Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA23182; Wed, 12 May 1999 21:10:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 21:10:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905130110.VAA23182@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #81 TELECOM Digest Wed, 12 May 99 21:10:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 81 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Where in the World is joey@lindstrom.com?? (James Wyatt) Re: Where in the World is joey@lindstrom.com?? (Adrian McElligott) Unsolicited FAX Spamming (John R. Covert) Book Review: "ATM", Uyless Black (Rob Slade) Re: ADSL, Digital Hybrid System, Cable Types? (Ron Walter) Re: ADSL, Digital Hybrid System, Cable Types? (Steve Gaarder) Facilities-Based Local Exchange Competition (Ed Ellers) WorldXchange Terrible Experience (Chris Eastland) Pulse EPABX (Keelan Lightfoot) Re: Local Competition: Is it Really? (was Area Code For Wireless) (J Galt) Re: Email and Newsgroup Similarities (Marc Schaefer) One Small Correction (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Wyatt Subject: Re: Where in the World is joey@lindstrom.com?? Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 09:31:48 -0500 Organization: Fastlane Communications (using Airnews.net!) Collecting a database like this could be useful for analysis, but I think, with the increased use of proxies, that it will be diluted over time. As we changed providers (and reassigned subnets) over the last few years, this information will have 'aged' as well. Our former subnets have been reassigned to folks far away from us. One of our customers has users in CA, NY, TX, and UT coming from the same addess. Another has 40,000+ users spread over 28 states coming from the same class 'C' subnet. (btw: after using both them, I'll take Squid over the uSoft proxies until hardware is free) Several high-speed (Cable and DSL) outfits are using proxies to cover wide areas while managing their backbone links. While I'm not saying "it won't work that easily, is that what you are *really* doing?", I really suspect motives when someone collects data from the rest of us while not sharing it. I have participated in surveys in the past when they have shared results. (Anyone remember the postscript maps showing the backbone UUCP providers and links?) It just doesn't sound like we have the whole story - Jy@ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So James, you don't think we have the whole story? How about if I turn the podium over at this point to Adrian McElligott who will give us a truthful presentation about the work going on ... then, after Adrian's testimony, we will empanel a jury to decide the facts in this matter, unless Adrian would prefer a bench trial instead. Adrian, you have been charged with attempted spamming. I will enter a plea of not guilty plea in your behalf. You of course had the right to remain silent, but have chosen to testify. Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Good! PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Adrian McElligott Subject: Re: Where in the World is joey@lindstrom.com?? Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 01:08:55 +1000 Hi again Joey, (and ah hi to PAT too): You certainly have got yourself worked up about this, and I am sorry about that. I really didn't want to piss you off. Let me just address a few of your points because you have taken a few fact, and tried to put a picture together, and where there are pieces missing you have just made up your own. First up I am the registered owner, administrative contact etc on heaps of domains. Just search the InterNic for my name, there are heaps of them. There are also other regional nic's which have domains in my name. So there are a few pieces of the picture that you had, but what you don't know is that I build web sites for a living and although I have worked on these sites, I have built, registered, moved, or whatever, I don't own them. (except for ezymail.com, I do currently still own that one). So objectively - My name is recorded against a few domains - what does that prove. Second, I never said that I wasn't using a form letter. In fact to the contraire, I told you exactly how I got your e-mail address and everything. You even quoted it back to me. So what does that prove? > Let's have a look at this phrase: "...people like yourself, that had > been around the net for a while..." > What a load of bafflegab. How on earth does your robot know how long > I've been on the Internet? Once again you have made an incorrect assumption here. How does my robot know that? Well I really don't like giving out my intellectual property, so I am reluctant to say so, because I take from the spirit of your last message that you would blab it around everywhere, I will tell you this much though. The data is 12 months old because that is how long I have had it sitting on my drive, and it is easy to build a robot to tell how old sites are if you give it some thought. If you really can't think of a way then you let me know, but tell me what is one of the first things that a person does when they put a new site up? Oh what the heck, I will tell you - some search engines remember the date that the site was first logged with them. My robot asks the 'search engine' for sites in the order of their age, and that way I get old sites. So no, it was _not_ a load of bafflegab at all. You just assumed that, because you didn't think that there was anyone out there smarter than you, and you figured that if you couldn't figure out how to determine an approximate age for a site, then no one could. > Your own URL (under the ezymail.com domain) looks and feels like a > sub-page on an ISP's web server. Simply surfing to www.ezymail.com by > itself shows the lie of that - it's a standard Microsoft IIS4 > installation that nobody has bothered to configure. Once again, your facts are right, but your assumptions are wrong, and the problem is that you can't tell the difference between the two. > looks and feels like a sub-page on an ISP's web server. Subjective conclusion, but yes I will accept it as a fair enough observation. > Simply surfing to www.ezymail.com by itself shows the lie That is an assumption I am afraid, and once again it is wrong. Just because you own the server, and you don't use the root web, doesn't mean that your are trying to deceive anyone. I have good reason for not using the root web, you assumed that it is because I wanted to deceive people, but the fact is that I have many web sites on my server, and only one can be root. As I said earlier I develop web sites for people, well I also host sites for people. The reason why the root web is empty, not that it is any of your business, is that I was running a e-mail notification site there, which I have since closed. I still have the source to it, if you want proof. > You are both the owner and operator of "ezymail.com" and > "tradingpostonthe.net", and probably "adsonline.com.au" too (which > processed your original e-mail message), since it shares the same IP > address as "tradingpostonthe.net". All assumptions, and almost all wrong. I built www.tradingpostonthe.net, register the domain etc. It is one of my best sites, check it out hey? However, I don't own it. I do support it and maintain it though. adsonline.com.au is the same site, they changed the name of their company a few years back and they have kept the original url - adsonline.com.au so as not to break any links, bookmarks etc. I am really getting tied of explaining everything to you, but I know if I stop now you will think that I am trying to hide something, so I will press on. I route my mail, incoming and outgoing though their site, they know it, you can tell them if you like. Please, please!! I don't do this to be deceptive, I know that you would be thinking that. I do that because I am multi-homed, and my ISP don't support multi-homed routing, so to split my traffic across my two links, I send everything that I can't individually direct across one link, and everything that I can't across the other. > You try to pass yourself off as a lowly user of somebody else's system. > Admit it. The real purpose of your mailing was to get people to > respond to confirm that the e-mail address was valid and working, thus > making it more valuable when you sell it to spammers or use it yourself > for spam. All assumptions, ALL WRONG. So you think that anyone who uses someone else's system is a 'lowly user' ... mmh that is sad, but you are entitled to your opinion. Your final conclusion, for which there are now no facts to base it on is simply wrong. I am not validating e-mail addresses. I am building a map of the Internet! Fair dink'em I am. Why is that so hard to believe? That is exactly what I am doing. Why don't you checkout my page? Do you really think that someone would go to that much trouble to validate e-mail addresses? Hang-on, I just thought of how to _prove_ it to you. In my e-mail I don't ask you to return my mail do I? Would that not be a lot easier? I would just ask people to respond to my e-mail and tell me their nearest city. Of course I don't do that, because it would not help me build my map, because I need to map an IP address to a location, and I can't get an IP address from an e-mail. Anyway look, tell you what. You add yourself to my interested people list at http://www.ezymail.com/~s9813984/geolocate/faq.htm There is a form at the bottom of the page. Don't worry adding yourself to the list doesn't make you a target for anything, and I am not selling the addresses or doing anything deceptive with them. Hell, do you think that I would want you on the list if I was going to sell it to anyone. (They would send a hit man after me.) If you don't trust me, use a false name and someone else's e-mail account, then you will see in a few months time, that I was not talking a load of bafflegab, but was actually telling the truth. When that time comes, I expect an apology. > Since your connection is directly to Telstra, I think I'll have a word > with them as well.... And I will expect an apology for that too.... PS PAT, I do expect that you will respect my right of reply and will also publish this reply in it's entirety to comp.dcom.telecom. I trust that you do respect the laws of natural justice, and sorry, but I don't have a 1800 number to give you. I also think that this may be a case of a storm in a tea cup, I think that Joey may have been right when he said "thanks to TELECOM Digest, I've become so paranoid about spam and whatnot". Mind you I don't think that it is fair of him to blame your list for his paranoia, but I guess that he is entitled to his opinion. It is amazing how you can quote someone and change the entire meaning of what they say. I am not sure why this still surprises me though, as the media have been doing this for years. -------------------- Judge Judy's Note: Thank you for your testimony, Adrian. Alright, the jury will now retire to consider the testimony given and the evidence previously presented by joey@lindstrom.com ... normally, if a defendant poses a danger to the community, I have to place them in the custody of the Attorney General or his authorized representative during the time they are on trial. In this case, Adrian is released with a stern warning to read this e-zine -- err, appear in court -- later this week when the jury's findings are published, probably Thursday or Friday, USA time. The question for the jury to decide: is Adrian guilty of attempted spamming or not guilty of attempted spamming? The jury will please document its decision with appropriate net research, but do not make it so detailed that it takes me all day to read it. I want to publish as many jury votes as possible. Please read earlier issues of the Digest from this week if you need to review the prior testimony given by Joey. Get your jury decisions in promptly. Court is adjourned! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 13:38:32 -0400 From: John R. Covert Subject: Unsolicited FAX Spamming You thought Title 47 of the U.S. code would stop unsolicited FAX spamming, didn't you? Well, unfortunately, you were wrong. For the past several weeks, all the phones I have have been ringing with the telltale beep-beep-beep of an incoming FAX. Finally, they actually hit the FAX line, and left their advertisement. It asks me to call one of two 900 numbers to get more Faxed information about their product. I called up the phone company to try to find out who owned the 900 numbers, or at least who the LD carrier for that particular number was. The phone company (Bell Atlantic) told me that they didn't have that information, and even if they did, it was proprietary and they couldn't give it to me. Well, at www.nanpa.com there is a list of the LD carriers for each 900 NXX. This got me to MCI. After three more phone calls, I had the name and address of the company behind the 900 numbers. I had hoped they were in Massachusetts, because then I would have just gone down to small claims court and requested the $500 ($1500 if the court decides that the violation was knowing or willfull) that Title 47 of the US Code allows. See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/227.text.html and note that in the section for faxes, the award is due even for a single call, with no need to say "stop" and wait for another call. But they were in Florida, which made things more difficult. I called them up, and they told me that the calls were originating from England in order to be exempt from U.S. law. I am not sure that I believe that they are power-dialling every number in the United States from England. On the other hand, they can probably figure out whether there is a fax machine at the number they call within about two UK message units, so maybe they are. What do other readers of the Digest think? /john ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 08:15:33 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "ATM", Uyless Black Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKATM.RVW 990402 "ATM", Uyless Black, 1999, 0-13-083218-9 0-13-571837-6 0-13-784182-5 %A Uyless Black 102732.3535@compuserve.com uyless@infoinst.com %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1999 %G 0-13-083218-9 0-13-571837-6 0-13-784182-5 %I Prentice Hall %O 800-576-3800 416-293-3621 201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 %P 3 volumes, 873 p. %T "ATM, Second Edition" The preface states that the book is intended for professionals who do not have time to keep up with standards documents, and for engineers in the field. Certainly ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a topic that lots of people want to talk about, but few understand. The topic is divided into three volumes, the first covering ATM as a foundation for broadband networks, the second looking at signalling, and the third discussing internetworking. Chapter one of the first volume is supposed to be an introduction, but it doesn't lay much of a groundwork for the audience. In a storm of vegetable soup, we basically get the idea that people want more bandwidth. Even to come up with the notion that ATM can be carried over SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) requires some reading between the lines. Generally this section would also provide some rationale for the use of ATM, but table 1-3, for example, lists the "top ten" problems to be solved and starts with the request for LAN performance above 100 Mbps at a time when Gigabit Ethernet is starting to become available. Chapter two discusses the conversion of analogue signals to digital data suitable for carriage on digital networks. The explanation is, however, just as confused as that for chapter one. At one point we are given an explanation of pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) that only requires two or three re-readings to understand. Immediately, however, Black starts using PCM (pulse code modulation) without noting the similarity or distinction in the change. So goes most of the material. The remaining topics in book one include the layered network model, existing technologies, Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (B-ISDN), ATM basics, the ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL), ATM switching, traffic management, call and connection control, internetworking, SONET, OAM (operations, administration, and maintenance), the physical layer, and the ATM market. Volume two adds ISDN and B-ISDN architecture, ATM architecture, signalling system 7 (SS7) architecture, addressing, SAAL (signalling ATM adaptation layer), user-network interface (UNI) signalling, B-ISDN user part (B-ISUP) signalling, operations between UNI and NNI (network-node interface), performance requirements, and private network-network interface (PNNI). Volume three looks into internetworking, with a rationale, encapsulation and address mapping, ATM and frame relay, DXI (data exchange interface) and FUNI (frame user networking interface), the ATM Forum's standards FRF .5 and .8, LAN emulation, protocol data units (PDUs), configuration, Next Hop Resolution Protocol (NHRP), and multiprotocol over ATM. One cannot fault a technical book aimed at a technical audience for taking a highly technical tone. On the other hand, if this book is truly aimed at those who have no time to study, it is making extraordinary demands on their time. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 BKATM.RVW 990402 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com If we knew what we were doing we wouldn't call it research now would we? - Albert Einstein. http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 10:30:34 -0500 From: ronw@capcittel.com (Ron Walter) Subject: Re: ADSL, Digital Hybrid System, Cable Types? Brett Gallant wrote: > Since we are using a hybrid system I was wondering if we have to go > with the expense of adding another line to bring us up to a total of > 11 lines instead of 10 to service our building. Would it be possible > for the telco company to use one of the 10 lines to feed my ADSL > connection to the ADSL host computer? > The reason I'm asking is so far I've noticed that with our existing > system I only manage speeds of 28Bps with my usr 56k modem. If I take > the same system out of the building or switch to a line that is not > hooked up to the hybrid system I get decent connect speeds of > 45-49bps. Could the Cat 3 voice cable affect this or is it an issue > with the electrical current that powers the phones hooked up to this > system? Cat 3 voice cable is not your problem, as it's generally better than the cable used by the phone company. Without viewing your current location I would suggest the problem is more likely that the modems are hooked up as extensions of the system. You will have that problem on about any PBX or Hybrid system -- something about the switching that has to go through to make the connection with the phone company line. Actually, 28.8 is a pretty good speed if you are running through a hybrid system, especially if you are running through one of those that hooks up through a port on the phone (XDP or Extra Device Port). I would bet that if you connect the modem directly to the phone line ahead of the phone system that your speeds would improve, even if it is a phone line used by the phone system. That was a big selling point on the one line of Panasonic phones -- that you could plug your modem into the jack on the back of the phone. We'd always warn people that their speeds were limited, but that never seemed to matter when you are saving $500 over other alternatives. Anyway, the phone system being hooked up to the line won't affect speeds and shouldn't affect the DSL, either. You should be able to use one of your existing lines just fine. Ron Walter Capitol City Telephone Lincoln NE TELECRASTINATION (tel e kras tin ay' shun) n. The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 11:09:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Steve Gaarder Subject: Re: ADSL, Digital Hybrid System, Cable Types? Brett Gallant writes: > The reason I'm asking is so far I've noticed that with our existing > system I only manage speeds of 28Bps with my usr 56k modem. If I take > the same system out of the building or switch to a line that is not > hooked up to the hybrid system I get decent connect speeds of > 45-49bps. Could the Cat 3 voice cable affect this or is it an issue > with the electrical current that powers the phones hooked up to this > system? No, it has to do with the fact that the Panasonic Digital Hybrid switch digitizes the audio at a lower rate than the standard 64k bits per second. The result works fine for voice, but high-speed modem connections suffer. You're doing well to get 28k out of it. Steve Gaarder Network and Systems Administrator gaarder@cmold.com C-MOLD, Ithaca, N.Y., USA ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Facilities-Based Local Exchange Competition Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 06:14:34 -0400 Pat, the TELECOM Digest Editor, noted: > I have used the same analogy as yourself in the past when arguing > that competitors should be required to actually compete. Picture a > store in which your competitor gets to purchase your products at a > greatly reduced price then stand the same store as yourself and sell > them at a slightly reduced cost to people who had been your customers > until he got a judge somewhere to agree that it was 'unfair' to make > him build his own store. He also uses your shopping carts and often > times has your cashiers ring up his customer's sales and then remit to > him. If something goes wrong with the product he resells, or it is > unsuitable for the customer's needs, he blames you for it and is > continually sending his customers to see you, out of frustration since > he makes it difficult for the customers to get through to him with > complaints, etc. The above scenario is what 'local competition' in > telephone service amounts to." That's all very true; the only quibble I have is that there is no way that a competing LEC can offer a usable service unless it can interconnect with the incumbent LEC so everybody with a phone can still call everybody else with a phone. That was the big problem with the dual phone systems early in the century -- the Bell companies refused to interconnect with the independents in a given area, so residential customers usually chose the same telco their friends had and businesses often had to keep two phones. In some areas one of the two companies would be willing to give businesses the same number they got from the other telco, so you'd see ads saying "Both Phones 297" or whatever. (In Louisville we used to have ads listing "Cumberland" and "Home" numbers. The latter wasn't the proprietor's home phone -- it was a business line provided by the Home Telephone Company.) I suspect the telecom landscape would be *very* different if, instead of the states following the progressivist notion that a regulated monopoly would be more efficient than competing telcos, the Federal government had simply stepped in and forced LECs to interconnect! Frankly, I'd *very much* like to see real, facilities-based local competition, since a reseller can't improve the situation if the incumbent telco is incapable of providing good service. I've been fighting with BellSouth for the past two years over some severe problems I've been having with modem connections (including fax) since they cut over a new switch; as best I can tell their carrier system is distorting the signal and going back to a copper pair would fix it, but they refuse to do that. This past Monday, in fact, one of their reps tried to convince me that, as long as I can get a dial tone, everything is okay and they have no obligation to fix the situation. (The BellSouth rep had the gall to try to sell me ISDN! That's like a Lincoln-Mercury dealer refusing to fix a new Sable under warranty and instead trying to sell the customer a Town Car.) Right now if someone came to me and offered service off a second-hand 1A ESS switch I'd take it, as long as they gave me a real pair instead of the imitation telephone service BellSouth provides in my neighborhood. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Court did require AT&T to inter- connect much earlier this century. Then maybe fifty years ago the Court ruled further that AT&T was forbidden to aquire any more telephone operating companies with one exception: if the telco was about to go bankrupt or was otherwise in imminent danger of ceasing operation, then AT&T *had* to buy it and take over. My point all along with both local and long distance competition has been that the competitors should have been required to make the same capital outlay on outside plant which AT&T had to make. They should have been required to devote the same amount of resources to research as AT&T put into Bell Laboratories. If I had been the judge, I would have instructed the competitors to build their network, solicit subscribers, etc and that the only thing I would do is order the Bell System to treat the newcomers at 'arms length'; to provide a supply of telephone numbers in a fair way. And when the new competitor was ready to interconnect, I would order Bell to open its front door and hand a bunch of wires out saying, 'here are your pairs ...'. If the competitors were so afraid of Bell being unfair, as the judge I would have ordered that Bell only had the right to make one demand, that being that competitor met technical standards, numbering plan requirements, things like that. I would never have required that Bell take the competitors in as 'roomates' in their central office, or share their billing records, etc. I would probably have required that Bell share their conduits, and henceforth shared in the maintainence cost. No one wants the streets dug up all the time. I would have overridden any local franchise deals which put the competitors at a disadvantage. We know that local telco executives are frequently very chummy at the local country club with the mayor and city council members as well as state commissioners. I would have warned all concerned that there had best not be any game playing. I would have required Bell to include the newcomers in its billing practices, calling cards, etc more for the convenience of the public than as an advantage to the competitor. Full and total interchange, but nothing more. Do you realize that in the fifteen plus years since divestiture that have passed, had any of the competitors seriously begun construction of their own network, outside plant, etc they could have had it done by now? *Then* we would see honest competition, and if, after all that effort the competitors could sell it for less, let it happen. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Chris Eastland Organization: Shoreview Consulting Inc. Subject: WorldXchange Terrible Experience Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 09:22:27 -0400 I thought I'd share this to help any other unfortunates. I use US-UK dialling a lot (I live in Boston area) and read some email that mentioned 7c a minute, to also apply to calling card calls. Very impressive. A month ago I was paying 10c a minute with MCI (pretty good) but calling card int'l calls were high (maybe 30c a minute or so) except when dialing home number from UK. I am adding a UK branch office soon and thought I could use the Int'l callback too so I determined to try out WorldXchange on one line before switching the rest. So I switched -- called my local carrier as asked and told them (BA) to switch LD carrier to Worldxchange, which they promptly did. Result: No Long Distance Service! Worldxchange customer service (henceforth WX in this post) told me it took four days to hook up and that I should not have called BA even though their agent told me to, until WX were ready (They didn't tell me how I would know they were ready). OK, fine. I have other phones ... so I can use MCI on these still. Four or five days latter after a few calls to Cust Serv it WORKS!! I am in 7c city (I hope). 00 no longer returns the dreaded 'fast busy'. I can dial LD in the US and Int'l to the UK! At least it worked for a few days. Last Firday it stopped working again. I can only dial 800 and 888 numbers from the phone -- the rest and 00 -- fast busy. So I called WX, waited ten minutes in a queue, and recorded a problem. Then I sent email from www.worldxchange.com. Someone called Steph said she'd look into it. The next few days with no sign of the problem going and no calls from WX to say it had been fixed, I called WX again with the same five to ten minute wait. I was told to get a Local Phone company test. I did. BA said no probems and LD calls were going through to WX as requested. I told WX this (five to ten minute wait). They said OK, they would call tech cust serv again. More mail to and from Steph, mostly saying she could not escalate my problem as it hadn't been 48 hrs. 4th day of no LD service. I called BA, they rechecked line -- no problem. WX say no calls getting through to them. Steph ignoring email. WX custserv say they are doing all they can etc. NOW they can escalate. Still nothing, no LD since Friday. No one cares. Cheap rates mean nothing if you can't connect. Good luck. If you hear of any good rates with actual service please let me know. Chris Eastland ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 22:58:52 -0700 Subject: Pulse EPABX From: Keelan Lightfoot" Greetings, I'm looking for any information on Northern Telecom's Pulse 120/80 EPABX (SG-1A/SG-1). Anything from where I can locate spare parts to where I could find out information about the creators of this system. I have been scouring the internet, and have searched every TELECOM digest from 1981-1989, and found nothing that looks relevant. (I picked such early digests because Northern Telecom produced this system in the 70's and early 80s.) Any help would be greatly appreciated. Keelan Lightfoot PS: You can find out more about my PBX 'project' at: http://www.bzzzzzz.com/beehive/keelanl/pbx/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 15:08:16 -0700 From: John David Galt Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: Local Competition: Is it Really? (was Area Code For Wireless) > http://telecom-digest.org/history/standard.oil.and.bell.sys produces a "Not Found" screen on my browser (Mozilla). John David Galt [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if I should hire a proof-reader to go over my notes sometimes ... this is going to make two corrections in one day (the other one comes a bit later in this issue): Try http://telecom-digest.org/archives/history/standard.oil.and.bell.sys ^^^^^^^^ PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 07:42:14 +0200 From: Marc SCHAEFER Subject: Re: Email and Newsgroup Similarities Organization: ALPHANET NF -- Not for profit telecom research In article you wrote: > So just remember, when your mail is important, and needs to reach > the recipient post-haste and get right to his attention, be sure > to backslash him to go right to his default mailbox on the system > and ignore any booby-traps he has set for you along the way, things > that would cause your valuable mail to be ignored or destroyed. And what if he left that university and the .forward file has a reason? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 00:24:58 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: One Small Correction Well, make that two corrections, since I had to re-enter the URL for the 'Standard Oil and Bell System' report ... Yesterday I mentioned in my item on the use of backslashes to bypass a recipient's .forward file that 'one slash would probably be enough.' That is not correct, and I should have looked over my own scripts here to refresh my memory first. You always need TWO backslashes, because sendmail will strip off the first one it sees. The first backslash \ serves as a shell escape and the second one then travels with the email address to its destination. You can also try quoting the email address with a slash as the first character and see where that gets you, as in this example, "\joeblow"@sitename or perhaps "\joeblow@sitename". That seems to get YOUR sendmail to leave the backslash alone, but results vary on the recieving end. I think a double backslash is better. Also, it was pointed out that while sendmail definitly allows a backslash as a way to bypass any .forward file, the software known as qmail does not do that. Attempts to backslash a user who is served by qmail will fail, with the mail returned saying that ' \joeblow is unknown user' even if joeblow is okay. But, take heart spammers! An awful lot of sendmails are still in service, with no sign of being retired from service anytime soon. Just remember that old sneaky sendmail will rip off that backslash while you are not watching unless you use two of them to convince him otherwise. And to the guy who wrote me saying he just accepts delivery of everything in his default mailbox and *then* starts processing it once the spammer has dumped his load and left ... well sir, you are a very wise man. To answer Mr. Schaefer's point 'what if the person left there and went somewhere else', then I guess he will not be getting a box full of spam every day as a result of his old address. And sendmail like so much of the software which binds our virtual community was written in a long-ago time when things were much, much different around here. Who was it I quoted here in a story in the papers a couple months ago? The newsgroup moderator who pointed out that things are getting a bit ragged and frayed around the edges, or words to that effect ... it is a glowing testimony I think, to the original developers of what we now call 'the net' that it has held together as well as it has under the strain of America getting wired up. Join me again next time for more corrections and things stated as absolute facts. Who knows, maybe the jury will have announced its verdict in the Joey vrs. Adrian case by this weekend! PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #81 *****************************