Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id EAA08962; Tue, 20 Apr 1999 04:06:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 04:06:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904200806.EAA08962@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #52 TELECOM Digest Tue, 20 Apr 99 04:06:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 52 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Should MIT Unplug Faceless Emailer? (Monty Solomon) Good Phone System For Answering Service Business (mft) UCLA Summer Short Courses in Communications Engineering (Bill Goodin) New Service Providers (Joseph Podemski) Book Review: Digital Capitalism, Schiller (Jud Wolfskill) Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (Bill Levant) Re: Now Free Computers From an ISP! (John Mayson) European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if so (K Steinbrenner) Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines (Richard Taylor) Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines (Philip Decker) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Brett Frankenberger) Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars (Justa Lurker) Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars (Tom Betz) 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 networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, 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-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:06:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Should MIT Unplug Faceless Emailer? By Margaret Kane, ZDNN April 13, 1999 4:50 PM PT CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It's called the "re-mailer," a computer server that allows you to send anonymous e-mail messages. And the big question on Tuesday was whether the Massachusetts Institute of Technology should pull the plug on it. The question: Will its faceless missives allow even amateur crooks to plot, steal and hide? Or would they serve to protect whistle-blowers and human rights workers? And so it was along that divide that re-mailer became the focus of a spirited debate among government and technology experts participating in a panel as part of the 35th anniversary celebration of the school's pioneering Computer Science Lab. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2241595,00.html [TELECOM Digest Editor: Last week did mark the 35th anniversary of what we call lcs.mit.edu, and heartiest congratulations are due the members of the staff there, especially those who have worked with me over the years in providing the resources for this Digest and the archives. The archives has always been at MIT except for a short stay at Boston University in the middle 1980's, even though the Digest itself was produced at various locations over the years including Boston University, Northwestern University, and, I believe for a while at Stanford in the early 1980's. I've been back at lcs.mit.edu since around 1994 or so, and in a sense sorry I did not just stay here all along. The connectivity is superb, the technical assistance is great, although I try not to bother the staff at LCS any more than absolutely necessary. In some correspondence with Mary Ann Ladd, a sysadmin at LCS regarding the 35th anniversary, I asked her if she ever wondered what things would have been like if back in 1964 we had known then what we know today regards networking, the internet, etc. Wow! I know how much I have always wished there were such things as computers when I was in high school ... what a blast we would have had. And considering what the past 35 years have brought us, what are we to expect in the next 35 years? Imagine life with computers even in 2010, let alone 2034. It took years to develop computers that could be used on a telephone line at a speed of 110 or 300 baud. My first BBS ran at 110/300. Then someone developed a hardware mod for the Apple modem card which allowed it to 'race along' at 450 baud. After a couple years, 1200 baud modems were available but quite expensive. Then 2400, 9600 ... and today we have a closet full of old 9600 baud modems we cannot give away. The jump from 300 to 9600 was only a few years, and now in the past four or five years 28K and 56K are 'acceptable'. I will bet you that by 2034 everyone -- and I mean everyone, 95 percent of the population or more -- will be connected via cable or LAN or something like that. Speeds of 115K will be the norm. Most people will simply talk to the computer and listen to it; there will be little typing. People today with massive amounts of technical knowledge regards computers will maybe know ten percent of what there is to know in total. That's how I am with telecom now; years ago I *knew* the phone company inside and out. Today I can barely keep up with it and know very little about whole segments of the industry. Perhaps I am better off having grown up as a child with no such thing as a computer. Now I can really see and comprehend what it was that I missed and appreciate it even more, not just taking it for granted. And for the telecom object lesson out of all this, someone said to me the other day, "NOW, can you appreciate the thrill that must have surged through the souls of people like Alex Bell, Ted Vail and others at the 35th anniversary celebration of AT&T back in the early years of this century we are now departing? When *they* stopped to ponder the question of where things were leading ... " Yeah ... The Telephone Pioneers began around 1900 when a couple dozen of the people who had been with AT&T since Day One decided they should have a club for themselves. In later years as all the old people died, the rule was changed to say that members had to have at least twenty years of employment with Bell. I wonder if the time has come for an 'Internet Pioneers' organization? If enough people send me some sort of valid evidence that they were active on the net at least 15-20 years ago and express an interest in an association among themselves and a web page or mailing list, perhaps I will start such a thing. It might be purely social, or perhaps a mix of social and service to the net and the newcomers who are arriving -- not quite at the rate people are fleeing from Kosovo -- but pretty darn fast, to the net community daily. I got 'started in computers' -- in a personal way at home, having used them since 1968 where I was employed -- in 1979, when Daniel Kritchevsky brought me an Ohio Scientific C-1-P and then sat there patiently with me day after day as I learned how to use it; how to find where the 'any' key I was supposed to press was located. The first night I had it, he taught me how to program a simple print statement "I am a computer programmer". And he said, having made the computer print that statement out over and over on the screen, I *was* a programmer now, " .. and don't you forget it .." Then someone else told me about Usenet and Jon Solomon taught me how internet mailing lists operate. Before that, I knew zilch about it. Shortly after that I got Bill Pfieffer started; he knew less about computers when he started than I did a few years before that. And in the time this Digest has been around, several mailing lists and newsgroups have started as offshoots from here including Computer Underground Digest, Computer Privacy Digest, alt.dcom.telecom and comp.dcom.telecom.tech. Daniel Kritchevsky, if you are somewhere reading this, thank you! A good way to show your gratitude for work that has been done at places like MIT is getting a neighbor or friend or family member 'started in computers'. Make a web page for someone; teach them how to use an online service; sell or give them an older unused but still workable computer. Share with people the *good news* of what's happened with computers in the past 35 years; how we have no earthly idea where things will be at 35 years from now, but that *you* want *them* to be in on it. You never know when your efforts might result in a new mailing list or newsgroup twenty years from now; or maybe the person will discover and develop a new technology to benefit the net. Don't worry if you do not have a computer science degree; most of us don't. To LCS/MIT I say thanks for all you have accomplished. To the rest of you I ask, who have you gotten started in computers recently? Thanks for reading! PAT] ------------------------------ From: mft Subject: Good Phone System For Answering Service Business Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 19:34:40 -0400 Organization: Posted via RemarQ Communities, Inc. I am looking for starting up a business as "Answering Service". I need a good phone system that support following features. (1) 2 DID trunk lines (I will order 200 telephone number w/ the 2 DID lines from B.A.) (2) An operator PC colsole w/ POPUP screen features that will show the (a) the phone number that the caller dialed (not caller ID number) (b) an associated TEXT message that will show below the dialed number , so the operator can read back the text message to the caller. Example: if caller dialed "777-1234" the operator will read back "Thank you for calling Sunrise Export". If caller dialed "888-1234" operator will read back "Thank you for calling WinWin Telcom". Please do not hesitate to advise this poor guy. Thanks, Meng tsaim@mft.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good luck with your new business. With all the technological advances in telecom over the past twenty years or so, manual answering services are almost entirely gone. They used to be all over the place years ago, and there is still a limited need for personalized handling by a human being of certain types of calls such as to physicians, counselors, attornies, etc. But I remember very well the owner of Annex Telephone Answering Service in Chicago, where I had an account for several years in the 1960's complaining to me one day that 'those new things on the market now, the automatic machines which answer the phone and tape record the message are just about to put me out of business.' Indeed, I quit his service myself when I bought my first answering machine, a big clunky thing with an acoustic coupler for the reciever in 1967. And people would complain about how much they hated calling someone and 'getting their answering machine', the way people complain about voicemail now. Now you wish you could get an answering machine for a change instead of a demand to press one key after another. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Goodin Subject: UCLA Summer Short Courses in Communications Engineering Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 18:12:11 -0700 This summer, UCLA Extension will present the following communications engineering short courses on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. July 7-9, 1999, "Wavelength-Division Multiplexed Systems and Technologies". The instructor is Alan E. Willner, PhD, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, $1195. July 12-15, 1999, "Kalman Filtering". The instructor is Joseph L. LeMay, PhD, President, St. Joseph Sciences, $1495. July 12-16, 1999, "Digital Signal Processing: Theory, Algorithms, and Implementation". The instructor is Robert W. Stewart, PhD, Faculty Member, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom, $1695. July 21-23, 1999, "Satellite Communications Design and Engineering". The instructors are Bruce R. Elbert, MSEE, MBA, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Hughes Space and Communications International; and Robert C. Perpall, MSEE, Satellite Engineer, Society Europenne des Satellites (SES), Luxembourg, $1195. August 11-13, 1999, "Embedded and Real-time Systems". The instructors are Miodrag Potkonjak, PhD, Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, UCLA; and Mani Srivastava, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA, $1195. September 21-24, 1999, "Automatic Speech Recognition: Fundamentals and Applications". The instructors are Abeer Alwan, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA; and Ananth Sankar, PhD, Senior Research Engineer, Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory, SRI International, $1495. September 22-24, 1999, "Advanced Digital Communications: The Search for Efficient Signaling Methods". The instructor is Bernard Sklar, PhD, President, Communications Engineering Services, $1195. September 29-October 1, 1999, "Digital Signal Processing Applications in Wireless Communications". The instructors are Zoran I. Kostic, PhD, Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Bell Laboratories; and Babak Daneshrad, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, UCLA, $1195. For additional information and complete course descriptions, please visit our web page, http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/, or contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu All of these courses may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Podemski Subject: New Service Providers Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 16:32:04 +0300 Organization: IMCS To whom it may concern, Please direct me to a site or where I can find a survey of new service providers.- Contact managers- Telephone & Fax Numbers & e-mail related to billing issues. Thank You. I remain, Joseph Podemski International Sales Manager IMCS-International Management & Control Systems Tel: 972-3-624-0737 Fax: 972-3-624-0739 Cell: 972-50-408-921 E-mail: Josephp@imcs.co.il Additional Information at: WWW.IMCS.Co.il ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 17:34:13 -0400 From: Jud Wolfskill Subject: Book Review: Digital Capitalism, Dan Schiller The following is a book which readers of this list might find of interest. For more information please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/SCHBHS99 Digital Capitalism Networking the Global Market System Dan Schiller Cyberspace not only exemplifies but spearheads the greater political economy of which it has become such a critical part. The networks that comprise cyberspace were originally created at the behest of government agencies, military contractors, and allied educational institutions. However, over the past generation or so, a growing number of these networks began to serve primarily corporate users. Under the sway of an expansionary market logic, the Internet began a political-economic transition toward what Dan Schiller calls "digital capitalism." Schiller traces these metamorphoses through three critically important and interlinked realms. Parts I and II deal with the overwhelmingly "neoliberal" or market-driven policies that influence and govern the telecommunications system and their empowerment of transnational corporations while at the same time exacerbating exisiting social inequalities. Part III shows how cyberspace offers uniquely supple instruments with which to cultivate and deepen consumerism on a transnational scale, especially among privileged groups. Finally, Part IV shows how digital capitalism has already overtaken education, placing it at the mercy of a proprietary market logic. Dan Schiller is Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. 6 x 9, 320 pp., cloth ISBN 0-262-19417-1 Jud Wolfskill Associate Publicist Phone: (617) 253-2079 MIT Press Fax: (617) 253-1709 Five Cambridge Center E-mail: wolfskil@mit.edu Cambridge, MA 02142-1493 http://mitpress.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:19:52 EDT Subject: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Reply-To: Wlevant@aol.com Calls from my home (610)275-xxxx to AOL's new local numbers (610)234-0528 and (610)233-0511 are now being billed on my IXC's invoice as INTRA-LATA calls ! (610)275 and (610)233 have the same "name-place", and are therefore presumptively local calls; (610)234 is one town over, in a name-place that is ALSO local from here. (610)233 and (610)234 are provided by CLEC's. I assume that someone at Bell screwed up the routing tables in the (610)275 CO switch. Again. Interestingly, it only seems to happen if I dial as 10 digits (which will be REQUIRED here in about three months). Anyone else having this problem lately? When I called WorldCom to have the calls taken off the bill, they talked to me like I was nutz. Bill ------------------------------ From: John Mayson Subject: Re: Now Free Computers From an ISP! Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 15:56:31 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises On Thu, 1 Apr 1999 jkdejanews@my-dejanews.com wrote: > Hi all there, > I came across something really interesting after I read a news item in > one of the mailing lists. I visited www.gobi.com. These people offer > free computer systems for subscribing their Internet services. An > interesting marketing strategy. Comments? My company is partnered with Gobi and I have of course heard a lot about this service. They offer a fully blown multi-media PC, but it runs a 300 MHz low-end Pentium (I forget the name of it ... Celestron?). You have to sign up for 36 months of service which is around $30/month if I remember correctly. On the surface it looks like a good deal, especially to a first time computer buyer. John Mayson ------------------------------ From: Kent K. Steinbrenner Subject: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if So? Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 02:28:42 GMT Organization: @Home Network A few days ago on the U.S. Metric Assn.'s listserv, a list member asked the following: > "While, looking up some information on telephone systems worldwide, I came > across a website on country codes. I know that each country has its own > telephone code for calls originating outside to reach inside. What was > interesting, was that the website noted that Europe was (is) suppose to get > a region wide code beginning in 1999. The code number is +388." He then wanted to know more about this code. A few European members of the listserv didn't know about the code, either, and wanted to know more. I recalled seeing something on this newsgroup last year or the year before about +388, but don't recall when it was (otherwise I'd have gone searching through the archives). Has anyone heard more about +388? Would usage of it require national renumbering of number plans (of course, Italy, France and Spain have been doing that recently, if memory serves me correctly)? Someone else on that listserv wondered why the EU would get a three-digit number; after all, they reasoned, it ought to get a one-digit number like the other "important" areas of the world (+1 for NANPA, +7 for ex-Soviet Union, etc.) Good point! :) Kent K. Steinbrenner Irvine Typographers Irvine, CA 949.262.9667 office ------------------------------ From: Richard Taylor Subject: Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 07:57:35 +0100 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Reply-To: rstaylor@mindspring.com Norman L. Kleinberg wrote: > I've got the contractor home-running CAT-5 lines to a patch panel in the > basement. For phones he's running CAT-3 4-pair, daisy-chained in each > room but in separate runs, meeting in the garage where the TELCO can get > to it. The CAT-5 and phone lines are sharing a wall outlet. . If you haven't finished the wiring yet, consider options. Run CAT 5 for everything. Even though CAT-3 is okay for phones now, the CAT-5 wire has less cross talk and will carry you far into the futhre. Don't run the cables you have designated for phone use to the garage. Put everything on a punch block or patch panel in the basement. That way you have more flexibility. Run 4 4-pairs from the basement patch panel, cross connect area to the place where your OUTSIDE NID (Network Interface Device, also called ONI (outside network interface and SNI (Standard Network Interface) will be. This will give you capability for 16 Telco lines. If you can, put these wires in 3/4 conduit, so you can re-pull them if necessary. Run a #10 THHN solid copper green wire from the electrical ground in the electrical panel box to the NID location. This will be much neater than typical Telco ground on the outside of the wall. Have the Telco plow-in at least two or three 5 or 6 pair Underground drop cables. This will give you the capacity of 10 to 18 Telco lines. Run two quad-shield RG-6 cables from the outside to the basement for cable TV. Do the cable ground the same as Telco. Consider using the Leviton Snap-Jack plates (available from Lowes or wiring wholesaler). They use 2,3,4 or 6 jacks. You can put EVERYTHING (up to 6 devices), including TV, in one plate and they match electrical, which many wiring plates do not.) The daisy-chaining per room is a good idea for phone wires, but you might want to separately home run any room that may be used as an office, and also maybe, the living room. Email me directly if you need more advice. I've been doing custom low-voltage wiring for almost 30 years and I know all the tricks. Good luck. Richard Taylor Carrboro, NC ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 19:15:51 -0400 From: Philip Decker Reply-To: pandc.decker@netsrq.com Subject: Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines Norman, Assuming you're in the US, the telco's lines terminate at the demarcation point ("demarc") which is a plastic box mounted on the side of your house or garage. Depending on how many lines you request, they'll install a bigger demarc or multiple demarcs. You own the wires from there on through the house. How you map their lines into your pairs is only your business. If it's not too late, I would recommend: - Wire everyting with Cat5 - Home run the "phone jacks" to the basement also - Install 110 blocks and/or patch-panels in the basement to terminate all your Cat5 wiring. - Run a 25 pair or multiple 4 pair Cat5s from the basement to the demarc area. Now you can bring in as many telco lines as you want (analog, ISDN-BRI, T1, ISDN-PRI, DSL, etc.). They all go to the basement. Since all your wall jacks are star wired to the basement they can be assigned voice, data or whatever, based only on how you cross-connect the 110 blocks and what ModJack you use. If you want to install a miniPBX (a la Panasonic keyswitch), an ISDN NT-2 (Siemens OfficePoint?), or an ISDN NT-1, you stick it in the basement. If you do the latter don't forget a UPS, since the telco won't be powering your phones. Philip Decker ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Organization: Netcom Online Services, Inc. Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 01:25:13 GMT [ Pat wrote in a Moderator's Note ] > Now let's get on with Mr. Haylock's problem. AT&T has been illegally > redlining inner city neighborhoods for years. The only difference is, > they teach their operators and supervisors to *lie about it* and make > up some other excuse instead. If what you say is true, AT&T has not only been flouting the law for years, they have been doing it in a manner that is trivial to detect, trivial to prove, and with respect to a politically hot issue. I simply don't think that none of the various minority-rights groups have ever bothered to get two people to place simultaneous calling-card calls to the same place from two different phones, one in a "good" neighborhood and one in a "bad" neighborhood. Repeat this expperiment once a week for a month or two, and do it in several cities. If AT&T is behaving as you suggest, they should have a pretty airtight case pretty quickly. And the financial resources needed to do this test are minimal. (In fact, wouldn't at least one of the Chicago area TV stations be interested in performing this test with you and airing the results?) I simply don't think it would be this flagrant, this sensitive, and this easy to detect, for so long. > AT&T's approach is rather brilliant though, and works quite well con- > sidering how little most people know about telco's inner workings. > AT&T assumes most people will not argue with them -- after all, they > are the telephone company -- and for those few who do want to argue, > one of these excuses is given out: > 1) The computer which processes AT&T calling cards is down right now. > We do not know when it will be back in service. Why, it might be days. > 2) The computer which processes VISA/MC cards is down right now. We > do not know when it will be back in service. It might be a couple weeks. > 3) (This one said with an astounded, almost embarassed tone of voice): > The country where you are calling does not accept the AT&T calling > card as a method of payment. Sure, these all get around unsophisticated end-users. But these all fall flat on their face in a controlled test. So how about it. Any Chicago area readers willing to team up with Pat on this and go try two phones simultaneously to the same place, with similar calling cards? - Brett (brettf@netcom.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not live in the Chicago area any longer or I would help on this. But you need to remember that the large telcos are all major advertisers on television and in the papers. Even a hint to CBS by AT&T or MCI that they were going to drop their advertising if a story like that ran would be enough for CBS corporate to order Channel 2 in Chicago to kill the story. Plus, you have to remember that toll fraud is a serious problem. While I am not saying that should be sufficient reason for the redlining to go on, I will suggest that the telcos could spin a good enough yarn out of it to cloud the issue considerably. I am not certain it would achieve the righteous indignation out of the public that other types of redlining have caused in the past. And in telco's defense, they insist it is not discrimination *based on any certain race or nationality of person*, it is discrimination based on geographic areas. Thus far, geographic areas are not a protected category as is someone's race. Telco says, "we don't care if John Rockefeller or Bill Gates wanted to make a credit card call to an international point from a pay phone in Chicago-Kedzie (the central office on Kedzie Avenue sometimes known as 'Kedzie Bell' in a very poor, very minority, very third-world neighborhood on the west side of Chicago) ... we would not honor their calling card either." Telco insists anyone can get a calling card; anyone at all with a reasonable credit history and a telephone in their name. Therefore, no discrimination based on the *person*. Its just that no calling card can be used for international calls when placed from a pay phone in certain areas of high fraud where telco has no recourse to the caller. Go to a private dwelling place or a store right next to the same pay phone and use the phone there, even charging it to the same calling card which had been denied service from the payphone outside directly in front on the street if desired. Telco says anyone can bill a call however they wish, no questions asked, as long as there exists a physical pair of wires leading to someone who can be held responsible for the uses made of their instruments, as per tariff. Telco says bill the call however you wish, if you are happy we are happy, but if the toll ticket later 'falls out in billing'; i.e. because of no such number and goes into suspense or the toll ticket is later charged back to us as a dispute with the disputing customer being credited and the suspense ledger being charged with yet one more item for the investigators to deal with prior to their occassional general write-off of what is left in suspense uncleared, who would you like us to talk to to get our money? If, said the spokesperson I chatted with, we can use our technological abilities and yank on a pair of wires leading to your premises and legally hold you responsible and prove it to the Court's satisfaction so that a bill collector can whisper sweet nothings in your ear while he rummages around through your purse or your checking account or garnishes your wages, then fine. You tell us how you want your call billed. Who is the investigator supposed to talk to at a ringing pay phone? Some drunk walking past who picks it up and answers? Telco absolutely insists it is *places* not *people*. Everyone can call however they want in Winnetka or Skokie, no one can make an international call from a payphone with a calling card in Chicago- Kedzie. I asked why, with these technological advances that you flout, that allow you to have recourse without question to a private phone, you can't use technological advances to improve still again on the calling card numbering scheme, like you had to do back in the seventies when phreaks, anti-war protestors in their misguided way, assorted other anarchists and dissidents, and outright con artists ripped you for how many ever millions of dollars? Why not more card reader phones where the physical card has to be actually inserted in the phone the entire time the connection is up and the caller has to punch in a pin number besides? I did not devise the system said the spokesperson; I just deal with it now. I did not make up the system and no one here tells the oper- ators to lie. And therein lies the problem. No one seems to know who is quite responsible for 'the system' or why it is many of the operators make up stories that are only thinly veiled in BS ... Maybe it is time for Judge Harold ("I hate AT&T") Greene to come out of retirement and do something useful for a change. Said the spokes- person, "maybe he could authorize the write off I was faced with last year; a couple million dollars in the third quarter is a bit more than the customer service reps are allowed to write off on their own. It had to go way above my manager's head before it could be posted." So who do you sympathize with? I think with some pressure, telcos could do something about it. Pressure? ... hello ... Judge Greene, are you reading this? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 00:36:19 -0500 From: Justa Lurker Subject: Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars Spiro Dreamer wrote: > All telephony links within and outside of Yugoslavia are working > perfectly. ... > Further, the number of international lines to Yugoslavia has > increased over the last two weeks, due to a ten-fold increase in > the traffic. It was never so easy to get a connection. ... > The public telco system is more likely to be used by the military (for > non-secure military communications) than the TV. Television is more likely to be used by the military for 'propaganda', for example the shooting down of the F-117 and the capture of the three American troups. Plus television can be used as a rallying point for the people. Show hundreds of people on a bridge having a rock concert - show a Yugo factory where workers were being human shields - show fellow Yugoslavians wearing the "TARGET" sign. All of this public show of support for Yugoslavia can be translated into support of the government and the military by *television*. > So, why has the TV been targeted whilst the telephone system is > working so well, and even better????? It is harder for the military/government to call every Yugoslavian in the middle of the night and tell them which buildings no longer exist, and which bombs did not hit their targets. *Television* can be on the scene and showing everything *LIVE* as it happens to anyone who cares to tune in. (Including the international community watching Serbian TV via CNN International.) As long as the Serbians can continue to show that they are the weaker party in this battle - through television - then strike out and show that they are not powerless and that NATO is not invunerable - through television - then show that NATO cannot guarantee 0% collateral damage - through television - television remains a target. The turning point in the Gulf War was the video of the 'Baby Milk Plant' that was destroyed. The world began to see what colateral damage was. A second turning point was the caputure and torture of "UN" troups in that battle. The turning point in Vietnam was the television coverage of American deaths and the televised 'murder of civilians' that showed how bad war always was. As long as the war is occuring in Yugoslavia and not in our parlours NATO is happy. THAT is why television is a much greater enemy than the telephone system. Besides with every family contact that is made by telephone people in the west know that their relatives are fine and that NATO has not killed them. If the phone system went out then relatives in the west would not know if the people of Yugoslavia were safe and would assume the worst. I support the troops. My family has spent too many years in the military not to support the troops. But this battle is not one that I support. We are on a dangerous footing already, and there seems to be no way out except to quit before Vietnam *is* repeated. "Justa Lurker" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Justa, I think I agree with you, and this once I'll let an anonymous message go though, but please provide at least a reasonable sounding name in the future, okay? PAT] ------------------------------ From: tbetz@panix.com (Tom Betz) Subject: Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars Date: 19 Apr 1999 14:52:16 -0400 Organization: Society for the Elimination of Junk Unsolicited Bulk Email Reply-To: tbetz@pobox.com Quoth Spiro Dreamer in : > NATO is currently destroying TV transmitters in Yugoslavia under the > excuse that they are used for military purposes. No, they aren't. And the officer who floated the idea (surprising his superiors) during a press briefing was summarily transferred to less public duties. |We have tried ignorance | Tom Betz, Generalist | |for a very long time, and | Want to send me email? FIRST, READ THIS PAGE: | |it's time we tried education.| | || YO! MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS HEAVILY SPAM-ARMORED! | ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #52 *****************************