Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA28048; Sun, 23 Nov 1997 22:24:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 22:24:19 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199711240324.WAA28048@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #327 TELECOM Digest Sun, 23 Nov 97 22:24:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 327 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Monopolies and Microeconomics (Adam H. Kerman) Re: The Internet Will Swallow the Phone System (John R. Levine) Subsidizing Rural Phone Service (Adam H. Kerman) UCLA Short Course: Project Management Principles and Practice (B. Goodin) UCLA Short Course: HBT IC Technology for Comm. Applications (Bill Goodin) USWest: Continous Redial Now On Demand (73115.1041@compuserve.com) Re: TWX/Telex, Realtime vs Store/Forward (John R. Levine) Re: TWX/Telex, Realtime vs Store/Forward (John Nagle) Re: "Spambone" Spam Backbone Press Release From Sanford Wallace (Schumann) Re: "Spambone" Spam Backbone Press Release From Sanford Wallace (J Levine) Last Laugh! Another Early Computer Telex Story (John R. Levine) 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: * telecom-request@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 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. 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ahk@chinet.chinet.com (Adam H. Kerman) Subject: Monopolies and Microeconomics Date: 23 Nov 1997 16:04:08 -0600 Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site In article , Tim Gorman wrote: > dstott@2help.com (Dave Stott) wrote: >> And while the funds to build the [telephone system infrastructure] >> were not explicitly tax dollars, it could be argued that they were >> selectively applied implicit tax dollars. The Federal Government >> decided that the Bell System ( and other LECs) would be a monopoly and >> we had no choice about who received our telephone dollars. The >> government-protected LEC always got your money. > It could be argued that the subscriber's money was implicit tax > dollars but the argument is certainly not convincing. Government > regulated common carrier monopolies are not government entities either > in law or in practice. In practice, they can exercise governmental functions like eminent domain. But, from an economic standpoint, it is unimportant if the infrastructure is owned directly by the taxpayers or a public corporation. The issue is the monopoly. A monopoly is a privilege granted by government to one person at the expense of another. This privileged person is protected from the non-privileged. It isn't a right he earned. What's wrong with unearned privilege? The costs and benefits are not fairly distributed, which influences the economic decisions that consumers make. And, the incompetent are protected from going out of business. Utility subscribers don't have a choice. The effect on the ratepayers is the same. He has no other choice when it comes to mailing a First-Class letter. He must send it with the government-owned entity. He has no other choice (usually) from whom he rents his local loop. He must use the incumbant Local Exchange Carrier. Even when a competitive LEC exists, more often than not it is only a reseller, not facilities-based. It is irrelevant whether the government reserves the privilege to itself, as in the Postal Express laws, or grants it to another. The economic effect is the same. (All right, I won't speculate if technology wouldn't be in the state it is in today if government had reserved the privilege of provisioning telephone service to itself.) > The difference between the Bell System and a government agency is > total. The Postal Service is a government operation by law. It is > supported by and its losses are guaranteed by the taxpayers of this > country. The Bell System was not supported by the government and its > losses were not guaranteed by the taxpayers of this country but by the > shareholders of the stock. Actually, they function alike. The USPS is supported by fees (for the most part), not taxes. Its losses are distributed among the fees paid by mailers in the various classes of mail, which are defined by law. Furthermore, as a government entity, the USPS is exempt from most taxes and fees that ordinary business pay. In addition, there are certain subclasses of mailers (nonprofit and certain political organizations, veterans groups, fraternal organizations, labor unions, Underwriters Laboratories, certain agricultural organizations) whose reduced mailing fees used to be subsidized directly out of general tax revenues, but are now subsidized by higher fees charged to regular mailers in the Periodicals and Standard Mail classes. And, within Periodicals and Standard Mail (B), there are subclasses with special fees based on the contents and not the marginal cost to the Postal Service. It costs more to deliver and transport mail (some argue) to rural areas, yet they pay the same rates as those who live in cities. Congress itself (and the Vice-President) is a privileged mailer. The Postal Service must deliver franked mail, whether or not Congress has bothered to appropriate enough money to the Postal Service to cover rates and fees. To a lesser extent, the rest of the federal government is, as well. Penalty mail (so-called because of the threat printed on US government stationery) is only billed and paid for at the end of the quarter. No other mailer gets credit! With the case of the Bell System, certain classes of ratepayers benefitted from cross-subsidies paid by other classes of ratepayers. One could argue that there's even more of that going on, today. There are special programs to benefit the handicapped, rural areas, schools and libraries, and 911 emergency service that are paid from higher subscriber line charges. Of course, telephone companies pay ordinary fees and taxes like other businesses. Oh, and the Bell System's losses aren't guaranteed by the taxpayers? Can you say "Conrail"? The point is, what with cross subsidies, the costs and benefits are not distributed fairly. >> My point is that the infrastructure was built with captive >> dollars. Whether they were _tax_ dollars or government directed >> consumer dollars really isn't the issue. I've paid my money for 20 >> years to the LEC because I wanted a phone, and the government told me >> who I could buy that service from. They didn't give me a choice, and >> my 'investment' for basic service during that time surely paid for the >> local loop. The stockholders don't pay for it. Just the ratepayers do. > This is where your comparisons really start to break down. Income is > NOT equal to capital. Subscriber dollars are INCOME, not capital. > Income is used to pay debt, pay dividends, and pay expenses. Some > income may be converted to capital as reinvested earnings but this is > a management decision and is not taken lightly. This money usually is > better off being paid out as dividends to attract more capital than > being used as capital itself. As far as I know in the Bell System, it > was NEVER the case that there were ever sufficient earnings to fully > finance the capital needs with reinvested earnings. This means that > additional investors had to be continually attracted to the > company. These investors OWNED the companies and not the government. But, if the government had not guaranteed a steady, predictable, and growing base of ratepayers, who would have invested? Generally, except in situations with incredibly poor planning or fraud, the purchase of utility securities is relatively low risk. Society, as a whole, absorbed part of the risk. Again, no difference. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 1997 22:31:30 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: The Internet Will Swallow the Phone System Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > The difference between the Bell System and a government agency is > total. The Postal Service is a government operation by law. It is > supported by and its losses are guaranteed by the taxpayers of this > country. The Bell System was not supported by the government and its > losses were not guaranteed by the taxpayers of this country but by the > shareholders of the stock. Gee, Tim, a Bell guy like you should know his history better than that. Dating back to the dawn of telco regulation before 1920, regulators set phone rates in cooperation with telcos to set a rate of return on invested capital. If the actual rate of return was lower than it was supposed to be, the telco could go back and get a rate increase. If the return were too high the regulators could (and sometimes did) force a rate decrease. Bell (Vail, really) invented this scheme, but it applied to independents the same way it applied to AT&T and its subsidiaries and affiliates. This worked in practice exactly like it was supposed to -- it guaranteed telephone company profits. That's why AT&T paid its full $8/share dividend every year throughout the depression and WW II, probably the only company in the country not to cut or eliminate dividends. In recent years regulation has changed in many areas from rate of return to price caps, but for upwards of 50 years, the phone system was built using government guaranteed rates of return on investment. That's why telephone bonds paid interest close to that of government bonds, there was close to no risk on them. LEC bonds still get great interest rates, since investors believe (correctly so far) that the change from ROR to price caps was hugely in the telcos' favor since it removed the need to decrease prices when costs drop. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ From: ahk@chinet.chinet.com (Adam H. Kerman) Subject: Subsidizing Rural Phone Service Date: 23 Nov 1997 17:38:32 -0600 Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site In article , John R. Levine wrote: > I live in a tiny town served by a family owned independent telco, > and although I think that the subsidies which let them offer flat rate > service at $6.82/mo are a bit much, I'd hate to see them price rural > service at cost and make a lot of the marginal farmers lose phone > service. But, they wouldn't. If they found it so valuable, they would subsidize it themselves with local land taxes, just like other infrastructure. It is of no personal benefit to me that your land should become more valuable, due to the availability of a local loop. Why should I pay higher line fees myself? The inherent value of land is an unearned benefit to the landowner, because he doesn't create the value. Land has value because of its location. This derives from the improvements that your neighbors made (if you own land next door to a large office building, you could develop one too) or improvements society made (the nearby highway interchange). Land also has value due to natural resources. Is there plenty of rainfall? Good soils? Mineral wealth? The quality of local telephone service, like other utilities and infrastructure, is part of what determines land value. If your rural phone service stinks, you paid less for your land. If you want to improve the service through a subsidy, pay it yourself. You are the direct beneficiary. Why can't a marginal farmer pay to improve his own phone service? Do you suspect that the subsidy he would pay would not sufficiently raise the value of his own land to cover it? That's possible. All that proves is that the project is flawed to begin with. But, that doesn't prove that the cost should be shifted to me. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Adam, what I think you are overlooking here is that telephone service, unlike any other utility service and unlike practically anything else takes two to tango as the saying goes. What you do with your electric service or your natural gas service or where you get your water is of little or no concern to anyone else, nor how you choose to use it, abuse it or waste it. I suppose you could say having everyone connected to a common electrical grid or a common water/sewer distribution system makes for more effecient/inexpensive service for all and that is true, but whether you personally choose to have water/electric in your house has no real bearing on my use of same. Telephones on the other hand require the cooperation of two or more subscribers to make them worth anything. If you and I were the only two people in the world to have a telephone, the chances are very great that we would not bother to have them either. Unlike your electric service where if you choose to use it by watching a tele- vision set or use it by operating a microwave oven -- and have very inefficient appliances, etc, if you choose to have a crappy telephone instrument or connection that in turn decreases the value of *my* instrument and/or connection. I can spend a million dollars per year on my phone bill and instruments, having only the latest and most sophisticated equipment, but what good does it do me when I try to reach you if you have no service or you choose to use some real old broken down equipment? That is part of the universal service argument I find compelling; that all of us receive more value for what we pay when all of us are connected to the network with reasonably equivilent levels of service. Your arguments make sense and are pursuasive at times, but you cannot carry it across to telephone service as you can with other 'improvements' to land or property in every single case. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Goodin Subject: UCLA Short Course: Project Management Principles and Practice Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 15:57:25 -0800 On February 17-20, 1998, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Project Management Principles and Practice", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructor is Arnold M. Ruskin, PhD, PE, PMP, Partner, Claremont Consulting Group and Technical Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Each participant receives the text, "What Every Engineer Should Know About Project Management", 2nd Edition, Arnold M. Ruskin and W. Eugene Estes, 1995, and extensive course notes. This course is for project managers and personnel, functional managers whose staff participate in projects, and executives to whom project managers report. Corporate personnel increasingly work on "one-time" assignments called projects. These efforts require particular approaches, methods, and systems for their planning, execution, and control. The purpose of this course is to develop insight into the special characteristics of projects and the tools and techniques needed to manage them. Specific objectives for the course are: o to understand the nature of project management; o to understand the importance of end-item focus, careful planning, appropriate control, open and timely communication, and interproject coordination and prioritization; o to gain an appreciation of project planning, control, and other useful tools; o to understand alternative organizational structures, elements of leadership, and ways of maximizing personal and project effectiveness. Specific topics include: Nature of projects, Group exercise: anatomy of a project, Duties of the project manager, Project planning techniques, Measuring cost, schedule, and technical performance, Project control techniques, Implementing planning and control techniques, Project organizations and staffing, Project management in multiproject and matrix environments, Fiedler's contingency model of team effectiveness, Team-building, Project startup meetings, Case study: integrated project management, Risk management, Project management exercise: complex project decision-making. Prerequisite: Firsthand involvement in or responsibility for projects or some portion thereof. UCLA Extension has presented this highly successful short course since 1982. The course fee is $1295, which includes the text and course materials. These course materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. For additional information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/ This course may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ From: Bill Goodin Subject: UCLA Short Course: HBT IC Technology for Comm Applications Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 16:29:03 -0800 On February 18-20, 1998, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "HBT IC Technology for Communications Applications", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructors are Bahram Jalali, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA, and Madjid Hafizi, PhD, Senior Research Staff, Hughes Research Laboratories. This course presents an in-depth treatment of GaAs, InP, and GeSi-based Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) technologies and their application in today's growing communication markets. HBT has emerged as a key enabling technology for wireless communications, data conversion, mixed-signal/mixed-mode applications, and high data rate fiber-optic communications. The course begins with a concise review of the physics of HBT devices and a comparison with MESFET and HEMT technologies. This comparison provides a foundation for selecting the right technology for a particular application. Technology performance characteristics such as DC, RF, noise, power amplification, linearity, intermodulation distortion, manufacturability, reliability, yield and cost issues are compared. Modeling of HBT devices for circuit simulation is presented including linear and nonlinear models and thermal modeling. Material issues are covered including epitaxial crystal growth, MBE and MOCVD materials, followed by a look at commercial vendors of epitaxial material and material qualification. Fundamentals of HBT processing including device and IC fabrication, passive components, planarization, heat sink approaches (particularly for power devices), lithography, dry etching, and yield limitations are explored, as are state-of-the-art HBT device performance and reliability issues. The important role of HBT in meeting the requirements of current wireless systems is discussed. Power amplifiers are covered in-depth including such relevant issues as efficiency, linearity, intermodulation distortion, and thermal stability. The course reviews commercially available HBT IC's for wireless markets, and covers Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) ranging from ultra-fast flash-type converters to high-resolution delta-sigma modulators and the architectures in between. This involves a review of ADC characteristics such as SNR, SFDR, NPR, differential and integral nonlinearity, effective number of bit, and aperture jitter, in relation to HBT device characteristics. Mixed-mode/mixed-signal applications of the technology such as multiple device integration including HBT/HEMT, HBT/RTD, HBT/PIN-PD, and HBT/MESFET mixed-device techniques are examined. The course shows how these new technologies are applied to mixed/mode systems such as digital receivers (including HEMT or MESFET low-noise amplifier, HBT downconverter and HBT ADC) or to integrated optical receivers (including PIN photodetector, transimpedance and AGC amplifiers). Finally, the course presents ultra-high speed applications of the technology in the emerging market of 40 Gbit/s optical communications, including high-speed digital circuits such as dividers, MUX/DEMUX, and clock/data recovery circuits. The course fee is $1195, which includes extensive course materials. These materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. For a more information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses This course may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ From: 73115.1041@NOSPAMcompuserve.com Subject: USWest: Continous Redial Now On Demand Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 00:47:47 GMT Organization: Zippo News Service [http://www.zippo.com] US West appears to be proceeding to rollout all the class services on demand, one new one each quarter. Their latest bill insert proclaims that Continous Redial has now been enabled on all lines. What this means is that after two or three busy signals, a voice intercept comes on the line and asks if you'd like to be called back when the line is free. The fine print states the cost is .75 per use, with a $6/month cap. Where this becomes a problem is when you have a modem or fax machine that is looking for a busy signal. The voice intercept may confuse it. As such US West allows that this feature be disabled on a per line basis, or by prefacing the call with *03, on a per call basis. Ken ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 1997 22:17:09 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: TWX/Telex, Realtime vs Store/Forward Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > Out of curiosity, does anyone have any biographical information about > Emile Baudot, the engineer for whom baudot code -- and "baud" -- is > named? Bien sur. I sent a note on this very topic to the Digest back in March 1992: > Also, does anyone know what [baud] stands for or its derivation? It's from Emile Baudot, an early digital communication pioneer. In 1874 he introduced one of the first practical printing telegraphs using the five bit code which bears his name. The original version had a five key piano keyboard, on which the operator pressed the appropriate keys for the code for each letter. The system worked synchronously at 30 wpm so the operator had to key each letter at the correct time, clocked by a ticker. The machine sent the five bits serially so his scheme could be used in combination with many of the multiplexing schemes already in use for Morse telegraphy, an important practical advantage. (This info cribbed from my 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica.) Even though 30 wpm is quite slow by later standards, it's still about three characters per second, so I imagine that the combination of having to memorize the letter combinations and operate in precise sync with the clock required highly skilled operators. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: TWX/Telex, Realtime vs Store/Forward Organization: Netcom On-Line Services Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 19:19:00 GMT oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) writes: > It's hard to even imagine 50-baud baudot code in this world of > instantaneous email and fax, but it was only a few years ago that it > was the dominant format for international text communication. In the early 1970s, I worked at Sperry Vickers, where we had a UNIVAC 1108 mainframe, which, in addition to its many other duties, ran a message switch over Telex lines. Most lines were 50 baud 5-level, but the dedicated line from Detroit to Austrialia was 16 2/3 baud, one-third of the standard rate. A Teletype (an ASR-35) mechanically geared for 16 2/3 baud was provided for test purposes. This was the slowest printer I have ever seen or heard of. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: catfood@apk.net (Mark W. Schumann) Subject: Re: "Spambone" Spam Backbone Press Release From Sanford Wallace Date: 23 Nov 1997 14:38:32 -0500 Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Public Access Uni* Site In article , Jay R. Ashworth wrote: > On 21 Nov 1997 19:31:02 GMT, Bruce Pennypacker noagis.com> wrote: >> be self-regulated." Technical Details: GTMI has established a >> national backbone which operates as a fully-meshed network >> operating at DS-3 speeds, and interconnecting, or "peering" with >> several other networks at undisclosed private peering points. > It has been observed, on the mailing list of the North American > Network Operators Group, that they're going to have a _really_ hard > time finding people to actually peer with them. Since the operators > of most of the backbones in the US are on that list, it may get > interesting. But why would Spamford care? He doesn't make his money selling spammed products. He makes his money selling spam services. You can just as easily do the latter on a dedicated spambone that goes nowhere. The fools he sells to would never know the difference. Mark W. Schumann | catfood@apk.net Why should I change or hide my return address to deter spammers? I just loop the garbage right back at 'em. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 1997 21:59:25 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: "Spambone" Spam Backbone Press Release From Sanford Wallace Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. >> The "Spam King," Sanford Wallace, and Walt Rines >> Have incorporated their new bulk-email friendly backbone network > ... Are the direct email marketers only going to be selling to each > other? Sure. Remember, the actual business of spamming is in selling spam software, services, and address lists (many if not most of which are obsolete or just plain wrong) to suckers. Whether or not they get delivered is a detail. Indeed, considering how much grief they get from the recipients when the mail really is delivered, a spambone that couldn't deliver to Internet addresses would be less hassle all around. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 1997 22:38:59 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Last Laugh! Another Early Computer Telex Story Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. There was this guy, let's call him Joe, who around 1971 developed some computer trading models for commodities futures. Being kind of a nerdy guy, he lashed up his minicomputer to Telex interfaces so it could read the ticker in real time and send orders to his broker. One day, the computer invested in a thinly traded commodity, lets call them beans. The price went up, it telexed the broker to order more, and repeated that a few times. The next day, Joe got an extremely stern call from the securities regulators. "Hey, pal, what do you think you're doing?" "Huh?" "You just cornered the market in beans. That's illegal. Did you think we wouldn't notice?" "Uh, oh, my computer did it." He made amends, and programmed his computer never to trade beans again. This is a true story, I know Joe personally, and even though he stayed away from beans, he sure made a lot of money trading other stuff. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #327 ******************************