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The Telecom Digest for November 14, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 289 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
|
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne 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 that person, or email address
owner.
Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
sold or given away without the explicit written consent of the owner of
that address. 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, and other stuff of interest.
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Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:26:53 -0500
From: Telecom Digest Moderator <telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Usenet gateway is still down
Message-ID: <20111114102652.GA21005@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
To the subscribers: the Usenet gateway we use to post the Telecom
Digest to comp.dcom.telecom is still down, and we're working on the
problem.
In the meantime, I've decided to release pending posts to the email
subscribers. As soon as the Usenet gateway is repaired, all posts and
replies will go out to comp.dcom.telecom.
My thanks to Robert Bonomi and John Levine for their continued help.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:05:30 +0000 (UTC)
From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Standard Telephone Wire
Message-ID: <j9jo5a$lku$1@pcls6.std.com>
Howard Eisenhauer <howarde@NOSPAMhfx.eastlink.ca> writes:
>On Wed, 2 Nov 2011 16:30:04 -0600,
>fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com wrote:
>> Can anyone recommend an outlet that still sells standard telephone wire?
>>
>> I am looking for a one thousand foot roll of plenum four conductor
>>(or more) and I may need it fast.
>>
>> Everyone I call wants to sell me CAT-3 or CAT-5E which is more
>>expensive.
>Alarm companies still use it but i haven't seen it used for phone
>lines in many years- cat3 is as cheap if not cheaper & superior for
>cross talk purposes if you're running two lines on it.
I happened to notice thermostat wire and (door)bell wire at the local
big box home center, which appears to be the same stuff as old style
telephone wire except for the number of conductors. I didn't check the
price vs. Cat 3 or anything.
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:47:52 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: The end of POTS
Message-ID: <CAFY5RQL-oAHY7Uyh-Ta5Ag2QWjjNTkjo7koNAs0JvWCJ_ZoLQA@mail.gmail.com>
I got this link from Richard Shockey on the Cybertelecom-l mailing list.
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db1110/DA-11-1882A1.pdf
Bill
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:06:08 -0500
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon API To Give Apps 'Turbo' Bandwidth Boost for pay
Message-ID: <1hdp34c3jy82k$.1dyxdgyjwyuh9.dlg@40tude.net>
On Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:55:11 -0700, following Thad Floryan's
contribution, ***** Moderator ***** noted, in part:
> Oh, and I love the mealy-mouthed salesman-speak. It's not even a
> payment, it's a "transaction"! It's a "micro" transaction, too small
> to even think about! Open your micro-wallet, micro-suckers! Let
> Verizon take all your micro-money!
"Weasel words" is what my beloved late lamented high school English teacher
reprimanded them as. Please consider, therefore, amending your term to
"*weasel*-mouthed salesman-speak". Thank you :-) .
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 10:32:59 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Telemarketers might get OK to call cellphones
Message-ID: <pan.2011.11.12.23.32.53.335889@yahoo.com.au>
On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:47:21 -0500, Pete Cresswell wrote:
........
> Cresswell Predicts: Somebody will start offering, and people will start
> moving to some sort of challenge-response scheme on their phones.
>
> My personal fantasy: "Hello, you have reached nnn-nnn-nnnn. Please enter
> the extension of the person you wish to speak with or leave a message at
> the beep. Press 1 for Fred, press 2 for Sue, press 3 for Tom......." and
> so-forth.... where I'm "99" or something, more than 1 try, or a pause of
> more than n seconds flips them to voicemail, and the magic number can be
> entered as soon or even before they hear "Hello".
Or a little Artificial Intelligence app/device is developed that when you
get one of these calls, it starts its own conversation with the caller
that will eventually burn up their time until they realise they are not
talking to a human.
Just think of the money someone could make creating this!
--
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: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:25:55 -0600
From: Dave Garrett <dave@compassnet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Air Raid sirens
Message-ID: <MPG.2928a058e127c16898a2f2@208.90.168.18>
In article <j8t611$nkg$1@pcls6.std.com>, moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com
says...
>
> HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> writes:
>
> >As an aside, Bell Labs did a lot of research in sirens during WW II
> >for air raid defense purposes. They wanted to develop warnings loud
> >enough to be heard within buildings of the city. Apparently they were
> >successful. I've heard (unconfirmed) some sirens were so powerful
> >that hearing damage resulted.
>
> Umm, yeah. Some of the air raid sirens were powered by V8 car engines!
Chrysler Hemis, no less:
http://www.victorysiren.com/x/index.htm
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:25:56 -0500
From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Apple's Universe
Message-ID: <15c05$4ebdca06$cf70713e$2588@PRIMUS.CA>
Randall Webmail wrote:
> Apple's stuff works, and it works well together.
Yes, thank $DEITY, Apple's stuff usually works. But being the
computer/telecom guy, I'm the one people come to when it doesn't, so I see a
lot more devices that aren't working right than ones that are. Some
observations:
(1) Apple seems to assume that only a trivially small portion of users will
need to use anything but the standard settings: when trying to, say, set a
custom port number or authentication for sending SMTP email you can't go
directly to advanced settings, you must wait for the assumed settings to
time out before you can enter the correct values. Sometimes these things
add up to much longer than necessary support time.
(2) Toggling between alpha, numeric, and symbol 'keyboards' might be great
when writing a note, but can be h-e-double-hockey-sticks when trying to
enter a strong password to access a corporate web site or email.
(3) When Apple stuff works, It Just Works. When it doesn't work, It Just
Doesn't Work. Little or no useful information in error messages that might
help you guess where the problem lies. If there are debugging options or
log files, it's not apparent that they exist, let alone where to find them.
(Please tell me I'm wrong and that that there's a simple "system
administrator's guide to supporting iDevices" available somewhere...)
I admire Apple's effort to make these devices as simple to use as, say, a
car with a "check engine" 'idiot light', but in the corporate environment
all they've done is simply transfer the headaches from the user to the
support staff and, in some cases, compounding them.
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 17:35:29 -0500
From: Pete Cresswell <withheld@Invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Telemarketers might get OK to call cellphones
Message-ID: <3qstb7p8nhjn4u0eic1ah7u0u9dj7pjdtu@4ax.com>
>Pete, you can do that with an Asterisk pbx if you want.
I think I've heard that before, but blew it off figuring that it
would be beyond somebody like me.
OTOH, I do have a 24-7 box - Albeit running Windows XP.... All
my outgoing except 911 and 800 calls goes via VOIP. My incoming
is still POTS.
Am I still a candidate for Asterisk?
>BTW, the solution for those who ignore the "do not call" list is for
>everyone they call to "take one for the team", and waste as much of
>the human's time as possible. If everyone that they called did that,
>they'd be out of business in a month.
I do that from time to time. A standup comedian once said "I
tell them that I've lost my job, my wife is fooling around on me,
my son is on drugs, my dog died......" and eventually they
hang up on me. I try to get caller-specific information...
but as soon as they catch on they tend to hang up.
But that stuff doesn't work with robocalls... and the vast
majority of the calls I get now are robocalls. I guess I could
"Press 1 to speak with a bottom feeder..." but that gets old and
I've got a life to live.
- -
PeteCresswell
***** Moderator's Note *****
Yes, Asterisk can do that, and you'll thank me later.
As for pressing 1 to "speak with a bottom feeder", you don't need to
do it every time. Just every other time, or every third time, or
whenever you're bored. You see, sometimes the team takes one for
you!
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:56:19 -0800 (PST)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Sixty Years Ago on Saturday 10-Nov-1951 Englewood "DDD"
Message-ID: <23778861-8bd0-4e12-8b10-d75e8b757e69@y7g2000vbe.googlegroups.com>
On Nov 10, 6:22 pm, "Mark J. Cuccia" <markjcuc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Calls within the northeastern NJ area were dialed as just 2L-5N.
> No mention of NJ being area code 201 was made in the dialing booklet.
I've heard that originally NJ was all 201, then later was split to
include 609.
Area codes were still being fine tuned in that early era, which might
explain the San Francisco situation.
> Only single and 2-party customers were eligible for the customer
> long distance dial service.
Although routing and trunking equipment gets our attention with DDD,
automated billing "AMA-Automatic Message Accounting" was a critical
part of it.
I don't think the billing equipment could work with more than 2-party
service. I wonder how common 4 party service was in developed areas,
where costs of the local loop were not as much of an issue.
In a few areas, including NYC metro, city-suburban calls were billed
by incrementing the message unit counter. Other places used AMA. The
NYC system caused controversy when subscribers complained about being
taxed unfairly--apparently different taxes applied for local city
calls as opposed to 'toll' calls to the suburbs, but they were all
lumped together in the message units. (NYT articles early 1950s).
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:59:42 -0700
From: Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Telemarketers might get OK to call cellphones
Message-ID: <769tb7p700jkarna9eq24o4hqtdsa6mr54@4ax.com>
Pete,
There has to be something that you are doing to invite those
calls.
I've been on the DNC list at my present address for a few
years now. I've rarely gotten telemarketing calls and the ones I did
receive were usually for the previous holder of my telephone number.
But even that hasn't happened in over a year.
It could be as simple as ordering from a mail order catalog.
Some years ago, I renewed my driver's license in Maryland. I had been
a member of Private Citizen at that time and rarely got telemarketing
calls. But I was suddenly being hammered by telemarketing callers.
I discovered that Maryland was selling my information to
marketing companies. At that time, they had a toll-free number you
could call to opt for Maryland MVD to not sell your information. So I
used it and it stopped after a short while.
Years later, Maryland MVD stopped selling the information. Now
it's not a problem there. But it might still be in your state.
When I do get one, I always give them the 'Put me on your Do
Not Call list' line. I rarely hear from them again.
Regards,
Fred
On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:47:21 -0500, Pete Cresswell
<nobody@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:
>Per danny burstein:
>>We've all seen the repeated warnings, make that WARNINGS, that the
>>telemarketers were about to Get All The Cell Numbers or get
>>directories or get the law changed to allow Robot Calls to cell
>>phones, etc.
>>
>>And 99 percent of the time this has been [a lie].
>>
>>(That doesn't mean they all follow the current laws, of course,
>>but most of the time most of them do.)
>>
>>I just got an e-mail chain letter with yet another claim
>>of this sort. It's a warning that the House is about to
>>push through a law to... yes, let telemarketers bother
>>us, legally, on our cell phones. Which in the US also
>>means most of us pay for incoming air time.
>>
>>Seems this one is real:
>
>It's already a reality for some of us.
>
>Out of every 10 calls I get on my cell phone, I estimate that 7
>are telemarketers and most of them are robo calls.
>
>Yes, I'm on the no-call list - both Penna state and US
>government.
>
>No, you may not be so lucky.... yet.... but wait a year or two...
>
>My understanding is that telemarketers are becoming immune to
>prosecution as they move offshore and use VOIP (with "multiple
>relays" - whatever that means, but the phrase appears in the
>lame-sounding letters I get from do-not-call complaints to Penna)
>to make tracing difficult or impossible.
>
>Cresswell Predicts: Somebody will start offering, and people will
>start moving to some sort of challenge-response scheme on their
>phones.
>
>My personal fantasy: "Hello, you have reached nnn-nnn-nnnn.
>Please enter the extension of the person you wish to speak with
>or leave a message at the beep. Press 1 for Fred, press 2 for
>Sue, press 3 for Tom......." and so-forth.... where I'm "99" or
>something, more than 1 try, or a pause of more than n seconds
>flips them to voicemail, and the magic number can be entered as
>soon or even before they hear "Hello".
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:55:37 -0500
From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Standard Telephone Wire
Message-ID: <76035$4ebdc2eb$cf70713e$1093@PRIMUS.CA>
Fred Atkinson wrote:
> CAT-1 is standard telephone wire.
>
> But I can't seem to easily find it any more.
>
> Since PBX systems and even analog home telephone service are
> going the way of the dinosaur, I guess this is why.
I wouldn't say that. I can't speak for anyone else, but wherever I am
involved in the installation of new wiring, I always specify category 5 (or
better), multiple runs per location, each run in a set terminated at an
RJ-45 jack on a separate panel - on a separate rack, except for very small
installations. But not because PBXes are going away.
Why, then? Because your PBX runs fine over the inside pair (or two) of cat
5. So do analog extensions, and direct POTS lines. And ISDN lines. Oh,
and data, too. If you install two cat 5 drops at every station you can
connect not only voice and data, but also two data, multiple voice (or
equivalent), and more: I've custom-wired four ISDN BRIs (routed through a
PBX, but they could have been direct from the telco) through the four pairs
of a single cat 5 drop so that someone could put an ISDN-based point to
multipoint video conference system where they had never planned for it. But
they were ready because I pushed for two cat5 drops everywhere. And they
were ready again when they reorganized and decided to move the video
conference unit. I have installed remote consoles to KVM switches in data
centre racks (not KVM over IP) over cat 5. I have patched audio/video from
one location to another by running it back to the wiring room,
cross-conencting, and running it back out over cat 5. There are USB over
cat 5 extenders, and probably lots of more 'X over cat 5' applications that
I've never heard of. So many things run over cat 5, and most of them won't
run over regular voice cable.
So, even if you still have a PBX that only requires a single pair ten or
twenty years from now that runs fine over cat 1, if you had to run new
wiring for someone, wouldn't you run cat 5 (or better)?
(I chuckle when I see PBX installers wire from the system to a BIX or other
punchdown on a backboard and then to the RJ-45 jack for the actual
cross-connect to station wiring but, hey, we both get our preferred
cross-connects.)
> But there are plenty of old style PBXs still in service. I'd
> give it another ten years and they will all be gone.
Don't count them out, especially the smaller key systems. I've seen Norstar
systems (I'm in Canada... substitute the manufacturer used by the former
monopoly phone company in your area and I'm sure it would be the same)
inherited as one company moves out of a space (or goes under) and another
takes it over, simply because it's there and it works. A lot of those
systems - probably already 10, 20, or more years old - will probably remain
right where they are, adopted by each tenant in turn, until they stop
working.
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:06:15 -0500
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Q.: Any recent T-Mobile GPRS changes?
Message-ID: <kz3ozdjejgta.3veuis4r8522.dlg@40tude.net>
Adapted from an inquiry I posted to alt.cellular.t-mobile:
Long story, sorry, but has anyone any inkling of what may be going on here,
or what GPRS-ish stuff T-Mobile may have changed yesterday (or day before)?
A little over a year ago I thought to swap out my old T-Mobile-supplied
Nokia 6610 GSM/GPRS/WAP handset against one of the slightly more modern
GSM handsets I'd found in my schools's cellphone recycling tubs.
These were two Cingular-branded items, an EDGE-capable Motorola SLVR (aka
L2), and a 3G-capable LG CU-400. Today's at&t kindly provided the requisite
SIM-subsidy-unlock codes for each of them, even talked me through the
actual unlocking, and I wound up deciding the Moto SLVR was more to my
taste for every-day use as phone and WAP browser, though I keep the LG for
use with a Polish SIM whenever visiting there, and keep the Nokia for the
sake of all the contacts I can't easily copy out of it.
For years I've taken advantage of the WML-based UI my email service makes
available, for early checking (before my computer is fired up) whether I
have any new email of urgent character. WAP's been free as part of my
grandfathered "t-zones talk 'n' text" plan, and has worked about as
flawlessly as anything cellular ever does ...
... until yesterday, when the SLVR reported, no matter what t-zones web
session I was attempting, the following connection error:
502: Page not found .
OK. The drill here is a phone power-off, remove battery, wait 60 seconds
for confused, erratic electrons to come to quiet rest, restore battery,
power on again, wait for the phone's OS to come up to speed, and re-try.
Same error. Not just with my netaddress email WAP URL, but everything, even
with t-zones Home, and that wonderful little diagnostic site, wap.gemal.dk.
OK. Try clearing cache. Dumping cookies. Power-cycling again. All no go.
Tried the SIM in the other handsets, with truly puzzling results:
in the old Nokia 6610, every attempt at WAP browsing anywhere -- to t-zones
or to a bookmarked site -- gave me the Nokia error: "No Gateway Reply"; but
in the unlocked LG CU-400 WAP browsing takes place as if there were nothing
wrong whatsoever -- only puzzling thing is that the diagnostic GEMAL site,
which used to report seeing a Nokia gateway active between my handset and
the wide internet, now reported it couldn't detect what gateway if any was
in use -- almost as if T-Mo had dispensed with using any gateway, which
would neatly explain the Nokia 6610's error message of "No Gateway Reply".
Meanwhile, a T-Mobile-branded Motorola RAZR (aka V3), that my spouse uses
on a second T-Mo line, has experienced none of the misbehavior described
above, reaching the same netaddress WML email URL as easily today as ever.
[PS: equally puzzling is the current behavior of the Opera installs present
on each of these three handsets. Previously, all three instances worked
about as well as the miserly little J2ME environments provided could allow.
[But now, the Opera in the Nokia 6610 simply cannot connect, and brings up
its little Connection Wizard, which tries for a time, and then gives up.
[The Opera in the Moto SLVR L2, on the other hand, connects like a champ.
[And so does the Opera in the LG CU-400. Alas, my netaddress mail service's
WML-based interface is buggy in that it won't respond to my commands as
transmitted through Opera's proxy servers ... and the HTML-based interface
is far too rich, graphically (using Frames, and Javascript, etc.), for a
poor little handset display to cope with even when the Opera proxy server's
do "get it right" (which, in fact, they don't always :-{ ).
[Take that as a FWIW, should anyone want to suggest Opera as work-around:
as you see, it won't quite do :-) .]
So: anyone got any inkling of what may be going on here?
TIA; with quizzical cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:32:10 -0500
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Telemarketers might get OK to call cellphones
Message-ID: <ep2wyf3b7qbx.dwwe563mcqiz.dlg@40tude.net>
On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:47:21 -0500, following Pete Cresswell's
comments on danny burstein's OP, ***** Moderator ***** noted:
> BTW, the solution for those who ignore the "do not call" list is for
> everyone they call to "take one for the team", and waste as much of
> the human's time as possible. If everyone that they called did that,
> they'd be out of business in a month.
Alas, in my experience at my home phone, the odds of a human actually
coming on the line from a robo-dialed call are under one in ten -- my
impression of predictive dialing is that it's way too optimistic with
regard to the time a human in the boiler room will take to get on the
line once the call's been answered by a flesh-and-blood human -- thus
the few times I have tried to pick up the robo-call, I've met only
a robo-voice encoraging me to stay on the line for an agent to speak
with me, but no agent before my patience wore thin and I hung up.
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom-
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