff is done by something else, .. That's a very bad assumption. It's the voice-menu touch-tone: press 1 if you are a personal acquaintance whose first name I would recognize; press 2 if you are calling me in regard to an existing business relationship such as a credit card or bank account; press 3 if you are a stranger trying to call me to advertise a product or service; press 4 if you are offering me a job; press 5 if you are a stranger trying to call for personal reasons such as you want to discuss something interesting I posted in a newsgroup; press 6 if we met in person but I don't yet know your name but I'd remember meeting you.) which I don't have and am seeking. Do you know what such a device would be called and which newsgroup would be appropriate for asking about such devices? It would be nice if that one device also included decoding of caller-ID, so that I can put up different touch-tone monus depending on whether the call provides caller-ID or not and if so then whether the call is from somebody whose number I already know, and if a number I already know then depending on the number: -- You have harassed me and I asked you to stop calling. But here you go calling me to harass me again. Your call will be reported to the police. -- Hi daddy. Phone is ringing now. If I'm here, I'll answer shortly. -- Hi Margaret. Nice to hear from you. If I'm here, I'll answer shortly. > "a cheap modem". It needs Caller-ID but it doesn't need 56K or even > 33.6k speeds. You don't want to set it up to auto-answer. The modem's > RING response code will include caller-ID if it's set up to return it. I already have a modem, a SupraExpress 56. When the phone rings, the modem sends just the word RING on a line by itself, with a blank line between consecutive RINGs. I don't know of any way to make it detect caller-ID and report that. > The various Digium PCI cards used by Asterisk to interface with analog > phone lines let you do a lot more, including the voice menu stuff > itself, but they don't do RS-232. I don't think a mere "card" would be of any use to me. It doesn't sound like anything I can connect up to a phone line and program/configure in any simple manner. But just in case I'm mistaken in rejecting your suggestion, please tell me how somebody would program the "card" to set up the various touch-tone menus? Is there a keypad on the "card" for entering configuration commands, and a LED or LCD display on the "card" for getting responses to verify what I'm doing? > Try www.callerid.com and check out the Whozz Calling box. I looked on that Web site, but didn't see any description of the Whozz Calling box nor any link to such information. The only mention was "using our Whozz Calling? family of multi-line hardware." with no link to info about the device. The text " Features simple viewing, logging, and networking of both incoming and outgoing Caller ID . Setup screen, search and find hardware routine, help screens, documentation, and source code included." appears to refer not to the box but to some software that wouldn't run on my Macintosh in any case, and there's no mention of either software or hardware providing any touch-tone menu. I did a Google search for "Whozz Calling box" and found: http://www.sandman.com/callerid.html Whozz Calling 2 Rear Panel 2 ports with a DB-9 Serial output to connect to a Serial Printer or PC! Has a 250 Call Buffer, to store calls until you download them to your PC - using any terminal program with a "Save to Disk" feature! OK, that would be a slight improvement on my current TPC-supplied caller-ID box which stores only the last 25 caller-ID info and requires me to manually view each individual record and manually re-key the information into a text editor. But I see nothing about supporting touch-tone menus. * See any DTMF digits dialed ON INBOUND CALLS! Use this to verify what mailbox was dialed along with the Caller ID number! I assume DTMF is the technical name/abbreviation for the tones used by "touch tone" dialing. In the absense of any outgoing message, there's no reason anyone would key in any DTMF tones after getting a connection, so by itself this is of no use here. I really need something that will enforce a touch-tone (DTMF) menu, which anonymous or other unknown/suspicious callers must traverse before they will be allowed to ring my phone. I don't see any indication that Whozz will provide that capability. If there's no such device that handles both touch-tone menus and caller-ID decoding to pick which menu to use at the start, then I'd settle for a device that didn't have any caller-ID decoding at all, merely uses the same touch-tone menu for all callers, and rings my phone only if the caller passes a "Turing" test for establishing the person as a known friendly acquaintance or relative. (I currently get ten to twenty harassing calls per day, and maybe one or two non-harassing calls per month. I would like the touch-tone menu to filter out everything except those very few non-harassing calls.) ------------------------------ From: gordonb.youeh@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Re: United States Says No! Internet is Ours! Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 22:12:26 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But although the 'real roots' work just >> fine, as you note, someone starting their own competing root server >> could bypass all the silly requirements of things like ICANN couldn't >> he? In addition to copying all the data now in use, he could also start >> his own domains, could he not? He could start a domain for example >> called '.abracadabra' or whatever name and it would not be subject to >> any rules but his own. Or am I missing something here? I don't have to pretend to be a root server to set up my own top-level domains. If I want ".abracadabra", I can set up my server to serve it, possibly delegating it to some other server (in BIND, this is a "forward zone") or slaving the .abracadabra zone from some other server. I can use the normal root servers for all the other stuff, except the OFFICIAL .abracadabra should it ever exist. Of course, the only machines that will see this are ones using servers (directly or indirectly) that know about this zone. If I can convince enough people to use my servers or (e.g. use "forwarders" in a BIND config file) point a reference to .abracadabra to my servers (the BIND "forward zone"), I might actually be able to sell domain names in that zone profitably (dream on!). > Only that his root domains would only be recognized by users of his > root servers. There might be some use for this in setting up shorthand > domain names, but it wouldn't make the actual sites private, since they > would still have public underlying IP addresses. To say nothing of the fact that DNS is usually public: if you have a zone on your server, I can normally query it directly if it has a public IP address and you didn't put in an access list to restrict who to answer queries from. Gordon L. Burditt ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:17:21 -0700 From: Henry Cabot Henhouse III <sooper_chicken@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Dispute Leads to Internet Woes for Thousands of Users I'll bet a lot of traffic coming from Cogentco is spam and porn ... a large percentage of traceroutes to .cn hosts where spam originates traces back to the Cogentco network. Cogentco also sells to companies that resell to pornographers. I ran across a spammer on IRC hawking kiddie porn using a redirect. Traced it to hostf*ck.com, which is off a provider off Cogentco. Do you think anyone at Cogentco cares? Nope. As long as the customer pays the bill, Cogentco doesn't care what kind of filth they deal with. Cogentco is worse than just a haven for spammers ... they're a haven for smut merchants. Andy Sullivan <reuters@telecom-digest.org> wrote in message news:telecom24.459.4@telecom-digest.org: > By Andy Sullivan > Thousands of Internet users struggled to send e-mail and keep their > Web sites running on Thursday after a dispute between two service > providers left large portions of the Internet unable to talk to each > other. > Computer technicians scrambled to shore up their networks after Level > 3 Communications Inc. refused to accept traffic from rival Cogent > Communications Group Inc., rendering large portions of the Internet > unreachable by others. > "We weren't able to get to our e-mail systems, we weren't able to get > to our externally hosted chat systems," said Bob Serr, chief > technology officer at Chicago instant-messaging provider Parlano > Inc. "Some customers say they've had trouble getting to our Web site." > The rift meant that thousands of customers -- including individuals > who use Time Warner Inc.'s Road Runner cable-modem service -- were not > able to view Web sites and send e-mail to servers located on the other > company's network, violating the Internet's premise as a universal, > borderless network of computers. > The dispute affects roughly 15 percent to 17 percent of the Internet, > Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer said. > "The usability and value people get out of the Internet is highly > dependent on its ability to be ubiquitous and affordable, and I think > what Level 3 is attempting to do is undermine both of those core > principles," he said in an interview. > TOO MUCH COGENT TRAFFIC > Like other large, wholesale Internet service providers, Cogent and > Level 3 handed off traffic from one network to each other free of > charge, until Level 3 said that it was handling too much Cogent > traffic. > "We felt that there was an imbalance and we were disadvantaged in that > relationship and we were ending up with what amounts to free capacity," > Level 3 spokeswoman Jennifer Daumler said. > Cogent's Schaeffer said Level 3 was simply trying to get Cogent to > raise its prices, which at $10 per megabit are far below the market > average of $60 or so per megabit. > Larger customers of each company have been little affected by the > dispute because they usually sign agreements with several different > wholesale providers. > But customers who rely entirely on either provider for their Internet > connections would not be able to reach any Web sites or servers on the > others' network, those involved in the dispute said. > That would include law firms, community colleges and companies like > Parlano, which face lost business and angry customers from the outage. > "It's kind of a game of chicken to see who's going to blink first, and > to see whose customer base wants connectivity to the other customers' > more," said Alan Mauldin, an analyst at TeleGeography Research in > Washington. > Parlano's Serr said he would stick with Cogent as his provider for the > time being because he saw Level 3's move as "strong-arm tactics." > Road Runner said its customers have not been able to visit Web sites > and send e-mail to Cogent customers. > "We are working to find alternate pathways so our customers can be > connected with these Web sites as soon as possible," Road Runner said > in a statement. > Representatives for America Online Inc., EarthLink Inc. and Microsoft > Corp.'s MSN service said their customers have not been affected by the > dispute. > Cogent ran into a similar dispute with America Online several years > ago but it was resolved amicably, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said. > Cogent said it was offering Level 3 customers affected by the dispute > a year of free service if they wished to switch providers. Level 3 > said it was working with its customers to ensure they could reach the > entire Internet. > "Level 3 is working with their customers and Cogent needs to work with > its customers," Level 3's Daumler said. "If Cogent wants to make its > customers happy they've got to figure out a way to get that > connectivity to the Internet." > 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. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Life Beyond Earth Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 00:06:19 -0700 From: Linc Madison <lincmad@suespammers.org> Reply-To: lincmad@suespammers.org Organization: California resident; nospam; no unsolicited e-mail allowed In article <telecom24.446.17@telecom-digest.org>, Brad Guth <ieisbradguth@yahoo.com> wrote: > This "Life beyond Earth?" is yet another very nicely composed > article. However, I've also noticed as to how nicely you've avoided > the nearest of such orbs as having been perfectly good for another > chapter or two within your "Life beyond Earth" topic, that are by far > the most humanly accessible and should perhaps remain as keen > interest to humanity for less than a penny on the dollar. > Are you and your readers up for the task of an icy proto-moon or > that of Venus? In order to go explore an icy proto-moon of earth, there first has to actually EXIST an icy proto-moon of earth. As for Venus, we're more likely to play a soccer match against the folks from Alpha Centauri than to find recognizable life on Venus. Although it is obviously possible that some radically different form of life exists elsewhere in the universe, all life on earth is dependent on the existence of liquid water, which is completely absent on Venus. To bring this back to some shred of telecom relevance, I was at a shopping mall this afternoon and saw a whole *booth* devoted to products to protect me from the risk that my cellphone could cause brain cancer. The products included some hands-free ear pieces that at least move the source of radiation away from your brain, which would significantly reduce the danger if there actually were any danger to begin with. However, they also included some little metallic stickers to place over the speaker grille of the cellphone itself, for people who insist on holding the phone right up against their brain cases. Those would be utterly superfluous even if there were a real risk, but they claim to reduce harmful radiation by up to 78%. Where is the bunko squad when you need them? Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * lincmad@suespammers.org <http://www.LincMad.com> * primary e-mail: Telecom at LincMad d0t c0m Read my political blog, "The Third Path" <http://LincMad.blogspot.com> DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS. You have been warned. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <spamsucks@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: Vonage and the 500 Minute Plan Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:11:58 -0600 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.461.12@telecom-digest.org> Henry Cabot Henhouse III <sooper_chicken@hotmail.com> wrote: > I couldn't find reference to the "unlimited local w/500 national" > minutes on the archived website that Daniel pointed me to, but the > info from DevilsPGD confirms what I thought I signed up for... and the > reason I changed my pcs to a 323 number so forwarded minutes would not > count towards the 500 minutes. > I don't recall ever receiving notification from Vonage that the plan > changed. If you were on that plan, you were upgraded to the unlimited national plan at no additional charge. ------------------------------ From: J Kelly <jkelly@*newsguy.com> Subject: Re: Vonage and the 500 Minute Plan Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:26:12 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@*newsguy.com On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 16:47:34 -0700, Henry Cabot Henhouse III <sooper_chicken@hotmail.com> wrote: > I couldn't find reference to the "unlimited local w/500 national" > minutes on the archived website that Daniel pointed me to, but the > info from DevilsPGD confirms what I thought I signed up for... and the > reason I changed my pcs to a 323 number so forwarded minutes would not > count towards the 500 minutes. > I don't recall ever receiving notification from Vonage that the plan > changed. > Vonage has been ok, I've only suffered through a few outages -- which > affected everyone -- and fortunately I've never had the pain of trying > to get through to them on the phone. > I've recently considered switching to Sunrocket ... the website says > they can port one of my Verizon Wireless numbers (310-995 Gardena) > which Vonage can not do. I guess that, along with them being five > bucks a month less than Vonage for unlimited, makes SR attractive to > me. > Anyone have any opinions on SR? > Thanks, > Dave Check over on broadbandreports.com for reviews. I seem to recall seeing a lot of posts there about SR being down a lot. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum. Classes are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning. Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #462 ****************************** | |