Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA18947; Tue, 10 Jun 1997 09:21:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 09:21:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199706101321.JAA18947@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #149 TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 Jun 97 09:21:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 149 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Getting Back Into Service (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? (Bill Newkirk) Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? (Curtis Wheeler) Re: ISDN Analogue Adaptors (Lars Poulsen) Domain Name Sold For $150,000 (Greg Monti) Digital Pads (Robert Holloman, Jr.) Repeated Failure in MCI Backbone Node (Mike McCune) CDPD Scam? (Robert Holloman, Jr.) FTC Junk Email Workshop Online, June 12, 1997 (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * subscriptions@telecom-digest.org * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-727-5427 Fax: 773-539-4630 ** Article submission address: editor@telecom-digest.org ** Our archives are available for your review/research. The URL is: http://telecom-digest.org (WWW/http only!) They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to archives@telecom-digest.org to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 08:41:49 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Getting Back Into Service I got on line late Tuesday night to try and sort through a lot of mail and get some semblance of organization here once again. A summary of the mail: 1) A couple hundred notes inquiring as to my health and sending kind thoughts .... thank you. 2) Spam *everywhere* ... about three hundred pieces of email of a commercial nature; some of them sent two or three times each, no doubt by spammers who could not understand why the messages they sent did not immediatly get posted in c.d.t. 3) A number of messages from people who quite obviously do not read the Digest; they just dump mail to it. I guess they assume someone sits here 24 hours per day to process it into the Digest and newsgroup. One fellow asking to be added to the mailing list wrote *five* times over a week, asking when his subscription would be processed and asking 'why was he being ignored'. 4) A script failure of some sort (I am still deciphering it) which caused root to write me about a hundred times telling me that a cron job had failed to execute. 5) Then of course the idiot who sent that big humongous piece of nonsense -- line after line after line -- to the interactive 'chat' feature of the web page. 6) A letter from someone who pointed out that once again some spammer is raiding all the names and email addresses he can find in c.d.t. and sending mail to them as 'telecom professional' with whatever piece of junk he is selling or scam he is running. I shall not bore you with the events of my life except to say that I did not go to the hospital; I did not have 'heart surgery' as someone spread around (I got a call from Bill Pfieffer telling me of email he received claiming that about me); I am feeling a little better but not terribly great; and I will try to continue the Digest for awhile longer. People who attempted to subscribe to the Digest during May and up to this point who have not been added to the list may wish to to write me again. But please check your mail today and tomorrow before you do as I have added quite a few names; even the one who wrote five times to insist I was ignoring him. PAT ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? Date: Mon, 09 Jun 1997 15:30:06 -0400 Organization: Rockwell Collins, Inc. Reply-To: wenewkir@collins.rockwell.com John R. Levine wrote: > sit on a large ugly tower on top of a hill, and siting them is very First, drop out the emotional response - "ugly". it's a large tower. They all pretty much look the same. Most people quit noticing 'em about six months after construction is finished. > large cell tower in a farmer's field. A lot of us don't see any > reason they can't colocate with Cell One's tower across the lake.) Because the Cell One rental is probably many times the cost of constructing one for their own system. there also are problems of who's responsible for what if two competing companies share the same structure. Bill Newkirk Collins General Aviation Division Publications Department Rockwell Collins, Inc., Melbourne Florida wenewkir@collins.rockwell.com ------------------------------ From: Curtis Wheeler Subject: Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? Date: Mon, 09 Jun 1997 16:17:06 -0700 Organization: Unorganized Reply-To: cwheeler@ccnet.com Barry Margolin wrote: > In article , The Old Bear > wrote: >> More than 300 communities already have revolted, imposing moratoria >> on cell tower construction, and the movement is growing. > My town newspaper has had several articles recently on the > negotiations taking place with PCS companies. If my interpretation is > correct, the law doesn't allow communities to prevent tower > construction. However, it does allow them to specify where the towers > may be constructed, and negotiate payment for the use of town > property. Although there's some NIMBY feeling, allowing towers to be > installed on places like fire stations is apparently seen as a > money-making proposition. Local governements cannot stop the installation of radio systems based on health concerns. They can however, still regulate on asthetics, etc. Cell sites may or may not be "money-making" proposistions for the landlord. We host the two major cellular companies and a coupld of smaller radio service providers at a facility we own. We don't "make money" (as in profit), it just subsidozes what we already have to spend on the facility. Curtis ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: ISDN Analogue Adaptors Date: 9 Jun 1997 16:03:06 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article Anbjrn Myren writes: > I'll be needing an ISDN to analogue adapter. > In Norway there is only one supplier of these adaptors (Telenor), and > I feel that they are a bit overpriced. > They charge 1490,- NOK for an adaptor with 2 analogue outputs, and 2490,- > NOK for the one with 4 outputs. > 1490,- NOK = 130 > 2490,- NOK = 216 How much does an ISDN telephone cost ? The adapter has to contain the same circuitry, including a microprocessor, an ISDN channel interface, ISDN call control signaling protocol software etc. PLUS a subscriber line interface circuit to control the telephone you plug into it with dial-tone generation, tone/pulse signaling recognition, and ... the hardest piece: Generation of high-voltage ringing signals. The prices listed seem extremely reasonable given the very limited market for these devices. / Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@OSICOM.COM OSICOM Technologies (Internet Business Unit, formerly RNS) 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Telephone: +1-805-562-3158 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Jun 1997 14:30:43 -0400 From: gmonti@mindspring.com (Greg Monti) Subject: Domain Name Sold For $150,000 A {New York Times} story on June 5, 1997, notes that a new high price has just been set for an internet domain name. The domain name was sold for $150,000 to an undisclosed buyer in Texas. The new owner won't use the name until its web site is operational in four months. The seller was banking software developer Business Systems International of London which had used the address for its web site. Business Systems paid nothing for the address four years ago. The broker who arranged the sale was Idnames.com. The story notes that many domain name sale prices are secret because the transactions end up in disputes and are settled, with the terms of the settlement sealed. A previously-well-known high price was the sale of to C-Net for $15,000 in 1996. Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@mindspring.com ------------------------------ From: Robert Holloman, Jr. Subject: Digital Pads Date: Sun, 08 Jun 1997 02:49:29 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Reply-To: holloman@mindspring.com Anyone know much about digital pads? Some folks, especially here in the Raleigh area, aren't able to get x2 (US Robotics' new modem technology) connections above 33333bps on local calls, but are able to get much higher speeds on long distance calls. A BellSouth employee seems to have narrowed the problem down to digital pads. Here's a post he made to a MindSpring newsgroup, followed by my reply. I'm hoping someone might be able to explain in more detail how pads work and maybe speculate on how 56K modems might deal with them. --- start of response --- About me: I am a contractor/vendor working at BellSouth for the last 2 years. I am a unix sys admin for the Field Access System. This is the system that the field techs call to get & work their jobs. I have access to people who know stuff about the BST phone network. We are moving into our new house at the end of the month. About my phone line: My phone line goes to an integrated SLC96 which is only a few thousand feet away. It is connected via T1's to the Oak Mountain exchange. My X2 experience: (All LD calls are via AT&T unless otherwise stated) Ld Calls to USR's BBS resulted in 45-48K connects. Ld Calls to Mindspring Atlanta, GA resulted in 45-48K connects Ld Calls to Mindspring Montgomery, Al resulted in 45-48K connects Ld Calls, using AT&T calling card, to Mindspring Birmingham, AL resulted in 45-48K connects Local Calls to Mindspring Birmingham, AL resulted in V.34 (31.2K) connects. Technical info (or what I can remember of it): From the above info, I have made the following assumptions: My line to CO will support X2 LD Calls support X2 Local Calls DO NOT support X2 The network connection to my CO is common to Local & LD The network connection from MS to their CO (Downtown) is common to Local & LD Conclusion?? There must be a difference in the connection between CO's depending on LD or Local. These past few days, I've finally been in touch with people that can help fix my X2 blues. Here is what I have discovered: Calls from my CO to Downtown are trunked directly (different from what I had heard before). AT&T uses the same circuits as BellSouth (They are BellSouth circuits) So what could be causing my problem?? It seems that BellCore defines some "DB Pads" that switch's implement when handling Local & LD calls. For LD there is a 6db Pad, and for Local there is a 3db Pad. Different switch manufacturers provide these "Standard pads (Paddings?)" using their own methods, which they keep to themselves. The 56K modem manufacturers have to guess at how this is done in order to code their modems around it. The only difference my new found friends :) could find in the call path was these "Pads". So with some tweaking & adjusting of my line they said "try it now". CONNECT 48000 !! Wow!! My reaction is "Great, what did you do, and can it stay like that?" Well, for reasons that my become clear shortly, I'm not going to broadcast what they did. My new friend said that he needs to set it back 8( But since I am moving in a month, and if I keep reporting to him my progress and any troubles I have we can treat this as an ongoing test and it will stay good. When we move to our new house, I'm going to call him again and see if we can come to some arrangement about this, and of course try to share this new information with the rest of the world. I shall keep you all informed as things progress, but right now it feels GREAT!! ---------------- Here's my response: You're saying it's the type of padding used and not the amount of padding? That might explain why I see calls that "do" x2 vary up to 6dB and ones that don't vary up to 8dB. ...and what might have happened to 424, which no longer does x2 despite no change in its signal level. Here's a table comparing the peak ATY11 signal level from various calls, relative to what I see on "most LD" calls. Peaks range from -14dB on IBM to -25 on LD calls to BBS's running Imodems. POP Diff Does X2 "Well" --------------- ---- -------------- IBM 878 +5 No MS 846 +3 No Most LD 0 Yes 846/424 - AT&T 0 Yes MS 424 0 was Yes, now No AOL 888 -2 Yes Networks 518 -3 No (same CO as MS 846) Imodems - LD -6 Yes Someone mentioned to me a while back that a 3dB pad, which cuts the signal level in half, is usually done by shifting the bits in the PCM codes by one position, losing the LSB. I would guess (big guess!) x2 tests for pads during startup by sending as series of 11111111's and checking what comes out the other end. (Since the other end is analog, it can't be 100% sure of exactly what comes out.) If 01111111 comes back, then there's 3dB of padding. 00111111 would indicate 6dB (~1/4 of original signal) padding. (If 01111111 comes back most of the time and 01111110 comes back sometimes, would that indicate a 3dB pad with RBS on top?) Maybe some switches use something besides simple bit-shifting, and that throws x2 for a loop (an infinite retrain loop in some cases!). ------------------------------ From: mmccune@loxinfo.co.th (Mike McCune) Subject: Repeated Failure in MCI Backbone Node Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 09:43:23 GMT Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com Reply-To: mmccune@loxinfo.co.th I live in Thailand. Every single day for at least the last week, during the heart of the business day in Thailand, one of the MCI routers fails and locks me and all of Asia out of a portion of the Internet. It happens at night in the USA, when "no one will notice the failure". Right. Here is the traceroute report showing the problem: loxinfo >date Sat Jun 7 08:56:20 GMT+7 1997 loxinfo >traceroute infothai.com traceroute to infothai.com (192.41.24.88), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 lt-chmai1 (203.146.0.66) 2.106 ms 2.613 ms 2.704 ms 2 bkk-chmai.tnet.co.th (203.146.1.205) 505.108 ms 555.772 ms 625.776 ms 3 lir8 (208.147.1.200) 570.340 ms 504.664 ms 530.860 ms 4 mix-serial4-0.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.189.216.177) 786.701 ms 794.987 ms 863.576 ms 5 core1-fddi-0.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.2.161) 773.824 ms 776.394 ms 770.023 ms 6 bordercore1-loopback.Denver.mci.net (166.48.92.1) 791.230 ms * 851.570 ms 7 * * * 8 * * * 9 * * * 10 * * * The seventh hop is hard failure. Every day abround 8-9 AM local time this failure occurs. MCI has known about it. The best they could do was promise to fix it next Monday (I heard through the grapevine, anyway). When I wrote MCI on their Web site, their reply said they would address in the problem in 4-7 working days. That is pathetic response for an Internet backbone company. One who is tired of poor performance ... Mike McCune ------------------------------ From: Robert Holloman, Jr. Subject: CDPD Scam? Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 02:24:33 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Reply-To: holloman@mindspring.com Anyone familiar with this? They are offering a box that will allow unlimited Internet access via CDPD (cellular), and later, satellite. The things they present on their web page (http://207.58.122.163/) just don't add up: 1) It's MLM. 2) "Using a patented compression method, AlphaCom has developed a system that will give us a robust throughput of 56Kps to ~153kps (19200 x 8)." I haven't looked into CDPD recently, but 19200 sounds right. Even if their compression is better than the v.42bis used on modern modems, nothing's going to significantly compress ZIPs/GIFs/JPEGs/etc, which makes up much of what most folks send across the Internet. So, it's actually worse than a V.34 modem for most people. 3) "Q: Will there be cellular charges? A: No. There will be NO cellular charges or roaming charges. Just the flat rate, $20/month for unlimited access." Last time I checked, CDPD was not cheap and charged by the byte. It's hard to believe GTE would cut them such an incredible deal. (A few months back several ISP's were offering unlimited access via 800 number. I thought that sounded too good to be true, and it indeed turned out to be a scam.) 4) "Q: Won't the system get congested? A: There is little chance of that. Using the CDPD system, there can be an unlimited number of people logged on at once. The system can support millions and million of people simultaneously." Yeah, right. Voice calls take priority over CDPD. It's not terribly uncommon to get that "all circuits are busy" tone on voice calls during peak hours in some areas. 5) "Only $350.00. We are only taking a deposit of $175.00 right now, you will be billed the additional amount 10 days before shipping." Take the money and run? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 22:10:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FTC Junk Email Workshop Online, June 12, 1997! Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: From: shabbir@vtw.org (Shabbir J. Safdar) Subject: You can attend the FTC Junk Email workshop online, June 12, 1997! Date: Fri, 06 Jun 1997 17:27:24 -0400 ****************************************************************************** * * * VTW-ANNOUNCE * * * * The following message is sent to you through vtw-announce, an announcement.* * only list to which you are only added to at your request. To unsubscribe, * * send email to majordomo@vtw.org with the words "unsubscribe vtw-announce" * * in the body of the message. Unsubscribe requests sent back to shabbir will * * not be effective at removing you from the list. * * * ****************************************************************************** JOIN THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION FOR A DISCUSSION OF JUNK EMAIL Concerned about the amount of "junk" email you receive? On Thursday June 12 the Federal Trade Commission will hold a forum on unsolicited commercial email as part of a 3 day public workshop on Internet Privacy issues. The FTC junk email forum will be cybercast live at democracy.net. You can listen to the proceedings via RealAudio, view live pictures, submit your thoughts and comments to the FTC, and discuss the issue with other Internet users in a simultaneous online chat room. DETAILS ON THE EVENT: Date: Thursday, June 12, 1997 Time: 8:45 am - 12:30 pm Eastern Time Place: http://www.democracy.net You will need to have RealAudio and a telnet application installed on your computer. Visit http://www.democracy.net/software/ to download the software for FREE. ____________________________________________________________________________ BACKGROUND ON THE JUNK EMAIL ISSUE Junk email is one of the most discussed Internet issues today, with emphasis in the press and two pieces of legislation introduced in Congress to address the issue. To learn more about junk email, we suggest that you read the filings of various people to the Federal Trade Commission, available in the "Background" section of the democracy.net page devoted to this event. ____________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PARTICIPATE * Federal Trade Commission Junk Email Workshop * DATE: Thursday June 12, 1997 TIME: 8:45 am Eastern (5:45 am Pacific) LOCATION: http://www.democracy.net In advance of the workshop, please visit http://www.democracy.net and make sure you have the RealAudio and telnet software necessary to participate. _____________________________________________________________________________ ABOUT DEMOCRACY.NET The democracy.net is a joint project of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) to explore ways of enhancing citizen participation in the democratic process via the Internet. To this end, democracy.net hosts live, interactive cybercasts of Congressional Hearings and online town hall meetings with key policy makers. democracy.net is made possible through the generous support of WebActive, Public Access Networks, the Democracy Network, and DIGEX Internet. More information about the project and its sponsors can be found at http://www.democracy.net/about/ To receive democracy.net announcements automatically, please visit our signup form at http://www.democracy.net/ or send mail to majordomo@democracy.net with "subscribe events" in the body of the message. _____________________________________________________________________________ End update no.10 06/06/1997 ============================================================================= ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #149 ******************************