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Message Digest
Volume 28 : Issue 251 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
Re: AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Those auto warranty/credit card robocallers
Re: Those auto warranty/credit card robocallers
Re: Those auto warranty/credit card robocallers
Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer
====== 28 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:46:31 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
Message-ID: <p0624080fc6ce34822038@[10.0.1.3]>
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/att-relents-drops-paging-instructions-from-voicemail/
AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
September 9, 2009, 6:05 pm
I know the big news today is supposed to be Steve Jobs returning to
the stage at Apple's iPod announcements and all. But for me, the big
news is this: As of today, AT&T has eliminated the most egregious
portion of its mandatory, time-wasting voicemail instructions
recording.
You know that blast from 1975? The part that says, "To page this
person, press five now"? It's gone. Nationwide. Because of you, dear
readers, and all the complaints you've filed in the last five weeks.
This is the first victory in our "Take Back the Beep" campaign.
That's my crusade to pressure the cell carriers to eliminate those
ridiculous, mandatory, airtime-eating, life-wasting recordings.
The wheels of huge corporations usually turn very slowly, but AT&T
managed to discuss, process and implement this change in just five
weeks.
Now, the truth is, the stupid recording isn't completely gone. When
you call an AT&T phone, you still hear "At the tone, please record
your message. When you are finished recording, press pound. You may
then leave a callback number." But the whole thing is only 8 seconds
long, down from 12 or 15.
Wheels are turning at T-Mobile on this issue. Sprint already lets you
eliminate the entire recording. Verizon, characteristically, refuses
to respond.
But AT&T gets the credit for being the first to take a small,
important step toward sanity.
* Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:29:02 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
Message-ID: <op.uz2mioz1o63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net>
On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:49:50 -0400, Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> wrote:
> http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/att-relents-drops-paging-instructions-from-voicemail/
>
> AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
Now if T-Mobile will back down from their newly instituted fee of
$1.50/month for mailing out our monthly paper billing statements, I'll
really start to believe in consumer power :-) .
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:47:49 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Message-ID: <op.uz1b5zzjo63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net>
**************************************************
* PLEASE put "[Telecom]" in your subject line! *
**************************************************
On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:20:21 -0400, Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> wrote:
> AT&T today announced details of its rollout plans for High Speed
> Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 technology, which will provide a
> considerable speed boost to what is already the nation's fastest 3G
> mobile broadband network.
Pity the USA isn't Poland -- we'd have had 7.2 Mb/sec HSDPA for
several years by now if we were, with at least three competing (and
competitive) GSM carriers, along with reasonably priced prepaid
highspeed data services for visitors.
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:53:21 +1000
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Message-ID: <pan.2009.09.11.00.53.19.987259@myrealbox.com>
On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:55:00 -0400, tlvp wrote:
>
> On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:20:21 -0400, Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
> wrote:
>
>> AT&T today announced details of its rollout plans for High Speed Packet
>> Access (HSPA) 7.2 technology, which will provide a considerable speed
>> boost to what is already the nation's fastest 3G mobile broadband
>> network.
>
> Pity the USA isn't Poland -- we'd have had 7.2 Mb/sec HSDPA for several
> years by now if we were, with at least three competing (and competitive)
> GSM carriers, along with reasonably priced prepaid highspeed data services
> for visitors.
>
That may be a result of "tech-leap" (I just made that phrase up...) where
a country that did not have widespread infrastructure already in place is
in a better position to adopt a more modern technology than those places
with incumbent vested interests who prefer to stay with what they have.
Much easier to put the state of the art stuff in a "Greenfields"
environment rather than have to fight off older technology competitors
who will (usually) use every trick in the book to retain their market
share.
--
Regards, David.
David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:18:03 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Message-ID: <wU7qm.180262$0e4.82047@newsfe19.iad>
**************************************************
* PLEASE put "[Telecom]" in your subject line! *
**************************************************
Monty Solomon wrote:
> AT&T plans to begin deployment of HSPA 7.2 in six major U.S. cities,
> including Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and
> Miami, with initial service availability expected in these markets
> by the end of the year. All told, the company plans to deploy HSPA
> 7.2 in 25 of the nation's 30 largest markets by the end of 2010, and
> to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with
> HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011.
Using Los Angeles as an example, I wonder whether they mean the city,
per se, or AT$T's entire Los Angeles system (which is a whole lot
bigger than the City of Los Angeles.)
------------------------------
Date: 10 Sep 2009 21:49:35 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T to Make Faster 3G Technology Available in Six Major Cities This Year
Message-ID: <20090910214935.5777.qmail@simone.iecc.com>
>> AT&T plans to begin deployment of HSPA 7.2 in six major U.S. cities,
>> including Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and
>> Miami, ...
>Using Los Angeles as an example, I wonder whether they mean the city,
>per se, or AT$T's entire Los Angeles system (which is a whole lot
>bigger than the City of Los Angeles.)
They mean at least one tower that a lot of non-cost-sensitive people
use. Beverly Hills, perhaps.
R's,
John
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:12:09 +0000 (UTC)
From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Those auto warranty/credit card robocallers
Message-ID: <h8b8gp$orr$1@pcls4.std.com>
**************************************************
* PLEASE put "[Telecom]" in your subject line! *
**************************************************
All of us (at least in the US, and probably Canada as well) have probably
gotten those robocalls trying to sell auto warranties/fix credit cards/
whatever, always from a spoofed caller ID. These guys break at least
4 US laws/regulations that I can think of - calling do-not-call numbers,
calling cell phones, machine sales pitch if you answer, spoofed caller ID.
They've managed to avoid being shut down although there was a little effort
to look into this when they called a congressman during a meeting or
something.
How do they seem to get their large volume of calls into the phone system?
(VOIP?) How do they choose the number to spoof? They seem to choose a
number, use it for a few days and then start using another according to
data on http://whocalled.us. Since caller ID is easy to spoof why don't
they use something random each time? How do they avoid getting nabbed/
shut down?
I haven't heard from them for a while, until today. This time they
did something different. I received a call from the 702 area code on
my older cell phone and when I looked at the call list to see where it
was from, the phone number field was a bunch of left-pointing arrows
and the "from" and time were a bunch of Chinese characters. What did
they do to my phone and how? Trying to "return" the call to see what
number it called didn't work.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:13:31 +0000 (UTC)
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Those auto warranty/credit card robocallers
Message-ID: <h8c16r$pee$1@reader1.panix.com>
In <h8b8gp$orr$1@pcls4.std.com> moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) writes:
>All of us (at least in the US, and probably Canada as well) have probably
>gotten those robocalls trying to sell auto warranties/fix credit cards/
>whatever, always from a spoofed caller ID. These guys break at least
>4 US laws/regulations that I can think of - calling do-not-call numbers,
>calling cell phones, machine sales pitch if you answer, spoofed caller ID.
>I haven't heard from them for a while, until today.
[snip]
The reason they've gotten away with it for so long is because
the folk who could and should.. do something about it have been
taking lessons from the same people who taught the SEC investigators
who should have caught Madoff.
That being said, just the other day the FTC announced
[FTC press release]
For Release: 09/01/2009
FTC Settlement Bans Robocalls from Auto "Warranty" Company
New Rule Prohibiting Unwanted Robocalls Takes Effect Today
American consumers won't be getting any more deceptive robocalls
from the auto "warranty" company that bombarded them with millions
of the prerecorded calls earlier this year, under a proposed
settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
The company, Transcontinental Warranty, Inc., and its owner will be
permanently banned from making any prerecorded calls like the ones
it used previously to trick consumers into buying vehicle service
contracts under the guise that they were extensions of original
vehicle warranties.
rest:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/09/twi.shtm
Oh, and for good measure:
"The proposed settlement includes a $24 million judgment
against the defendants, which is suspended because of their
inability to pay."
- nothing in the press release about getting the banks, etc.
to reverse and/or credit the people who were suckered
into sending over money.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:52:27 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Those auto warranty/credit card robocallers
Message-ID: <v3iqm.17889$nP6.5445@newsfe25.iad>
danny burstein wrote:
> In <h8b8gp$orr$1@pcls4.std.com> moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) writes:
>
>
>> All of us (at least in the US, and probably Canada as well) have
>> probably gotten those robocalls trying to sell auto warranties/fix
>> credit cards/ whatever, always from a spoofed caller ID. These
>> guys break at least 4 US laws/regulations that I can think of -
>> calling do-not-call numbers, calling cell phones, machine sales
>> pitch if you answer, spoofed caller ID.
[Moderator snip]
> That being said, just the other day the FTC announced
>
> [FTC press release]
>
> For Release: 09/01/2009
> FTC Settlement Bans Robocalls from Auto "Warranty" Company
> New Rule Prohibiting Unwanted Robocalls Takes Effect Today
[Moderator snip]
> Oh, and for good measure:
>
> "The proposed settlement includes a $24 million judgment
> against the defendants, which is suspended because of their
> inability to pay."
Lots of change under Obama.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:35:17 -0400
From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer
Message-ID: <be875$4aa9a97a$d8fea0b7$11584@PRIMUS.CA>
Dave Garland wrote:
> it never occurred to me that a product designer would have wired a
> power source into a RS232 connector.
That reminded me of the time I plugged a modem - I can't for the life of me
recall the name, though I recall that it was selling like mad at the time
because it was really cheap - into an Amiga. As it happens, the Amiga used
a couple of 'reserved' pins for power (+ and - 12V, according to a pinout I
found via Google), and the modem manufacturer used them for something
entirely incompatible. I do not recall whether the Amiga was damaged or the
modem was converted into the doorstop it so strongly resembled.
> Gosh, I haven't used my "christmas tree" or little jumper box in
> years. I don't miss it at all.
What I hated was crimping all the pins for custom connectors.
--
Geoffrey Welsh
------------------------------
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