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TELECOM Digest Fri, 23 Dec 2005 17:15:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 577 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson As Decency Issue Boils, Comcast Sets a Family Tier (Monty Solomon) Another Claim of Phone Scams, Excess Billings and, Terrorists (D. Burstein) Cellular-News for Friday 23rd December 2005 (Cellular-News) Old Western Union Building Becomes a Condo (Lisa Hancock) BT Takes Aim at Skype (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (Rik) Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously (James Carlson) Re: NYC Transit Strike (Henry) Re: NYC Transit Strike Midst Cold Weather and Christmas (John Levine) Re: Cold Weather and Christmas (Henry) Re: Sun Sets on Transit Strike (Lena) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 10:37:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: As Decency Issue Boils, Comcast Sets a Family Tier By Keith Reed, Globe Staff Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable provider, said yesterday it will offer a package of family-friendly channels in 2006, following increasing pressure on the industry from legislators and regulators to curb access to violent and sexually explicit content. The family tier will be composed of 16 children's, news and other networks including the Disney Channel, CNN Headline News, Nickelodeon and the Food Network, but must be bought along with Comcast's basic package of about 30 local broadcast, Spanish-language and public access channels. It will also require a $4.50 per-month digital set-top box rental. In total, the package will cost roughly $29.45 per month in Massachusetts and will allow subscribers now taking more expensive Comcast packages to pay less and take fewer channels. It might also help the cable industry stave off proposals to force it to offer a la carte pricing, which it has resisted, and could help Comcast and Time Warner Corp. complete a major deal that needs the approval of the Federal Communications Commission, analysts said. Together the companies have bid $17.6 billion for the assets of Adelphia Communications, in a deal that if approved could see one-tenth of the cable subscribers in the country get new providers. Time Warner's cable unit said earlier this month that it would offer a family tier of its own. "That's why the family tier is suddenly being announced by those two companies. This is a good way to get some brownie points" with regulators, said Adi Kishore, director of media research at Boston consultancy the Yankee Group. Media companies broadly have faced a crackdown on sexual and violent content, led by conservative legislators and regulators, since singer Janet Jackson's breast was infamously exposed for a fraction of a second on live, prime-time television during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance. The FCC has leveled stiff obscenity fines against TV and radio broadcasters who use public airwaves, but doesn't have the same authority over how cable companies package content for consumers. That hasn't stopped its chairman, Kevin Martin, and some conservative senators, notably powerful Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, from suggesting legislation that would impose indecency standards or even a la carte on the industry if it did not address their concerns. Cable companies have scrambled to mount a response since a Nov. 29 hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, which Stevens chairs. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/12/23/as_decency_issue_boils_comcast_sets_a_family_tier/ ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com> Subject: Another Claim of Phone Scams, Excess Billings and Terrorists Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 06:57:18 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC [ note the source, Michelle Malkin. She's very biased about this sort of thing, but is usually (usually...) correct when dealing with factual matters. ] http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004123.htm (referring to [watch for line wrap]: http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/19/terrorists-clone-phones-but-customers-expected-to-foot-the-bill/ HEZBOLLAH'S CANADIAN PHONE SCAM By Michelle Malkin December 21, 2005 04:04 PM Via Engadget: Canadian telecom service provider Rogers Communications has been the victim of numerous number-cloning operations by the terrorist group Hezbollah in which even the phone number of CEO Ted Rogers was 'borrowed' but steadfastly refused to address consumer complaints about the problem, insisting that customers were liable for outsized bills. However, all that changed after aggrieved consumer (and law professor) Susan Drummond who was stuck with a bill for over $10,000 for calls to countries such as Libya, Pakistan, Russia and Syria recorded comments made by a Rogers security exec, who admitted that the company had suffered cloning problems at the hands of Hezbollah going back as far as 1997 ... Wonder if this is going on here, too. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [To foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Friday 23rd December 2005 Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:37:04 -0600 From: Cellular-News <dailydigest@cellular-news-mail.com> Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Seasonal Break Cellular-news is taking a holiday break next week and will not send out the daily newsletters. News will still be updated on the website as it occurs, and a single update will be sent out next Friday. We will return to full service on January 2nd. Happy Holidays [[ 3G ]] Tests Achieve 3.6 Megabits per Second Call With HSDPA Datacard http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15375.php Option and Nortel have completed the industry's first successful demonstration of live HSDPA data card calls reaching a wireless transmission rate of 3.6Mbps -- faster than the majority of current broadband connections. The test calls were carried out... [[ Financial ]] RIM Co-CEO:Seeing Strong Growth In Subscribers Outside USA http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15360.php Shares of Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) are up after hours Wednesday, as the BlackBerry maker's third-quarter earnings exceeded expectations. ... France Telecom To Cut Fixed To Mobile Tariffs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15362.php France Telecom said late Wednesday it will cut tariffs for calls from fixed lines to mobile phones for residential clients starting Jan. 2. ... EU Clears Telenor To Purchase Vodafone Sverige http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15364.php The European Commission Thursday cleared Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor ASA to purchase Swedish telecommunications company Vodafone Sverige from Vodafone Group PLC. ... EBRD, banks to lend $100 mln to Kazakhstan's KaR-Tel http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15365.php The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and a syndicate of commercial banks jointly led by the EBRD and Citigroup, are to lend U.S. $100 million to the second largest GSM mobile phone network operator in Kazakhstan KaR-Tel, the EB... Medion, Aldi Mobile Discount Offer Exceeds Expectations http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15366.php German telecommunications company Medion AG said Thursday it sold 300,000 starter packs during its 14-day mobile phone offer with discount retailer Aldi, exceeding the company's expectations. ... Lucent Accelerates Poison Pill Expiration To Dec 31 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15368.php Lucent Technologies will end its "poison pill" three months before the planned expiration date of March 31, 2006, the company disclosed Thursday. ... Orascom Buys Stake in Hutchison Telecom http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15374.php Egypt's Orascom Telecom has purchased a 19.3% interest in Hutchison Telecom from its parent company, Hutchison Whampoa for a total purchase price of US$1.3 Billion. The two companies have also signed a co-operation agreement to align their respective... [[ Handsets ]] Russia's VimpelCom grants Tsifrograd national dealer status http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15369.php Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom and have signed an agreement granting handset retail chain Tsifrograd national dealer status, VimpelCom said Thursday. ... Big Threat To Chinese Handset Vendors http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15371.php Analysys International recently predicted that 30% of China's handset makers will be washed out by the end of year 2006 due to the segmentation and centralization of China's handset market in its recently released report. Analysis International also ... [[ Legal ]] Lucent: Sees $300 Million Charge After Losing Winstar Ruling http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15367.php Lucent Technologies plans to take a fiscal first-quarter charge of $300 million after a federal bankruptcy court ruled against the company in a suit brought in 2001 by Winstar Communications. ... [[ Mobile Content ]] KDDI, Qualcomm Plan JV To Map Out New Cellphone Service http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15361.php Japan's KDDI Corp. said Thursday it is planning to launch a joint venture later this month with U.S. wireless communications giant Qualcomm Inc. to map out a broadcasting service for cellphone users. ... [[ Network Contracts ]] Nokia Gets Networks Order From Hutchison 3G Austria http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15363.php Finland's Nokia Thursday said it received an order to supply its mobile softswitch solution for optimizing Hutchison 3G Austria's mobile network. ... Upgrading Regional Operator Billing Platform http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15372.php Comptel says that it is delivering its mediation and provisioning solutions to Easterbrooke Cellular Corporation, a mobile service provider in West Virginia, USA. According to the agreement, Comptel is delivering its Comptel EventLink solution for ev... [[ Offbeat ]] Nazi Ringtone Leads to Jail Sentence http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15370.php A 20 year old man in Austria has been found guilty of breaking a law against displaying Nazi Propaganda when he used a Nazi salute as a ring tone on his mobile phone. Police came across the ringtone purely by accident after they called him into a pol... Tegic Reveals the Year's Most Buzzworthy Additions to T9 Dictionary http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15373.php Did you know that a Puggle is a new breed of dog crossed between a Pug and a Beagle? Or that Vlogs (video blogs) are the latest rage? Language is constantly evolving, with new words becoming part of our culture every day. These and other words have b... [[ Regulatory ]] New Zealand Watchdog Keeps Regulation View On Mobile Phone Charges http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15359.php Competition watchdog New Zealand Commerce Commission said Thursday it still wants mobile phone termination rates to be regulated, following a request by the country's government to reconsider its stance. ... Bahrain Confirms Base Station Emission Within Limits http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15376.php The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has confirmed that the radiation from antennas used by telecommunications companies for mobile telephony in the Kingdom of Bahrain is in compliance with internationally accepted standards for electrom... ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Old Western Union Building Becomes a Condo Date: 23 Dec 2005 09:15:37 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com A former Western Union Telegraph Co building in center city Philadelphia has been converted into luxury condos (per Real Estate section, Phila Inquirer, 12/23/05). It was built in the 1920s and used until the late 1960s. Sale prices range from $346k to $2.6 million. http://www.westernunionbuilding.com A number of old industrial and commercial buildings in downtown Philadelphia are being converted into residences. A former major Bell Telephone building at 1835 Arch St was sold, and I believe the former 1960's Bell of Pa headquarters at One Parkway was sold too. (I always thought One Parkway was an ugly example of 1960's style.) Good thing for them I'm not living there. I'd get on the Condo Board and make it "authentic" Western Union, with Teletypewriters in each unit and maybe even a Morse code key/sounder. Imagine the residents when they discover their 1920s style telephone set is not for decoration but rather the phone they have to use, and their Internet* access is by Model 28 Teletype at 75 baud. Seriously, I have mixed feelings about all these building conversions. On the one hand it is good because otherwise empty buildings are being put to good use and the people buying them are affluent and the city desperately needs them. But on the other hand I'd rather see these buildings used for their original purpose -- to create wealth. Economic wealth is created when we take raw materials and convert them into a useable finished product. Merely moving finished goods and money from one place to another doesn't create anything. Where do the goods that were once made in these buildings now come from? This is a factor our foreign balance of trade deficit is so high -- we have outsiders do our manufacturing for us. * As an aside, is "Internet" properly capitalized or not? I'm not sure how the word usage falls into the rules of grammar. When we speak of something generically, as in 'I'm taking the train to work today", we use lower case for train. But if speaking of a specific brand, "I'm taking the Santa Fe Railroad to work today", the word "Railroad" is capitalized because it is part of the Santa Fe name. We don't capitalize computer as in "I'm working on the computer". But should we capitalize the internet ("I'm working on the Internet)? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The same thing happened in Chicago. The old Illinois Bell headquarters building at 225 West Randolph and 212 West Washington Street (different sides to the same block-wide building) I am told was converted to condominiums. I do not know, having not been in downtown Chicago since 1999 except for one occassion in late 2001 when I went to the 'sing-along Messiah' at Orchestra Hall that Christmas. I did not stick around afterward, just went and got my bus at Greyhound to come back to Independence. And you asked how to properly case the word 'internet'. Actually Lisa, there are two different words, each spelled the same way and pronounced the same way, but different. There is upper-case /I/ Internet and lower-case /i/ internet. Originally, upper-case Internet was the connecting mechanism between sites in the network of sites which formed the Internet, a collection of ARPA sites and (what we now refer to as EDUcational ('.edu') sites but they were not called 'whatever.edu' in those days; just 'whatever'. So 'whatever' and 'whatever else' and 'somewhere else' were connected to other places in the MILitary network ('.mil) and GOVernment networks ('.gov') [but they did not call those '.mil' or '.gov' either in those days; they were part of the {A}dvanced {R}esearch -- ARPA thing.] ARPA and those universities connected through the upper-case Internet. There was also BITnet ([B]ecause [I]'s [T]ime Network which was another bunch of of schools. BITnet did not interconnect with Internet except through a few 'gateway' locations. That was late 1970's through middle 1980's. To get this Digest out each day, I did it on a machine called 'eecs at nwu' which was Northwestern University in Evanston, IL because Evanston was within my unlimited calling package from Illinois Bell. From eecs I could 'rlogin' to the predessor of massis which was a machine called 'xx' as I recall. But I had to have an entry on my mailing list called 'telecom at nwu.bitnet' so that the BITnet subscribers could get their copies. Many _very major_ corporations (such as IBM) also were on BITnet. All the above comprised the upper case /I/nternet. Around 1993-94 when the guy passed on who was more or less the coordinator for the whole thing, VP Al ('the bore') Gore invented the lower case /i/ internet which was to interconnect with the upper case /I/ Internet and anything else which came along down the stream. The original ARPA had an Acceptable Spam -- err, Use Policy which dictated what people could and could not do on ARPA sites, and by extension, the Internet. All that fell by the wayside once the guy was dead and out of the way; Al Gore and his bastard child ICANN took over the newly created lower case /i/ internet. Once the lawyers in that firm in Washington, DC gave birth to ICANN, the rule was changed to 'anything goes' on internet, since as any right-thinking person would explain to you, 'we cannot dictate what anyone does on their site'. There was no more room to have an AUP because that would involve dictating what people were 'allowed to do.' So the short answer to your question is that 'Internet' was the older, and original interconnection between sites, and 'internet' is what we are stuck with now. Both casings of the word are acceptable, IMO. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 12:19:26 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com> Subject: BT Takes Aim at Skype USTelecom dailyLead December 23, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/AFBoatagCDdqyVwJqg TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * BT takes aim at Skype BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Bain invests $6.5M in Skyhook * Lucent ordered to pay Winstar creditors * Year in review: The broadband revolution * Comcast to offer family tier USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * VoIP now available on demand! TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * EVDO poised to break out at CES * Nortel demonstrates Super 3G in France VOIP DOWNLOAD * Covad bets on VoIP * Santa Cruz Networks links Skype, Google Talk REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC chief to look at a number of issues for 2006 * Senate confirms Tate for FCC, ends Democratic majority * China takes another step toward 3G EDITOR'S NOTE * The dailyLead will not be published Monday Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/AFBoatagCDdqyVwJqg ------------------------------ From: Rik <hrasmussen@nc.rr.com> Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders? Date: 23 Dec 2005 06:26:48 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com These devices are illegal to install and operate. Only a licensee is authorized by the FCC to install these devices. The fact that they are easily purchased does not make them legal to use. They are frequently the source of interference to commercial wireless systems and more importantly, they are frequently the source of interference to Public Safety radio systems. There have been recent instances of law enforcement showing up at a location where one of these devices is in use and demanding it be disabled to stop interference to their radio system. ------------------------------ From: James Carlson <james.d.carlson@sun.com> Subject: Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously Date: 23 Dec 2005 13:56:04 -0500 Organization: Sun Microsystems bonomi@host122.r-bonomni.com (Robert Bonomi) writes: > The rest of the problem description that you chose not to quote gave a > concrete example of the problem -- using a first user with a streaming > audio stream, and a bunch of other people then doing something as > simple as having multiple HTTP requests ("keepalive" protocol option) Of course there are pathological cases. That wasn't at issue. Here's the original question, in full: > I have two telephone lines. I want to make both of these lines ADSL > connections to the internet and use these connections to provide > internet access to several wireless laptop computers. A maximum of > about 20 laptops would be connected to the system at once. I would > like the laptops to be able to use both lines simultaneously so that I > don't have one line overloaded and one underloaded (ie: I want to > balance the traffic on the lines at any given time). > Anyone have any suggestions on how to set up something like this? The answer is yes, you can do that. In fact, there are commercial products designed to solve exactly this problem. E.g.: http://www.xrio.co.uk/product-c800.asp Unsplittable flows are certainly a hazard with *any* network layer load balancing scheme, including one like this. There's nothing much you can do about it as long as the links are independent. If you want to avoid that problem, you'll need to use an L2 mechanism that fragments datagrams across multiple links, such as MP (RFC 1990) or IMA. Doing this requires cooperation with your ISP and you certainly can't do it across two separate ISPs. James Carlson, KISS Network <james.d.carlson@sun.com> Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677 ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: NYC Transit Strike Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:32:24 +0200 Organization: Elisa Internet customer > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > The court reconsidered its imposition of a fine, and forgave the whole > debt, and the workers went back to work the same day. Read the court > transcripts from the strike 25 years ago. I think this time around will > be a lot the same way. Well, it seems that the times they have a-changed. > New York's 3-Day Transit Strike Ends > Friday December 23, 2005 4:46 AM > By DEEPTI HAJELA > Associated Press Writer > NEW YORK (AP) - Faced with mounting fines and the rising wrath of > millions of commuters, the city transit union sent its members back to > work without a new contract Thursday and ended a crippling, three-day > strike... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, but read the part of the story where it says "futher court proceedings [i.e. discussion of fines and punishments] have been adjourned until January 20, 2006." That is when they will meet to to decide what to do about the whole mess. My thinking is at that point they will all be friends again and any discussion of fines and punishments will be forgotten about. No doubt that little fact will be reported in a paragraph on page 79 of the next day's newspaper. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 2005 18:58:08 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: NYC Transit Strike Midst Cold Weather and Christmas Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > And yes, I _know_ the one is a state agency and the other is a > municipal government ... duh! But you should know that when > Bloomberg says 'jump' everyone asks 'how high?', etc. Things like the > difference between a 'state agency' and a 'municipal government' in > this instance is just thinly veilled bullshit, just as with Chicago > Transit Authority. Ah, Pat, I think it would be a good idea to stop speculating here about areas that are unrelated to Telecom and about which you know nothing. New York is not Illinois, the relationship between NYC and NYS is not the same as that between Chicago and Illinois, and NYC most definitely does not control the MTA. > Obviously you did _not_ do your homework assignment yesterday (read > the transcripts of the 1960's court proceeding when the union was > last on strike.) At that point in time, the reason the strike lasted > eleven days instead of only two or three was because the judge was a > total blowhard, a real jerk with his fines and punishments, etc. Well, actually, the last strike was in 1980, but why should we let facts get in our way? In the 1960s strike, union leader Mike Quill had heart failure and was negotiating from his hospital bed by waving fingers. That kind of slowed things down. R's, John [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please forgive my typo. On the one hand I said 'twenty-five years ago' which would be 1980 _which is what I meant_ and on the other hand a reference to '1960s'. Please go by what I meant, not what slipped out in the typing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: Cold Weather and Christmas Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:32:24 +0200 Organization: Elisa Internet customer > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > And the education of children; we have been brainwashed into thinking > that public schools serve a good community purpose; no one wants a > bunch of ignorant children; after all those children will be our > country in a few years; so we have to have public schools to insure > a good education. Are the public schools in New York any different > than those in Chicago? Somehow I doubt it. So just imagine if our > overall tax payments were about two percent of what they are now (let's > refer to it as the 'adminstrative fee' to run what the government > has the legitimate right to run) and with the rest of the money we > educated our own children ... > Would things be any better or worse than they are now,...? Just because things _are_ the way they are doesn't mean that they _have to be_ the way they are. For a counter-example to your pessimism, take a look at Finland, one of the infamous high-tax (boo! hiss!) 'Nordic welfare states' so cavalierly disparaged by the wingnuts. Except that ... erm ... Finland just happens to have the BEST SCHOOLS IN THE WORLD, far far better than those in the US. This article from last May by Robert Kaiser of the _Washington Post_ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR200505 2301622_pf.html provides a glimpse into how it can be done. It's not (only) a question of money (but of course it takes money). It's primarily a question of attitude. And, when it comes to spending money on something they cannot eat, drink or otherwise immediately consume, Americans have a very bad attitude. (Before you newbies get on your high-horse ... I can say this because, as Pat and long-time readers here know, I am an American -- although I have been living in Finland for a good few years now.) Americans don't like to pay taxes and I think it is basically because they get so little to show for their money. It costs 87 gazillion dollars for one BX hyper-bomber and when it falls out of the sky no one gets any benefit except Grumman-Northrup and their political friends. Certainly not the working people who paid for it. A man-in-the-street poll here asked the following question: In order for us to have lower taxes, the government needs to spend less money. In what area(s) could and should the government spend less? Many people were hard pressed to think of an answer and a fair proportion (I don't remember exactly but I believe it was something like 1 in 3 or 1 in 4) said 'If the government spends less, then we get less. So I'm happy paying the taxes that I do'. Like I said, it's the attitude. Cheers, Henry ------------------------------ From: Lena <lenagainster@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Sun Sets on Transit Strike Date: 23 Dec 2005 03:57:57 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com What it boils down to is that Toussaint is all mouth and no mettle, and didn't want to park his butt in jail for the benefit of the transit workers from whom he extorts dues. Lena ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #577 ****************************** | |