TELECOM Digest     Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:10:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 510

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    French Youth use Internet to Plan Riot (Paul Carrel)
    Gates Warns of 'Sea Change' in Memo (Allison Linn)
    High-Tech 'Sniffers' Try to Stop 'Dirty Bombs' (Mark Clayton)
    Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice (M Solomon)
    Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV (Monty Solomon)
    Jumpy Enough to Chew a Chair? Try DogCatRadio (Monty Solomon)
    Pay Phone Coin Drop Reference on TV; Youth Phone Culture (Lisa Hancock)
    Cellular-News for Wednesday 9th November 2005 (Cellular-News)
    Dimension (Michael Muderick)
    Re: Verizon POTS (Michael Chance)
    Re: Verizon POTS (Lisa Hancock)
    Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Fred Goldstein)
    Re: NNO Central Office Codes (Mark Roberts)
    Re: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking (Dan Lanciani)
    Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Dan Lanciani)
    Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Lena)
    Re: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers (Wesrock@aol.com)

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

From: Paul Carrel  <reuterss@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: French Youth use Internet to Plan Riots
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:30:58 -0600


By Paul Carrel

France's government is policing cyberspace as well as rundown suburbs
in the battle to end two weeks of rioting.

Young rioters are using blog messages to incite violence and
cellphones to organize attacks in guerrilla-like tactics they have
copied from anti-globalisation protesters, security experts say.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has diverted resources to
monitoring blogs -- short for Web logs -- in an effort to anticipate
the movements of the protesters, who have set fire to thousands of
cars since the unrest began on October 27.

Two youths were placed under official investigation, one step short of
pressing charges under French law, early on Wednesday on suspicion of
inciting violence over the Internet after urging people to riot in
blogs, a judicial source said.

But tracking rioters' blogs is a big task for the security services,
already stretched by the violence on the ground.

"This is a new dimension to take into consideration," said Internet
security expert Solange Ghernaouti-Helie.

"To do the tracking on the Internet to identify the people involved is
without doubt possible. But it requires considerable surveillance and
analysis resources," she said.

Blogs are easy-to-publish Web sites where millions of people post
commentary. Those allegedly posted by the two youths under
investigation were made in online diaries hosted by Skyblog, a Web
site belonging to popular youth radio station Skyrock.

Skyblog's site says it hosts over three million blogs, with thousands
added each day. One of those urging people to riot -- since
deactivated by Skyrock -- read: "Unite, burn the cops."

Some bloggers have urged people not to incite violence.

The host of bouna93.skyblog.com, a memorial blog for the two youths
whose deaths sparked the riots, urged contributors to respect the dead
boys, adding: "It would be preferable not to make racist, fascist
comments or to give rendez-vous spots."

CELLPHONES

Youths are also using cellphones to coordinate the violence, mainly
blamed on frustration over racism and unemployment, and to evade the
police once the riots are underway.

"Text messages and mobile phones ... help small groups of rioters,"
said criminologist Alain Bauer. "They can connect easily. It's not
only a way to avoid the police, it's a way to organize the fires."

The rioters have learned from anti-globalisation protesters, some of
whom have used cellphones to coordinate riots at meetings of the Group
of Eight industrial nations and the World Trade Organization in recent
years, Bauer said.

"I think they learned from what they saw on television. I think
anti-globalisation movements and rioters have the same way to organize
 -- or to disorganise the police," he said. "It's old guerrilla tactics
with modern technology."

The political establishment is also harnessing technology to amass and
organize support.

The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has tapped into intense
Web traffic searching for information on the unrest to try to rally
support for the tough line taken against rioters by Interior Minister
Nicolas Sarkozy, the party's president.

Since the weekend, searches on Google for words such as "riots" or
"burned cars" in French have thrown up a link to a UMP site where
readers are invited to put their names to a petition supporting
Sarkozy's policy of "firmness."

A UMP official said more than 12,000 people had registered their
support via the online petition since Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Thierry Leveque)

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: Allison Linn <ap@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Gates Warns of 'Sea Change' in Memo
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:33:06 -0600


By ALLISON LINN, AP Business Writer

The technology industry shift's to Internet-based software and
services represents a massive and disruptive "sea change," Microsoft
Chairman Bill Gates wrote to top-level executives in a memo aimed at
rallying his troops against the new competitive threats the company
faces.

In an e-mail to top executives, dated Oct. 30 and obtained late
Tuesday by The Associated Press, Gates urged company leaders to "act
quickly and decisively" to move further into the field of offering
such services, in order to best formidable competitors. But he also
warned that the company must be thoughtful in building the right
technology to serve the right audience.

"This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive," Gates
wrote. "We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and
challenge us - still, the opportunity to lead is very clear."

Gates compares the push toward such services -- which range from
online business software offerings to free Web-based e-mail -- to the
changes he saw nearly a decade ago. Then, he wrote a now-famous memo,
called "The Internet Tidal Wave," the prompted a massive shift at
Microsoft toward Internet-based technology.

"The next sea change is upon us," Gates wrote to executives.

Gates included a memo from Ray Ozzie, one of Microsoft's three chief
technical officers, which outlined ideas for broad companywide changes
that can address the growing competitive threat.

In the memo, dated Oct. 28, Ozzie concedes that Microsoft has not led
the pack on Internet-based software and services, and now faces
intense competition from companies like Google Inc. Ozzie said
Microsoft needs to focus on key tenets of the new model, including a
shift toward offering free, advertising-supported offerings and more
sophisticated, Internet-based methods of delivering products.

"I believe at this juncture it's generally very clear to each of us
why we need to transform -- the competitors, the challenges, and the
opportunities," Ozzie wrote.

Last week, Microsoft announced plans for Windows Live and Office Live,
two Web-based offerings that aim to help the company compete with
Google, Yahoo Inc. Salesforce.com and other companies that are already
seeing success with such Web-based offerings.

Microsoft Corp. has recently faced criticism that its model, which
still relies mostly on delivering software in traditional packaging,
could grow antiquated. The concern is that, as more companies offer
online services for everything from word processing to storing photos,
there will be less of a need for Microsoft's lucrative Windows
operating system and Office business software.

Microsoft's nascent Windows Live and Office Live efforts aim to
complement its valuable software franchises with online products that
build on what people find on their desktop computers.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

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 more Associated Press headlines and strories, go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html

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

From: Mark Clayton <csm@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: High-Tech Sniffers Try to Stop 'Dirty' Bombs
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:36:44 -0600


By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

If a terrorist tried to sneak a "dirty" bomb into the United States,
would anyone notice?

Possibly. Radiation detectors rushed into service since 9/11 might
sound the alarm at seaports, border checkpoints, and mail-handling
facilities.

Then again, the sensors have been set off by everything from loads of
kitty litter to bananas. And a smart terrorist could hide a
basketball-size chunk of highly enriched uranium by using lead
shielding less than an inch thick.

That's why the US is set to begin deploying a new generation of
radiation detectors intended to be America's "last line of defense"
against weapons of mass destruction. By early spring, the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) will pick technologies from among 10
companies, whose newest generation of nuclear detectors was tested in
the Nevada desert this summer. Their devices will begin field-testing
at a few ports of entry by next June, with a full-production decision
expected by 2007.

Some experts are breathing a sigh of relief. "We're now on the cusp of
seeing the next generation of [nuclear and radiological] detectors,"
says Benn Tannenbaum, a physicist and expert on sensor technology at
the Center for Science, Technology & Security Policy at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

But others say the US is not moving fast enough to install a
multilayered defense against one of its biggest security
threats. While billions of dollars have been spent on biological
countermeasures, nuclear detection efforts have lagged.

"Little steps are being taken that may be in the right direction,"
says Richard Wagner Jr., a senior staffer at Los Alamos National
Laboratory, who served in the Pentagon during the Reagan
administration. "It's the rate of progress I'm concerned about."

Alarming evidence that the pace may be picking up as disturbing
evidence accumulates.

About a year ago, the National Intelligence Council warned that
"undetected smuggling has occurred, and we are concerned about the
total amount of [nuclear and radiological] material that could have
been diverted or stolen in the past 13 years" around the world.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has documented
650 cases of trafficking since 1993, echoed that report.

About $300 million has been spent by the Department of Homeland
Security since 1994 to deploy 470 radiation-detection systems at
America's border crossings and ports, according to a Government
Accountability Office report in June.

But their shortcomings have become obvious.

In March, DHS officials told Congress port detectors were working and
had registered at least 10,000 radiation hits.

But questions about the value of those hits arose in a June
congressional hearing, when the security manager for the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey reported 150 "false positives"
per day.

That amounted to a false alarm -- and possibly a time-consuming search
 -- for about 1 in every 40 shipping containers. The resulting delays,
in turn, often caused detection sensitivity to be turned down,
crippling a sensor's ability to detect weapons material, the Port
Authority security manager and other experts say.

Next-generation sensors will generally be far smaller, often mobile, and
smarter -- networked with other sensors and able to detect the difference
between radiation emitted from a nuclear bomb and a load of bananas.

New homeland security officeOverseeing the effort is a brand new
office within the Department of Homeland Security devoted to one goal:
detecting terrorist nuclear material before it can get into the
country.

Established by presidential directive in April, its first assignment
is to create a network of US nuclear detectors as part of a larger
"global architecture" of detectors to be deployed overseas.

"We anticipate mobile detection systems and fixed systems ... that
enable us to achieve randomness and screening around the country, in
transit zones, aircraft in flight, and container ships," says Vayle
Oxford, acting director of the new DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office (DNDO).

He envisions detectors that would screen "target areas" like high-risk
cities, and some that could alert security forces to investigate. In
sum, it's a new concept that will need huge databases to collect and
collate data from what could become thousands of WMD sensors on
bridges and buildings.

"What we're trying to do with global architecture is to knit this
together," Dr. Oxford says. DNDO received $318 million in fiscal year
2006 funding -- about $90 million more than President Bush requested
from Congress.

Today only a few truly advanced detection systems are actually
deployed, including one at MassPort in Boston and another at a border
crossing with Mexico near San Diego, Dr. Tannenbaum says.

By 2007, DHS expects to decide on the best technology to put into
2,500 advanced detectors to be rolled out nationwide.

Innovative technologiesOne possible technology, from Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, is RadNet, a kind of global positioning
system married to a radiation detector packed into a cellphone. The
idea is that this "cellphone sniffer" could be carried by police
officers on their daily routes -- all the while detecting radiation
and transmitting coordinates to a computer that maps hot zones for
investigation.

Another contender: Princeton University's Miniature Integrated
Detection System (MINDS), which can distinguish between types of
radiation using sophisticated software.

So far, MINDS systems are scanning for suspicious material at a major
train station on the East Coast and a military base in New Jersey, as
well as being evaluated for airports and mail facilities.

Scientists at the Livermore lab are working on an even more futuristic
nuclear detector that could sense a bomb made of highly enriched
uranium, which emits little radiation and is easily shielded.

Other countries are coming on board. A year ago, the European Union
and the US agreed to cooperate on development of sensor technology.

Canada last year noted that its Ottawa International Airport would be
getting detectors that would sense material likely to be in a dirty
bomb, a non-nuclear device that uses conventional explosives.

Even local entities are getting involved. Last year several Las Vegas
hotels announced deployment of nuclear and chemical sensors.

MetroRail in the nation's capital has been moving to upgrade its
chemical and biological sensors.

WMD sensors: not sufficient?

Few experts, however -- Oxford included -- believe WMD sensors are
enough.

Most agree the primary defensive layer must be locking down and
monitoring with new smart detectors the insecure nuclear materials in
places like the research reactors of the former Soviet Union.

The next layer would be smart sensors at ports overseas to screen
cargo before it is loaded onto a ship bound for the US.

Some critics, though, say the bulk of funds should be spent securing
loose nuclear material overseas and creating sensor networks to make
sure that it doesn't end up in the wrong hands. If it did, the
argument goes, all the sensors in the world might not be enough.

"This could become a Maginot line for us, creating a false sense of
security," says Randall Larsen, CEO of Homeland Security Associates,
an Arlington, Va., consulting firm. "Anyone smart enough to get this
stuff could sneak it past detectors."

Still, other experts say sensor networks abroad combined with a last
line of defense in the US are critical.

"If you have a better defensive system, the attacker has to work that
much harder, recruit more people, put on more shielding," says
Mr. Wagner. "The bigger the operation gets, the better chance our
people have of detecting and stopping it."

Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor

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

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 00:37:33 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice


     Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice and
     Value in 9 East Coast Markets

Unlimited Calling for as Little as $29.95 a Month Underpins Super
Prices on Bundles of Calling, Internet and Entertainment

NEW YORK, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon customers in nine East Coast
markets now have two new options for flat-rate, unlimited,
any-distance calling.  Customers can combine the new phone plans with
Verizon high-speed Internet and DIRECTV services to meet or beat the
best offers from cable.

Verizon Freedom Essentials offers unlimited local, regional and
domestic long-distance calling with the three most popular calling
features -- Home Voice Mail, Call Waiting and Caller ID -- for as little
as $34.95 a month.  Verizon Freedom Value, offering any-distance
domestic calling but no calling features, starts at $29.95 in some
markets and is the company's lowest-priced any-distance calling plan.

The new plans are available starting today in New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia
and Washington, D.C.  The Freedom Value and Freedom Essentials plans
were introduced last month in Florida, California and Texas and have
proven very popular, bringing new long-distance customers to Verizon
and promoting sales of service packages that include Verizon Online
DSL and DIRECTV all-digital entertainment services.

With the new calling plans, customers can have unlimited calling at as
little as $29.95 and entry-level DSL at up to768 megabits per second
(Mbps) downstream at $14.95 for a combined cost as low as $44.90.
DIRECTV service from Verizon can be added for a total of as little as
$84.89 per month.

     - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52953597

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

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 00:56:38 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV


      Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV
      - Nov 8, 2005 11:01 PM (AP Online)
      - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52981885

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- Invisible marks that can be used to trace
illegal copies of television shows and movies will be embedded in
programs available on demand across the country using technology from
Widevine Technologies.

Widevine, based in Seattle, said Tuesday its invisible digital markers
would be embedded in programs distributed to cable companies served by
TVN Entertainment Corp., a Burbank-based company.

Among TVN's cable customers are four of the nation's largest
operators: Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., Charter
Communications Inc. and Adelphia Communications Corp.

Digital watermarks are not visible to the naked eye, but contain
information about the origin of the program. They allow Hollywood
studios to track shows as they are distributed to cable boxes, TV
sets, computers, cell phones or other devices.

The watermarks remain even after the program is copied several times,
allowing law enforcement to tell where illegal copies were obtained.

TVN provides movies, concerts and other programs to cable operators
and telecommunication companies, who then offer them to consumers for
a pay-per-view fee.

Tuesday's announcement marks the first time digital watermarking has
been used to track such programs.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 07:55:49 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Jumpy Enough to Chew a Chair? Try DogCatRadio


By DINITIA SMITH

"Remember, be kind to your mailman," said Jane Harris, a disc jockey. 
Then she softened her voice until it was a little insinuating: "He 
only wants to deliver the mail."

It is a message that many of her listeners need to hear. Ms. Harris is
a D.J. on DogCatRadio.com, a new Internet radio station for pets.  Now
dogs, cats, hamsters and parrots can keep the anxiety, the loneliness,
the restlessness at bay while their owners are out. It is radio just
for them, live 17 hours a day, 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific time, and
podcast for the rest of the 24 hours.

Those who listen to DogCatRadio will find that there is generally an 
animal motif to the playlist, like "Hound Dog": "You ain't nothin' 
but a hound dogcryin' all the time."

This Elvis song is a frequent request from listeners (presumably the
owners), as are the Baha Men, singing: "Who let the dogs out (woof,
woof, woof, woof)."

And Dionne Warwick is also popular, especially her soothing song
"That's What Friends Are For": "Keep smiling, keep shining,/Knowing
you can always count on me."

Since many pets are apparently bilingual, DogCatRadio also has a
"Spanish Hour," 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time daily, with Hispanic
commentary and music, like Luis Miguel's "No S=E9 T=FA":
DogCatRadio.com was started last June by Adrian Martinez, who is also
president of Marusa records, an independent record label in Los
Angeles. He runs the station out of a customized RV parked in his
office lot in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles.

Mr. Martinez, 34, who owns six dogs and two cats, said he founded the 
station because "my cat, Snickers, asked me to do it." One day, 
Snickers was pacing the floor restlessly and meowing. "I said, 'What 
do you want?' " Mr. Martinez recalled in a telephone interview from 
Los Angeles. "I turned up the music, and she was fine." He discovered 
that Snickers likes 80's rock, particularly the Eddie Money version 
of the song "Take Me Home Tonight:" "I feel a hunger /It's a hunger 
that tries to keep a man awake at night."

Mr. Martinez added, "I wanted to do something for the pet community."

The first week that DogCatRadio was broadcast, the local CBS
television station showed a feature about it. As a result, so many
people tuned in, 130,000 in one day, that the server crashed, Mr.
Martinez said. "We had to get a bigger server to accommodate more
listeners." Now, he said, "We average close to 8,000 hits a week. We
have a meter that tracks it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/arts/02pet.html?ex=1288587600&en=363ad=
acb531f2993&ei=5090

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Pay Phone Coin Drop Reference in TV Show; Youth Phone Culture
Date: 9 Nov 2005 06:47:38 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


A TV show just broadcast used the "ding ding" sound effect when coins
were desposited in a modern pay phone.  The show was "Life with
Derek"* shown on the Disney Channel.

What is interesting is that this show is meant for younger people who
very likely never saw a or used a 3-slot pay phone, so they're not
familiar with the coin drop sounds.  Further, a lot of teens today
probably never even used a pay phone because they have cell phones (in
this episode's plot, the user didn't have a cell phone and was working
to get one, thus her need to make a pay phone call.)  Our local public
library got rid of its pay phone because it was not used enough, when
kids need a ride home they have a cell to call.  (There are
occassional requests for a phone, however).

I wonder what the market penetration of cell phones among teenagers is
today.  It seems every time I see a teen they're staring at their cell
phone panel.  (My cube neighbor yells at his kids for too much cell
phone/text msg use and big bills).

Also in this episode the "ker-ching" sound effect of a cash register
was used.  This is a very common sound effect on TV when money is
mentioned.  But almost every cash register in stores for years is
electronic.  Indeed, the "ker ching" type of cash register was manual
and not as widely used as electric registers.  Many smaller stores or
secondary counters in big stores did use a manual register (where the
lever action of depressing keys worked the mechanism).  The pre-record
".wav" sounds included with my PC included that sound.

Indeed, sometimes I wonder if some of the jokes on youth shows might go
over kids' heads unfamiliar with culture history.  For instance, in
another show, during career day a 13 y/o tells of how "mama won't work
for the man", which I thought was an expression of an older generation.

As an aside, about 25 years ago it was common for affluent families to
install a second phone line for the kids to use (pre computer days,
voice only).  (In those days I remember senior citizens looking down at
that as being decadent and reminding us that in their day they all
shared the phone in the drugstore, if they had a phone at home it was
shared with many siblings and a party line.)  Anyway I wonder if
families still bother with second lines just to meet voice needs or the
cell phones now meet that need.  Also, with DSL and cable modems, I
wonder if people still have second lines for their computer.

*"Life with Derek" is about a teen girl who mother remarries and she
now has to live with a very annoying step-brother.  Import from Canada.

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

Subject: Cellular-News for Wednesday 9th November 2005
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 07:41:17 -0600
From: Cellular-News <dailydigest@cellular-news-mail.com>


Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com

GSM Network gets World Bank Loan
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14744.php

The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the
World Bank Group, has announced the signing of a US$20 million loan to
Wataniya Telecom Maldives which is building a GSM network in the
island nation. In addition, IFC mobilized a U...

Nearly 70% of All Ringtones are Purchased by Women
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14743.php

Telephia reports that women outpaced men in purchasing ringtones by
two to one during Q3 2005. Sixty-nine percent of mobile ringtones were
bought by women, while purchases by men comprised 31% of the total
revenue share, according to the latest Telep...

Starent Networks Connects over 7 Billion Subscriber Data Calls
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14742.php

Starent Networks is celebrating its fifth birthday. Since its
inception, the company has deployed its ST16 Intelligent Mobile
Gateway in numerous CDMA2000 and UMTS networks, connecting more than 7
billion subscriber data calls....

Qualcomm Gets a Foothold in the UK
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14741.php

Qualcomm has signed an agreement with O2 UK to use uiOne to develop a
consistent user interface (UI), initially for two of its own-branded X
range devices. With this agreement, O2 becomes the first operator in
Europe to announce plans to deploy uiOne...

Top 50 Companies in the UK Mobile Market
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14740.php

O2 UK has published a "50 to Watch in Mobile" report, which is an
independently compiled list identifying the 50 most important British
mobile companies to watch. The list looks beyond handset manufacturers
and network operators, to reveal the new vi...

SaskTel Mobility and Virgin Mobile Rank Highest in Canadian Customer
Satisfaction Study
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14739.php

Canada's SaskTel Mobility, a regional operator in Saskatchewan, ranks
highest in customer satisfaction with contracted wireless service,
while Virgin Mobile, which is new to the Canadian market, ranks
highest in pre-paid service, according to the J.D...

Niche Markets Ripe for a New Breed of MVNO
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14738.php

ABI Research says that Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) are in
a second phase of growth, made possible by the advent of 3G mobile
phone services. 3G's data-centric capabilities have opened up new
markets for MVNOs targeting specific high-end ...

British Consumers not Reaping Full Benefits of 3G
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14737.php

A recent survey by Harris Interactive shows that although 3G mobile
phones have reached a nine percent (9%) share of the mobile phone
market in Great Britain, 41% of 3G users are only using their phone
for talking and texting. Furthermore, some users...

Technology Promises To Link Wireline, Wireless Networks
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14736.php

[Premium] Phone carriers are pinning their hopes on a technology that
promises to bridge disparate communications networks, potentially
saving them money and setting the groundwork for new services. ...

Russian court freezes 20% of SMARTS, bans registration
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14735.php

Russia's St. Petersburg Arbitration Court has frozen 799 shares, or
about 20% of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS and prohibited
the regional tax service from registering the company as an open joint
stock company, Pavel Svirsky, general direc...

Hong Kong Hutchison Telecom End-Sep Subscribers At 15.1 Million
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14734.php

Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. said Tuesday the
number of subscribers to its mobile phone services at the end of
September was 15.1 million, up 34% from a year earlier and up 9.6%
from the end of June. ...

Nokia To Analyze Qualcomm Claims When Complaint Obtained
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14733.php

Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Corp. late Monday
said it has learned from a Qualcomm press release that Qualcomm has
filed a complaint for alleged patent infringement against Nokia and
Nokia Inc. in San Diego apparently involving so...

SingTel Says Regional Mobile Subscribers Exceed 74 Million
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14732.php

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. said Tuesday its mobile subscribers
totaled 74.05 million at the end of September, a gain of 2.91 million
from the end of June. ...

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

Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 09:51:14 -0500
From: Michael Muderick <michael.muderick@verizon.net>
Subject: Dimension


Does anyone still maintain the old Bell System Dimesion systems?  I
came across an operator console and programming console along with a
set of manuals /schematics.  Does anyone need them?  INterestingly,
there were stickers on the equipment from other companies.  Was
Dimension post divestiture?  

mm

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

From: Michael Chance <mchance@swbell.net>
Subject: Re: Verizon POTS
Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com
Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 11:20:16 GMT


In article <telecom24.508.12@telecom-digest.org>, 
userid@camsul.example.invalid says:

> Joe wrote:

>> I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message
>> saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service.

> That's known as soft dial tone.  You can call 911 (and maybe the
> telco's business office), but nothing else.  It's required in many
> places, for emergency situations.  It also lets you know that the
> phone line is electrically connected to the CO.

Didn't know that Verizon still had soft dial tone in places, but if 
that's what it is, then you've got completely wired service already in 
place.  No inside central office wiring to do, no outside or customer 
location wiring needed, so the only thing is to update all the 
provisioning and billing databases and set the central office switch to 
show the new service, all done with software.  Should take no more than 
a couple of hours, max.


Michael Chance

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Verizon POTS
Date: 9 Nov 2005 06:50:57 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Tony P. wrote:

> Verizon is famous for having crappy outside plant records. For
> example, when I moved here in October, 2004 they swore up and down
> that service was hooked up. Plug in the phone and no dial-tone. No NID
> either.

Verizon is a big company that is a hodge podge of companies with very
different performance history.  You can't generalize.  When we added
service it took only a day (physical line already there), and about
week (wires had to be run, cost $110).

> So I open the terminal block, take out the butt set and start dialing
> the ANAC number on every pair. Not only did I find my pair, I found
> the NID for my apartment and the two weren't anywhere near each other,
> nor was the NID connected.

What is "ANAC" and "NID"?

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

Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 23:32:07 -0500
From: Fred Goldstein <SeeSigForEmail@wn6.wn.net>
Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes


On Tue, 8 Nov 2005 22:47:41 UTC, wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu 
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:

> Not uncommon.  At Boston's WBZ, the main call-in number was originally
> ALgonquin 4-5678 (617-254-5678), which still works but has been
> superseded by 254-1030 to reinforce the branding.  But the contest
> line is in what was the Boston "choke" exchange, 617-931-1030.  The
> main switchboard number is 617-787-7000, which would have been STadium
> 7-7000 in 2L+5D days, but I don't know if that number was in use back
> then.  Those three exchanges historically belonged to three separate
> COs: 617-254 is Allston, 617-787 is Brighton (both now in the same
> ratecenter IIRC), and 617-931 is a downtown Boston exchange which I
> think was historically located at the NET&T headquarters.  WBZ-TV
> (channel 4) used to have 617-782-4444, but I doubt that is as old as
> the number would imply.  (WBZ-TV has been at the same location since
> 1948, when that number would have been STAdium 4444.)

If there was ever an Allston CO, it was gone many years ago.  Allston
is a part of Brighton.  Allston's separate identity dates back to the
railroad, which needed a name for a second station in Brighton.
George Washington Allston was a popular local painter, so they named
it after him, and it stuck; the neighborhood (once a Town before
crooked politicians essentially sold it to Boston sometime around
1870) is sometimes called Allston-Brighton, though the two halves are
reasonably distinct.  The Brighton CO is right in Brighton Center,
within a short enough reach of Allston to cover it efficiently.

Note, though, that a significant part of Allston-Brighton is served by
the Brookline CO and is in that rate center.  When I moved from one
side of Comm. Ave. to the other some years ago, my phone number (and
rate center) changed from ASPinwall-7 to STAdium-3.  (Brookline's 3Ls
included REGent and LONgwood.)  Boundaries are weird there.  The phone
company follows the middle of Comm. Ave. (a natural boundary for wire,
with a trolley line running there).  The post office puts all
Comm. Ave. addresses, both sides, in Allston or Brighton, but side
streets in Brookline.  (This impacts insurance rates.  I once knew
someone whose basement apartment, on a side street, netted a much
lower car insurance rate than the upstairs units, because of the
different ZIP code.)  The real city limits meander a couple of blocks
back.

Harvard has bought up a LOT of land in North Allston, right across
from their Cambridge campus, and is planning to develop that too.  I
think a couple of blocks in Allston near Harvard are already in the
Cambridge rate center, and Harvard is likely to equip most of its new
buildings with Cambridge numbers too.  WGBH ("God Bless Harvard",
though they'll probably claim it stands for "Great Blue Hill") has a
Cambridge phone number, for instance, though it too is in Allston (or
as it's known to Zoomers, "Boston 02134"), just across the river.

The 617-931 choke exchange is listed in the LERG to the Cambridge 02T 
tandem, a DMS-200.  It's one of two tandems in VZ's 210 Bent St. CO 
(the other is a 5E; a 4E next door, at 250, has been 
decommissioned).  If MIT still gets its dial tone from VZ, it comes 
out of Bent St.  That 3-block-long street is full of telecom 
carriers, Level 3 (and others having buildings there.  AT&T still 
uses 250, which is a divestiture condo (shared between AT&T and 
VZ).  I think the carrier hotel (was Network Plus, now defunct) at 
#185 has closed.  XO is at 89 Fulkerson, a block or two off Bent.  It 
seems like there's more glass than dirt in the ground around there....


  Fred Goldstein    k1io  fgoldstein "at" ionary.com
  ionary Consulting       http://www.ionary.com/

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

From: markrobt@myrealbox.com (Mark Roberts)
Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes
Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 17:00:48 -0000


Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu> had written:

> In article <telecom24.508.14@telecom-digest.org>, Mark Roberts
> <markrobt@myrealbox.com> wrote:

>> I can personally attest to 713-630 because that was used for the PBX
>> at KTRH radio, where I worked at the time. While most of the "public"
>> numbers for KTRH were standard JAckson numbers -- I'm pretty sure the
>> main call-in number was 526-5874 (KTRH) -- our internal extensions
>> were of the form 630-3xxx.

> Not uncommon.  

And it is a practice not limited to broadcasting stations. A local
example in Oakland is a real estate agency in my area whose main
office line is 531-xxxx. In its corporate ads for real estate
listings, the agents for the individual listings are given a phone
number of 531-xxxx, ext. nnn. But in ads for the individual agents
(such as their open house of the week), they usually give their phone
numbers as 485-7nnn. Interestingly, 485 isn't a Pac Bell/SBC
office. This, too, seems increasingly common judging by the prefixes I
have seen in our neighborhood weekly whose primary means of support is
real-estate ads.

Of course, there is nothing these days to prevent routing an ILEC
number to a CLEC switch, but it is perhaps notable that the
established ILEC number is retained as a central point of contact even
as all the internal DID extensions are provided by the CLEC.  For the
real-estate office example above, it would seem that 485-7000 would be
a perfectly serviceable main reception number, yet they've kept the
531-xxxx number.


Mark Roberts | "I know you know the situation is past critical."
Oakland, Cal.|  -- FEMA staff member Marty Bahamonde, in New Orleans 
NO HTML MAIL | "Anything specific I need to do or tweak?"
	     |  -- FEMA director Michael Brown replies to that e-mail
Permission to archive this article in any form is hereby explicitly denied.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 01:17:02 EST
From: Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com>
Subject: Re: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking


> Federal regulators, alarmed by the threat of online financial fraud,
> are requiring banks by the end of 2006 to provide several layers of
> identify verification before customers can access their accounts and
> conduct other banking over the Internet.

Yet they continue to allow (or even encourage) banks to refuse to allow
customers to require any verification at all for ACH debits against their
accounts by third parties.

> In addition to standard passwords, customers may soon need a unique 
> digital 'fingerprint' that will identify their computer for the 
> bank, or may scan a copy of their real fingerprints to identify 
> themselves to the bank's network.

As usual, their answer is for consumers to disclose more personal
information and/or allow snooping on their computers.  I'm sure
that information will never be abused ... even by the phishers
who will collect it as well ...

> Another, more cumbersome method would have customers carrying
> keyfob-sized electronic 'tokens' that authenticate their identity.

Because it would be, like, impossible to set up a cryptographically
secure, publicly verifyable (open source) system that works for the
customer ...

It's getting really hard to attribute all this nonsense to mere
incompetence.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

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

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 01:26:51 EST
From: Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com>
Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service


> Verizon Communications Inc. sharply cut its prices for unlimited
> telephone service across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday,
> including markets where Cablevision Inc. has just boosted broadband
> Internet speeds.

Unless you have residential ISDN in Massachusetts (which is apparently
no longer offered to new customers).  All the new low-cost plans
explicitly exclude ISDN customers. :( And it looks like all the plans
that didn't exclude ISDN are themselves no longer offered, so ISDN
lines are pretty much frozen.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

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

From: Lena <lenagainster@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service
Date: 8 Nov 2005 20:25:29 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Shame that it doesn't show on the website yet (11/8/05. 11 pm EDT)

Lena

[TELECM Digest Editor's Note: Well, remember, Lena, you read it _first_ 
here in TELECOM Digest, both yesterday and again in the current issue
in another article in this issue.  PAT]

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

From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 09:38:51 EST
Subject: Re: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers


In a message dated 11/8/05 8:27:46 PM Central Standard Time,
editor@telecom-digest.org writes, in a note to a posting by Jonathan
Stempel < reuters@telecom-digest.org>:
 
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the major banks, Bank of
> America, has considered having a picture (a .jpg perhaps?) of the
> customer on line to help 'prove his identity', so that if a phisherman
> comes along asking you to do something allegedly for BOA, _your_
> picture will have to be part of whatever _authentic_ request is made
> by the bank. All well and good, I suppose, but what prevents the
> phisherman from adding the same .jpg files to his pitch letters?  PAT]

The bank provides a selection of pictures from which to make your 
selection.  You also give the picture a name.

After you enter your username, the picture and the name you gave it is 
displayed with a warning not to enter your password unless the proper picture 
appears along with the name you gave it.  Then it allows you to enter your 
password.

Presumably it will be more difficult for the operator of a phishing or
fraudulent site to find and display the proper picture and the name
you gave it.  Why someone would respond to an e-mail request
supposedly from a bank by clicking on a link in the e-mail is beyond
me anyway.


Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com

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


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