TELECOM Digest     Mon, 14 Nov 2005 13:34:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 518

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Should the U.S. or the U.N. Control Internet? A Third Way (Phil Earnhardt)
    Cellular-News for Monday 14th November 2005 (Cellular-News)
    Startup Exits Stealth Mode to Announce Fixed-Mobile Solution (US Dailylead)
    Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" (Monty Solomon)
    Re: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" (Monty Solomon)
    Re: Moving to VOIP But Keeping Same Phone Number (John Levine)
    Re: Infone to Shut Down (J Kelly)
    Re: Infone to Shut Down (Gordon S. Hlavenka)
    Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Garrett Wollman)
    Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Joe Morris)
    Re: Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms? (John Levine)
    Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire (S Sobol)
    Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Robert Bonomi)
    Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and (Robert Bonomi)
    Re: Getting the 411 on 911 Service (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com)
    Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines (Gerard Bok)
    Re: Can You Still Build a PC For Less? (Steve Stone)

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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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: Phil Earnhardt <pae@dim.com>
Subject: Should the U.S. or the U.N. Control the Internet? Here's a Third Way
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 23:42:49 -0700
Organization: http://newsguy.com


http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007543

Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow
Jones & Company, Inc.

This editorial appeared in print on Saturday's Wall Street Journal
(they started publishing a weekend edition earlier this fall).

As an aside, I think the WSJ does an excellent job keeping its readers
up-to-date on such issues. I fondly hope what they describe never ever
happens, but it certainly sounds possible.

--phil

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do 
Should the U.S. or the U.N. control the Internet? Here's a third way. 

BY BRIAN M. CARNEY 
Saturday, November 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

It's been a good ride, this whole Internet thing. To hear its boosters
tell it, the Net has, in addition to the porn, online poker and cheap
drugs, given us democratized information, become a tool for the
undermining of totalitarian regimes and given people in the farthest
corners of the Earth a window on the wider world that would have been
unthinkable before Al Gore invented the Internet (sic).

But all that is about to change -- starting tomorrow. The bad news is
that we can't really do anything about it. The good news is that the
changes that are coming probably won't bring about the end of the
Information Age, but merely its evolution.

Before we get to that, you're probably wondering what in the world is
going on -- surely if the whole Internet thing had been called off,
there would have been a press release, right? Well, there was, but you
may not have noticed. Tomorrow, in Tunis, Tunisia, the U.N. is hosting
the World Summit on the Information Society. One of the goals of the
summit is to advance the "internationalization" of what is known as
"Internet governance."

Since its inception, the Internet has been a pretty American affair.
Many fundamental aspects of its architecture are controlled by a
California-based nonprofit corporation known as Icann, short for
Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers. Icann was founded by
the U.S. government and, many believe, is still controlled by it to
some extent. For a lot of different reasons, that makes a lot of
people mad. So, for several years now, the U.N., through events like
tomorrow's summit, has been urging the U.S. to give control of
Icann -- or more precisely, of the root file that maps every Internet
address and connects them to the names, like OpinionJournal.com, that
we are all familiar with -- to the U.N.'s wise stewardship.  The
U.S. hates the idea, with good reason. An Internet "governed" by the
U.N. could be expected to travel a familiar road. The countries with
the greatest interest in regulating, limiting or controlling the Net
would pull out the stops to put themselves on the governing board, and
then use the U.N.'s imprimatur to justify the shackling of a once
(more or less) free medium in the interests of cultural diversity, or
"Asian values" or some other bromide.

That the Saudi Arabias, Chinas and Frances of the world would love to
impose their own particular vision of what should and should not be
available on the Internet should surprise no one. All the countries
above have restricted or attempted to restrict Internet access.
America, for its part, has engaged in aggressive enforcement against
offshore gambling sites that are accessible from the U.S.

The U.S. is making apocalyptic predictions of what the U.N. would do
if given control. Those predictions are probably optimistic; U.N.
control would be a disaster. But there is a third way, as Mr. Gore
might say. That alternative doesn't serve the interests of either the
U.S. government, which enjoys the control it currently exercises, or
its critics, who would much prefer to do their censoring under a
multilateral umbrella. But if the U.S. continues its Internet
brinkmanship, the third way will become not only likely, but
inevitable.

That alternative is a fragmented Internet, without a single "root
file" that describes the locations of everything on the Net. The U.S.
government has led many to believe that this is equivalent to
dismantling the Internet itself. But it is bluffing.

Here's how it might work. At some point, China will grow tired of the
U.S. refusal to give up control to the U.N., and it will secede from
the status quo. It will set up its own root server, tweaked to allow
access only to those sites the government deems nonthreatening, and
simply order every Internet service provider in the country to use it
instead of ICANN's. The change will be seamless to most users, but
China will have set up its own private Net, one answerable to the
people's revolutionaries rather than to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Others may follow suit. Root servers could spring up in France, or
Cuba, or Iran. In time, the Internet might look less like the Internet
and more like, say, the phone system, where there is no "controlling
legal authority" on the international level. More liberal-minded
countries would probably, if they did adopt a local root-server, allow
users to specify which server they wanted to query when typing in,
say, Microsoft.com.

As a technical means of content control, going "split root," as they
say in the business, is too compelling for governments not to give it
a try. But the user experience would likely be much the same as it
ever was most of the time. ISPs, as well as most vaguely democratic
governments, would have an interest in ensuring broad
interoperability, just as no one in Saudi Arabia or China has yet
decided that dialing +1-202-456-1414 -- the White House switchboard
number -- from those countries should go somewhere else, like Moammar
Gadhafi's house. Nothing stops phone companies from doing things like
that, except that the market expects a certain consistency in how
phone calls are directed, so it is in the interests of the operators
to supply what the market expects. The same principle would apply in a
split-root world.

Would it be better if countries that want to muck around with the Net
just didn't? Sure. But they do want to, and they will, and it would be
far better, in the long run, if they did so on their own, without a
U.N. agency to corrupt or give them shelter. It's time to drop the
apocalyptic rhetoric about a split root file and start looking beyond
the age of a U.S.-dominated Internet. Breaking up is hard to do, but
in this case, the alternative would be worse.

Mr. Carney is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

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.

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

Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 14th November 2005
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 07:36:20 -0600
From: Cellular-News <dailydigest@cellular-news-mail.com>


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

Changes to cellular-news.

Based on some of the feedback from our recent reader survey, we are
introducing "news categorization".

Henceforth, all news articles (and eventually, the archive) will be
listed under upto 5 categories. The newsletter and main web site will
use the primary category for display, and you will be able to see news
articles from each category by using the "News menu" on the main web
site.

If you have not completed the survey, then you can guide cellular-news
by completing it here --
http://www.cellular-news.com/survey/survey.php?sid=28


[[3G News]]

Russia's Reiman says may hold tenders for 3G licenses 2006 
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14791.php

Russia may hold tenders for third generation (3G) telecommunication
licenses in 2006, IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman
told reporters Friday. ...

EDGE Launched in Azerbaijan
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14798.php

Azerbaijan's Azercell Telecom says that it has launched EDGE services
in the country. The service has been under test for the past few
months and has now been launched commercially. According to results of
the tests, data transfer speed reached 200 k...

Three Bid for Malaysian 3G Licences
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14801.php

Malaysia's telecoms regulator, the Malaysian Communications and
Multimedia Commission (MCMC) says that three companies have submitted
tenders for its 3G licences. The tender invitation commenced on 22
August 2005 and closed at 12 noon, 11 November, 2...

EDGE Coverage Increases in Moldova
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14802.php

Moldova's Moldcell says that it has extended its EDGE coverage to just
over 30% of the population. The company has also put 8 new GSM
stations into operation in the last two months, which extended the
coverage in the capital and 2 other cities of the...

Tajikistan Gets a 3G Network
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14807.php

ZTE Corporation has clinched a WCDMA contract with Indigo Tajikistan,
a joint venture belonging to the American multinational carrier
MCT. The project is also ZTE?s first WCDMA contract in Central
Asia. Under the contract, ZTE will deliver a complete...

[[Financial News]]

VimpelCom Buys Ukrainian RadioSystems For $231.3M
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14789.php

OAO Vimpel Communications, operator of Russia's second-largest mobile
phone network, Friday said it will buy Ukrainian RadioSystems for
$231.3 million. ...

KPMG says Russia's Euroset minimized taxes in 2004 
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14790.php

U.K.-based accounting company KPMG has announced that Russia's largest
mobile handset retailer Euroset used non-affiliated companies in order
to minimize tax payments in 2004, Russian business daily Vedomosti
said Friday citing Euroset's an...

Russia's VimpelCom CEO eyes 15% of Ukraine's mobile market
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14792.php

Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom plans to get a 15%
share of Ukraine's mobile telecommunication services market,
VimpelCom's CEO Alexander Izosimov told a news conference Friday. ...

Norway's Telenor says still opposes VimpelCom' buy of URS
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14794.php

Norway's telecommunications company Telenor still opposes
Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom's
purchase of Ukrainian Radiosystems mobile operator (URS), Telenor said
in a press release Friday. ...

Regulatory Hurdles Might Delay 3 Italy IPO - Sources
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14796.php

Regulatory hurdles might delay to 2006 the initial public offering of
Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s Italian unit 3, people close to the situation
told Dow Jones Newswires Saturday. ...

South African Operator Invests in Botswana
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14805.php

South Africa's MTN has acquired an effective indirect interest of 44%
in Botswana's Mascom Wireless. Mascom is the leading mobile operator
in Botswana with a market share of over 70% and a subscriber base in
excess of 440,000....

How Much was BenQ Paid to Take Siemens Handsets Division ?
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14808.php

An analyst at Merrill Lynch, Bram Cornelisse, has questioned the price
that Siemens paid to dispose of its ailing handset division to
BenQ. When the sale was originally announced back in June, the
estimated loss to Siemens was put at around the US$41...


[[Legal News]]

Telephone & Data, US Cellular Subjects Of SEC Probe
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14793.php

Telephone & Data Systems Inc. and United State Cellular Corp. are the
subjects of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation
regarding their recent restatement decisions. ...

FOCUS: Court ruling hurts Sistema, control of MTS under threat 
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14795.php

Major Russian holding AFK Sistema was dealt a disappointing blow on
Monday after the Moscow Arbitration Court upheld the Federal Tax
Service's claim and ruled to liquidate TOO VAST company, which holds
3% in the country's largest mobile operator Mobi...

KPN Fails to Secure Deal with Trades Unions
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14800.php

KPN and the trades unions have failed to reach agreement on a new
collective labour agreement. Trades union negotiators refused to
accept the pension proposals. KPN's final offer comprised a structural
salary increase totalling 3% over 27 months, cha...

Registration Required for New PrePay Customers
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14804.php

South Africa is about to impose regulations that will require all
purchasers of cell phones to provide proof of identity when buying a
new phone. The government says the move is to ensure that new phone
tapping legislation will be correctly implement...


[[Mobile Content News]]

Developing Mobile Commerce in Canada
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14799.php

Canada's national wireless service providers, Bell Mobility, Rogers
Wireless and Telus Mobility, have announced the launch of Wireless
Payment Services. The jointly owned venture will act as a mobile
commerce, or m-commerce, gateway, facilitating sec...

[[Network Contracts News]]

Two Phone Numbers - One SIM Card
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14803.php

Singapore's SingTel says that it is offering its customers the ability
to use two mobile phone lines with only one SIM card and mobile phone
with a new 2-in-1 SIM value added service. The new 2-in-1 SIM card
stores two mobile numbers and will enable ...

Rural Operators Order Fault Manager
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14806.php

Telsasoft has announced that two more regional wireless service
providers have chosen it's alarm fault and performance metrics
analytics tools solution to enhance their GSM network management
operations....

[[Technology News]]

AirNet Reports on Two New Field Trials
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14797.php

AirNet Communications says that it has been showcasing the
capabilities of the RapidCell base station at various locations in the
U.S. for a Government Communications end user. An undisclosed OEM
aerospace and defense contractor who has purchased Rap...

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

Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 12:21:56 EST
From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: Startup Exits Stealth Mode to Announce Fixed-Mobile Solution


USTelecom dailyLead
November 14, 2005
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xSsYatagCxixBJxOnL

		TODAY'S HEADLINES
	
NEWS OF THE DAY
* Startup exits stealth mode to announce fixed-mobile solution
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* Warner Bros., AOL to offer free TV classics online
* Analysis: Nokia poised for growth spurt
* SBC's CFO talks strategy with BusinessWeek
* Lucent signs BellSouth to IMS deal
* Telecom network firms benefit from quadruple-play fight
* Sprint Nextel retains Lazard to assess Nextel Partners
USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT
* Find IMS, Fixed Mobile Convergence, IPTV solutions at TelecomNEXT
HOT TOPICS
* XO sells fixed-line business to Carl Icahn
* Murdoch hints at U.S. broadband service
* Gates: A fundamental shift for Microsoft
* Verizon lowers price for unlimited calling plans
* Report: DSL could catch cable by 2006
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
* Icera rolls out HSDPA chip
* Cisco launches bundled offering for small businesses
* Companies join forces to promote Linux for mobile phones
REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE
* Most VoIP providers to miss 911 deadline
* U.S. government takes interest in BlackBerry case

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xSsYatagCxixBJxOnL

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

Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 21:39:14 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a"


http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/updates.html

SOFTWARE UPDATES/ PLUG-INS

November 8, 2005 - This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology
component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles
published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content
protected CDs. This component is not malicious and does not compromise
security. However to alleviate any concerns that users may have about
the program posing potential security vulnerabilities, this update has
been released to enable users to remove this component from their
computers.

Please note, Service Pack 2a is a maintenance release designed to
reduce the file size of Service Pack 2. It includes all previous fixes
found in Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2.

http://updates.xcp-aurora.com/

An offline version of Service Pack 2 is also available as a zip file 
(1.4MB) or as an exe (1.5MB).

http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/Update071105.zip
http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/Update071105.exe
http://updates.xcp-aurora.com/Update071105.exe

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

Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 22:03:11 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Re: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a"


More on Sony: Dangerous Decloaking Patch, EULAs and Phoning Home.
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.html

Sony's Rootkit: First 4 Internet Responds
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/sonys-rootkit-first-4-internet.html

Sony: You don't reeeeaaaally want to uninstall, do you?
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/sony-you-dont-reeeeaaaally-want-to_09.html

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

Date: 14 Nov 2005 00:02:11 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Moving to VOIP But Keeping Same Phone Number
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> it took more than four months for Vonage to transfer his phone
> number of 13 years from his previous VoIP provider, Time Warner.

Well, that's Vonage for you, billions for advertising, pennies for
customer "service".

I am pleased to report, though, that when I ditched Vonage in favor of
Lingo, it only took a few days to transfer my number over.  As far as
I can tell, Vonage still hasn't figured out that it's been ported, so
Vonage users still can't call it since they route calls to my long ago
returned terminal adapter.  But everyone else can.

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

From: J Kelly <jkelly@newsguy.com>
Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 21:37:30 -0600
Organization: http://newsguy.com
Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com


On Sun, 13 Nov 2005 03:17:28 -0700, DevilsPGD <spamsucks@crazyhat.net>
wrote:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The best directory information service
> I know of is the one the Digest sponsors. And it is the least
> expensive also:  

> Directory Assistance just 65 cents for one or two inquiries, charged
> to your credit card. It is _real time_ from a telco-associated service
> bureau. The way it works is that you register a few phone numbers
> you will most always use to get your directory assistance. Then you
> are assigned an 800 number to use. When you call that 800 number the
> ANI is captured; the 65 cent charge is placed on your credit card
> (usually, several accumulated calls, around a month's worth are
> charged at one time) and you are patched through to an operator at the
> telco service bureau to get the desired information. 65 cents is a
> very good rate!  Try it for a few calls and see if you like it. There
> are no deposits required, nor any minimum number of calls required. If
> you like it, the program your phone system to take all calls dialed to
> '411' or '555-1212' and translate them into the 800 number you are
> assigned to use. If you don't like it, then quit using it.    PAT]

Thanks for the tip, Pat!  I now remember you mentioning this before,
but I liked Infone so didn't pay much attention.  I never use 411 from
home, thats what Google is for, but when on the road I occasionally
have a need for it.

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

Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 00:01:25 -0600
From: Gordon S. Hlavenka <nospam@crashelex.com>
Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com
Organization: Crash Electronics
Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down


DevilsPGD wrote:

> If I ever had the need to call 411 I'd have called Infone, but
> I simply haven't used 411 since I signed up with Infone.

Same here.  I set up an Infone account when they were fairly young,
not so much for 411 service as for all the other stuff they offered.
For instance, you can chain calls -- an Infone call is 80 cents for up
to 15 minutes; you can call somebody, have a brief conversation then
"flash-hook" back to Infone and get hooked up with somebody else on
the same 80 cents.  Very handy for hands-free use.  Or, you can call
for driving directions and simply stay on line with Infone and let
them "talk you in" to your destination.

Or so it seems from the service description, anyway.  Unfortunately I
have my phone numbers programmed into my cellphone (which has decent
voice recognition), and as I'm blessed with a Y chromosome I never
need to ask for directions :-)

Anyway, I'm sad to see them go, even though I hardly knew them...


Gordon S. Hlavenka           http://www.crashelectronics.com
        If your teacher tells you to Question Authority
                      Should you do it?

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

From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Subject:  Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes)
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 00:58:24 UTC
Organization:  MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory


In article <telecom24.517.11@telecom-digest.org>,
Tony P.  <kd1s.nospam@nospam.cox.nosapm.net> wrote:

> The 7506 -- I'm not familiar with that model so I googled. Looks very
> much like a 7406 except the speaker, mute, etc. buttons are in the
> wrong place.

The 7506 and its big brother the 7507 are the only ISDN desk sets I've
ever seen in use anywhere.  T/LU/Avaya ceased manufacturing them
several years ago, and MIT is one of Avaya's largest customers for the
refurbs and maintenance.  At this point, I think they (IS&T) are just
hoping the things will last long enough to figure out how the economic
model for VOIP works, and then they can dump the 750[67]s (most of
which are being used by staff, who already have newish computers with
sound cards) and probably significantly downsize if not eliminate the
5E.

Life safety is a big issue, particularly, on a campus the size of
MIT's the whole E911-for-VOIP quagmire.  They'll probably have to keep
some analog capability for the foreseeable future, but if they can get
everyone over to VOIP by 2009ish they could probably outsource the
remaining copper.


Garrett A. Wollman    | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those    | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL.      | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

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

From: Joe Morris <jcmorris@mitre.org>
Subject: Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes)
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 13:56:43 UTC
Organization: The MITRE Organization


wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) writes:

> Joe Morris <jcmorris@mitre.org> wrote:

>> I'm having trouble imagining today's MIT students being able to resist
>> the challenge of hacking into the switch and making it do
>> "interesting" things.

> But don't forget that hacking ethics would prevent them from doing
> anything so interesting as to have an impact on public safety.

Add the qualifier "deliberately" and I'll agree.  I suspect,however,
that the majority of one-time undergraduates who have been out of
college and in the real world for a few years hope that the world at
large never discovers some of the hare-brained schemes they cooked up
while at school.

Recall the Tom Lehrer song on the subject of college life ...

  Bright college days,
  Oh carefree days that fly;
  To thee we sing,
  With our glasses raised on high;

  Let's drink a toast,
  As each of us recalls,
  Ivy-covered professors,
  In ivy-covered halls.

  Turn on the spigot,
  Pour the beer and swig it,
  And gaudemus igit,
  I-tur.

Joe Morris

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

Date: 14 Nov 2005 00:19:56 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms?
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> There's a small residual set of hold-outs (maybe 50 names) who don't
> have or won't get email and want these messages postal-mailed to
> them.

There aren't many places interested in a mailing that small.

I would recommend an outfit called the US Postal Service, which has a
licensee offering a service called NetPost.  A one-page B/W flyer is
43 cents each, or one page in an envelope is 54 cents, including
postage.  There doesn't seem to be a minimum order, and you can do
everything over the net.

See http://www.usps.com/netpost/welcome.htm

R's,

John

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

From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net>
Subject: Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught Cable Crossfire
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:29:59 -0800
Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com


Monty Solomon wrote:

> Comcast Corp. wants to make sure Verizon Communications Inc. hears its
> message: The cable giant is not about to cede its prized turf to the
> phone company quietly.

I'm sure the same thing will happen here, as the Town of Apple Valley
has decided to award a second cable franchise to Verizon.

The chances of me using Verizon for anything other than POTS are less than 
nil, given the availability of Charter broadband in AV (which has been quite 
reliable over the past two years), and the suckage level of Verizon DSL, but 
it'll be interesting to see if Charter raises a fuss about Verizon entering 
the market, anyhow.


Steve Sobol, Professional Geek   888-480-4638   PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Company website: http://JustThe.net/
Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/
E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307

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

From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 14:45:32 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.


In article <telecom24.517.15@telecom-digest.org>,
CharlesH  <hoch@exemplary.invalid> wrote:

> Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:

>> I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons.  First,
>> the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously
>> unreliable.  Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern
>> ones, is trivial.

> How does one eavesdrop on a Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS) 900MHz
> cordless phone? I would have thought that with the spreading code
> being changed every time the phone is put into the base, they would be
> essentially uncrackable, like CDMA cell phones.

The phone and the base station have to negotiate the spreading code
used for each session.  If you can eavesdrop on that negotiation, you
_can_ predict the frequency hops, rendering it 'trivial' to track as a
third-party listener.

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

From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:14:32 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.


In article <telecom24.517.16@telecom-digest.org>, Dave Garland
<dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:

> It was a dark and stormy night when Patrick Townson
> <ptownson@telecom-digest.org> wrote:

>> or DHS International http://www.dhs.org where you can register domains in
>> the name of your choice in the 'n3.net' top level and a few other top
>> levels. 

> ".net" is the "top" level.

>> or SMARTDOTS http://smartdots.com where you can register domains in the name
>> of your choice in the top level '.tc'

> I think that they actually own about 25 domains such as "at.tc" and
> "net.tc", and offer subdomains. I have a few sub-subdomains there
> myself, though I'm converting them to .com since Google doesn't seem to
> index them.  ".tc" is the national top-level domain for the Turks &
> Calicos Islands.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct; it is '.net' and not 'n3.net'
> which is the top level. 'n3' is one underneath it. I thank you for
> telling me the geographic location of '.tc' and I believe that '.tf'
> is somewhere in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. I do not know
> where '.tt' is located, nor '.tv' although the latter is used by many

    .tf is the "French Southern Territories" -- a group of 4 *UNINHABITED*
	islands in the southern Indian Ocean, about equidistant between
	Africa, Antarctica, and Australia.  NO permanent residents, only
	visiting researchers studying native fauna.  (according to CIA world
	fact book.)
    .tv is "Tuvalu".  an island group in the South Pacific about halfway
	between Hawaii and Australia.  They are most noted for leasing
	their Internet domain (.tv) for _US$50_million_ in royalties,
	paid over a dozen years.
    .tt is 'Trinidad and Tobago.  an island group between the Caribbean Sea,
	and the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Venezuela.
	part of the Atlantic Ocean.

See ISO 3166-1 (on-line at www.iso.org) for what all those two-letter 
codes mean, and the CIA world factbook (can be found online at: 
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ ) for where the place 
is, and "more than you really want to know" about what they do there. 



[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't suppose you know about '.ms' do you?
http://cydots.com offers .ms on a self-registering basis. They publicize
the use of the phrase (m)y (s)ite when you advertise your new domain
name.  Like the others, they merely point to an _existing_ web site at
some other place (which presumably you keep secret) and if I recall, I
think they even refuse to give WHOIS, instead offering to forward a
letter from the inquirer the site holder.  PAT]

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Getting the 411 on 911 Service
Date: 14 Nov 2005 08:05:42 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Aoife M. McEvoy wrote:

> In most areas of the country (exceptions include remote parts of
> Alaska), the dispatcher who picks up your call also sees your phone
> number and street address pop up on screen.  This "location
> technology" is known as Enhanced 911 or E911.

Has virtually the entire U.S. converted over to 911?  Seems to me it
wasn't that long ago that outlying suburban and rural areas retained
traditional telephone numbers although a conversion process was going
on.  Further, has the whole country gone to "enhanced" 911, not just a
central dispatcher?

> In my opinion, the FCC's action is long overdue. Sure, the new
> requirements will help prevent future tragedies, but it's a shame that
> families had to suffer because of VoIP's known failings before
> something was done. These limitations have been well documented for
> quite a while.

I'm not sure I agree about the "limitations being well documented".  I
think many consumers simply saw an ad for deeply discounted telephone
service (VOIP) and went out and bought it.  They didn't realize that
the service did not includes some basics people have taken for granted
for years.  The companies, being unregulated, had no mandate to clearly
advertise this limitation.

Please remember that individual ordinary consumers do not read
technical magazines or newsgroups.  I hate it when the technocrats get
all hissy when consumers get burned because they're not up on the
latest marketing scams.

> Consequently, complying with the FCC's ruling is likely to be a huge
> financial undertaking for any VoIP company, and it's possible that
> some of the smaller providers will disappear -- or services that are
> in development now may not see the light of day.

So maybe VOIP isn't such a great deal that it was made out to be.

Why isn't Judge Greene (or his successors) on top of these things?

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

From: bok118@zonnet.nl (Gerard Bok)
Subject: Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:34:54 GMT


On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:46:38 GMT, Michael Chance
<mchance@swbell.net> wrote:

> In article <telecom24.512.4@telecom-digest.org>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com 
> says:

>> Some other posters mentioned that an unused land phone line may still
>> offer dial tone to provide for emergency 911 service.  Is this a
>> recent offering?

> It's actually relatively old.  "Soft Dial Tone" (also known as "Quick
> Dial Tone") was trialed by most of the RBOCs back in the early 1990s
> (I think that it was a Telcordia/Bell Labs brainstorm), but was mostly
> abandoned due to the need for dedicated facilities (a completely
> connected line for every address served) and TNs (SDT/QDT is
> essentially a non-billed, restrictive voice type of service).  

So the client uses VOIP and the RBOC supplies 911 access ?

> I'd love to hear what the other RBOCs (Verizon, BellSouth,
> Qwest/USWest) experiences with SDT/QDT were/have been, as well as if
> any of the independents have experimented with it or are currently
> offering it.

Curious too :-)


Kind regards,

Gerard Bok

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

From: Steve Stone <spfleck@citlink.net>
Subject: Re: Can You Still Build a PC For Less?
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:47:33 GMT


You may not be able to build it cheaper than the big boys, but you can 
build it to your exact specs rather than a compromise. 
 
Steve
N2UBP

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


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