Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA01548; Wed, 19 May 1999 15:57:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 15:57:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905191957.PAA01548@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #87 TELECOM Digest Wed, 19 May 99 15:57:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 87 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telcomine: Summary for May 1999 (Seema Dhawan) A Busy Weekend for Global Crossing - US West, Sources Say (Monty Solomon) Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 (Linc Madison) Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 (Bill Newkirk) Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 (Patty Winter) Which Countries Use A-law vs. u-law Codecs? (Toby Nixon) Re: Australian Pay Telephones (JF Mezei) Re: Internet Pioneers (Ron Bean) Re: DNA Dragnet (Free Spirit) Internet Pioneers Update (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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Seema Dhawan Subject: Telcomine: Summary for May 1999 Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 16:47:29 +0530 *****TELCOMINE************ Wealth of Information about Telecommunications Volume 2,No 5, May 1999 IN THIS ISSUE 1. IBM'S CELL PHONE -CUM- COMPUTER WITH 11" VIRTUAL SCREEN ON 1.4" BASE In a remarkable multi-media quantum leap IBM says it is "cooking up" a cell phone plus computer that would navigate the web with the thumb over an 11 inch virtual screen, enter data by voice and provide an entire range of telecom facilities such as phone calls, email, faxes and voicemail. 2. BRITISH TELECOM'S HANDWRITING COMPUTER - NO KEYBOARD It was thought that the biggest revolution in handwriting was the pen. Not anymore. British Telecom has come up with the next big revolution - a computer which lets the user write by hand without keyboards. 3. TELECOM SERVICES NET $800 BILLION Big differences have been visible in estimates of revenue generated by telecom services in 1997-98, believed to be $800 billion in 1998. 4.CLINTON-OBUCHI DEAL TO FIGHT Y2K BUG - BUT THE VIRUS IS ALREADY HERE Believe it or not, the Y2K bug has attained the distinction of figuring in the just concluded US-Japan Washington summit between President Clinton and Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. The two mightiest economies in the world have agreed to join forces to squash the Y2K bug. 5. WILL INTERNET BREED MORE LITTLETONS? The Littleton tragedy once again aroused the conscience of the world against the numerous dangers of Internet. Several possibilities have emerged for checking its misuse against corrupting the minds of the young and committing violence, deception, fraud, indecency, pornography and a wide variety of other crimes. Telcomine takes a look at this phenomenon through the following six stories: A. PENTIUM III NUMBERS CAN TRACK "ROGUE COMPUTER" In its new Pentium chip Intel Corp, the giant chip maker has embedded a serial number in each chip, which can also serve as its unique identity number. This can be an ideal clue to track down any "Rogue Computer" which may be the source of putting out criminal or objectionable material on Internet. B. FILTERING SOFTWARE BLOCKS ACCESS TO OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL A number of products are available which, when installed in the personal computer, block access to web sites containing objectionable material. These products work by creating lists of sites that are deemed inappropriate for access by children. C. AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT CLASHES WITH ISPs OVER CENSORSHIP The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999 sets out a censorship regime for Internet Service Providers that will be based on a "black list" of sites. The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), decided that the sites have to be blocked or ISPs will face fines of up to AUS$27,500 (US$17,600) per day, per site. D. LIE-DETECTING SOFTWARE TO CATCH DECEIT Even when a liar wags his finger, his voice betrays him. With this principle in mind, an avante garde piece of software- the Fortress Personal Lie detector - is developed. This Software detects a lie by identifying minute physiological changes that express themselves by beeping while the subject is knowingly engaged in deception. E. NET SLEUTH PROGRAM COULD HELP STOP INTERNET SCAMS "Net Sleuth,'' a computer program being developed at the U.S. Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico may soon make it easier for regulators to spot misleading stock tips or fake news stories on the Internet. The program specializes in sorting through massive amounts of information to find specific clues that could spot a bogus stock tout and help pinpoint the author of anonymous words in cyberspace. F. BRITISH TELECOM'S WAR ON NUISANCE CALLS The burgeoning increase of e-mail and fledgling Internet telephone technology are making communicating around the world cheaper, easier and faster for anyone with a computer. But one of the unintended consequences of this has been the problem of junk (unsolicited) electronic mail and malicious and unwanted telephone calls. 6. FEDERAL AGENCIES PROBE HIDDEN CHARGES IN LONG DISTANCE CALLS Cheap calls may not be as cheap as advertised. This is the reason behind a new probe by two Federal Agencies who have been receiving complaints from callers saying they are being hit with fees not advertised by some alternative long distance companies, purporting to provide discounted long distance calls through their "dial-around service" or the more commonly known "10-10" dialing service. 7. BEAT THE BILLING NIGHTMARE With new services and new carriers entering the market regularly, billing has become a carrier nightmare and led to inaccuracies in customer's bills. In an article to the Internet Telephony magazine, Mr Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech, discusses how it can be brought under control. 8. MAGICTEL SUCCESSFULLY USES eBILL FOR IP TELEPHONY Infozech's billing solution eBill meets with a good start in Hong Kong when Hong Kong giant Magictel successfully uses it to send out bills to its customers for the Month of May. 9. MAILBOX Thank You Telcomine Billing World - an International magazine on the billing and customer care industry thanks Telcomine for mentioning its "Billing System Functionality Report" in the newsletter. Regards Seema Dhawan Infozech -- Software for Telecom Service Providers Telcomine: A 'FREE' Telecom & Technology Newsletter http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html To subscribe: Send a mail to nl@infozech.com Fax: 91-11- 6287117, Tel: 91-11-6234664, 91-11-6283113 in US Contact: 408-490-2840, 2090 Hillsdale Circle, Boulder, CO-80303 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 23:08:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A Busy Weekend for Global Crossing - US West, Sources Say http://thestandard.com/articles/mediagrok_display/0,1185,4582,00.html A Busy Weekend for Global Crossing - US West, Sources Say Global Crossing and US West skipped the yard work this weekend in favor of pumping iron, as they hammered out a merger. The deal teams a hyperactive two-year-old that has plowed its revenues into undersea fiber-optic network and has converted its enormous stock prices into a string of acquisitions with a Baby Bell offering local telephone service in 14 sparsely populated states. After a 50 -50 stock swap, the two will create a company with $17 billion in annual revenue and a stock market cap of $65 billion. On Friday, CNBC reported that talks between the companies were under way. That left business writers trying to track down the details over the weekend, and most of this morning's crop of articles quoted unnamed sources. London's Financial Times was the only news outlet to claim confirmation from both companies; the FT also scored with comments from US West Chairman Solomon Trujillo. The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal cemented Global Crossing as one of the new heavyweights in telecommunications. The merger is typical of the frenzied pairing-off in the telecom industry, but according to reporters Steven Lipin, Rebecca Blumenstein and Stephanie Mehta, analysts wonder how the new company will work, especially since US West has yet to ask the FCC's permission to offer long-distance service in its area. That means it might be years before Global Crossing's network can delivers long-distance voice and data services within the US West region. Lipin and Blumenstein's Heard on the Street column gets at what the deal is really about: The magic of multiples. With Internet play Global Crossing trading at 40 times cash flow, and US West at a puny six times, "To a certain extent, Global Crossing wants to do this deal because it can," they wrote. "That reflects a growing divide between the new and old worlds of telecommunications." Washington Post staff writer John Schwartz wondered whether the FCC will help close the gap by blessing the deal. Critics may question whether the merged company will be able to offer long-distance service within the US West region, but Schwartz's sources report little geographic overlap between the long-distance services offered by Frontier, which Global Crossing is acquiring, and US West's 14-state footprint. The Denver Post took a regional view, wondering about the local ramifications of reports that the new company would maintain operations in Colorado but set up headquarters in New York. But Post business writer Roger Fillion was also able to add local context that reports from national papers missed. He notes that the merger represents a strategic reversal for Trujillo, who had espoused a go-it-alone strategy as recently as one month ago. He also detailed some of the subscriber numbers to which other outlets had glibly referred: US West's aggressive use of advanced technologies amounts to 35,000 DSL subscribers over the carrier's 14-state area – that's about half of the total DSL market. As for announced plans that US West's Trujillo and Global Crossing chief executive Robert Annunziata will run the company together, Bloomberg wire copy published in USA Today held out little hope for the union. Fahnestock & Co. analyst Scott Wright told Bloomberg he gives the shotgun marriage little more than a year. Global Crossing Is Poised to Merge With US West http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB926704513151397395.htm Upstart's Bid for U S West Is Just a Sign of the Times http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB926905492344923291.htm Global Crossing and US West Confirm $37 Billion Merger http://www.ft.com/hippocampus/qd3cfa.htm US West, Global Crossing to Merge http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/may99/global17.htm Global Crossing, US West Near Merger http://www.usatoday.com/money/mds023.htm U S West Merger Imminent http://www.denverpost.com/business/biz0517a.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 14:05:34 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 Organization: LincMad Consulting In article , merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) wrote: > Eric B Morson writes: >> The Portland and Salem areas in northwest Oregon will receive a 971 >> overlay area code beginning January 30, 2000. Permissive 10-digit >> local dialing will begin on July 11, 1999 and become mandatory on >> January 30, 2000. See the full text of the press release at: >> http://AreaCode-Info.com/headline/1999/or990514.htm > If I read this right, it means the end of being able to dial a > seven-digit number from my house. From my 503- phone number, I'll > need to dial "5 0 3 - xxx xxxx" to get across the street! > Why in the creator's name are they eliminating that? I can dial local > calls in San Jose with seven digits! They are eliminating 7-digit dialing because Portland will no longer have 7-digit local numbers. There will be some 503 numbers and some 971 numbers. As for San Jose, yes, you can still dial local calls in San Jose with 7 digits, but only for another four months. As of October 1, 1999, you must dial 1+10D for all local calls in San Jose, in anticipation of the introduction of the 669 overlay. > Is the rest of the country also eliminating seven-digit numbers too, > and I just haven't caught on? Yes, much of the rest of the country is also eliminating 7-digit local dialing. It's already gone in Atlanta, Miami, Maryland, Dallas, Houston, Denver, and part of Los Angeles. It's already scheduled to go away in Anaheim, San Francisco, San Mateo, Oakland, San Jose, San Bernardino, Orlando, Philadelphia and suburbs, and northern Virginia, and in danger in Maine, southeast Texas, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Charlotte NC, Boston, most of Los Angeles, northern San Diego County, California's Wine Country, and other areas. Tampa Bay, eastern Kentucky, Phoenix, and Pittsburgh are among areas that narrowly missed going to overlays and therefore 10D or 1+10D local dialing. Kansas City is about to join a long list of areas where local calls to adjacent area codes can no longer be dialed with just 7D. (Calls that stay on one side of the state line will still be 7D, but calls between Missouri and Kansas will require 10D.) ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 23:13:37 -0400 Organization: Posted via RemarQ Communities, Inc. Orlando (most of the current 407 AC minus Brevard County and Debary that'll be in 321 when that starts up..) is running 10 digit dialing right now ... If there's going to be more phones than addresses, then we either have six digit ACs or longer "normal" phone numbers. rdgs, bill n. ------------------------------ From: pwinter@best.com (Patty Winter) Subject: Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 Date: 19 May 1999 14:52:47 -0700 In article , Randal L. Schwartz wrote: > If I read this right, it means the end of being able to dial a > seven-digit number from my house. From my 503- phone number, I'll > need to dial "5 0 3 - xxx xxxx" to get across the street! > Why in the creator's name are they eliminating that? I can dial local > calls in San Jose with seven digits! Not for long you can't. :-) We'll be getting an overlay in 408 soon, too. Yes, it's a bit of a hassle, but at least it doesn't force all the businesses in the area to buy new stationery, cards, etc. as would be needed if part of 408 were simply chopped off and given a new area code. Still, neither solution is ideal, and I hope this AC madness can get fixed soon ... Patty ------------------------------ From: Toby Nixon Subject: Which Countries Use a-law vs. u-law Codecs? Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 17:17:40 -0700 Does anyone know where to locate a list of which countries use A-law and which use mu-law G.711 PCM codecs in their national networks? I searched the ITU web site and didn't find anything useful. Thanks. Toby L. Nixon Program Manager, Windows Networking and Embedded Products Group Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond WA 98052 USA +1 425 936-2792 Fax: +1 425 936-7329 Cell: +1 206 790-6377 ------------------------------ From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Australian Pay Telephones Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 21:52:06 -0400 Darryl Smith wrote: > The markets for Phone Cards vs. Smart Cards are different. Here in > Australia EVERY public phone accepts a stored value card (Usually a > smart card, although there are a few magnetic phones around still). The "markets are different". Yep, that is what a Telstra rep told me. But why? What is wrong with providing the same long distance rates on those PhoneAway cards *and* smart-cards? Why should users of smart cards be penalized? Are there technical reasons why a smart card could not be charged a different rate for long distance than coins? (Most smart card phones in australia accept both card and coins)? I can understand why coins should not get a price break. They require a visit from an employee to collect the money. But a smart card user should be given a break. And as far as "EVERY public phone" thing. Have you not heard about those gold phones ? ? ? ? Or are you so ashamed of these touch-tone- that-dials-pulse el cheapo phones that you do not which to admit to their existance? (Blue phones come close to being as bad, but at least they dial with touch tone). (Both Gold and Blue phones are customer owned phones, located in public places (often in roadhouses, hotels or resorts, neither take card, except the phoneaway cards which are just like calling cards, you punch in your number (or speak to an operator in the case of gold phones since you can't use keypad)). ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Internet Pioneers Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 20:37:24 CDT From: Ron Bean James Wyatt writes: > The term 'internet' was (or I thought) only applied to machines that were > directly IP connected to 'The Net'. > In short, you weren't really on The Internet unless you could > directly telnet to other machines on 'The Net'. At the time someone said: "If you can type 'ping nic.ddn.mil' and get a response, then you're on the internet". Even just getting access to Usenet was a Big Deal before programs like "UUPC" (UUCP for PC's) and Fidonet gateways came along. Before then you had to have an account on a unix box, and unix machines were expensive. That all changed when the '386 came along and several companies licensed the unix source from AT&T. Remember Eric Raymond's FAQ on buying a PC to run unix? These days, any garden-variety discount store PC will run linux just fine. ------------------------------ From: Burn@D.man (Free Spirit) Subject: Re: DNA Dragnet Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 15:47:14 GMT Organization: Black Rock City My biggest concern for the new reliance on DNA evidence in criminal cases is that it is much easier to 'plant' DNA evidence at a crime scene than it is to fake a fingerprint. On Fri, 14 May 1999 02:34:49 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > Tom Schoenberg > Legal Times > May 10, 1999 > DNA is in the criminal justice headlines nearly every day: A prisoner on > death row for a crime he didn't commit is released; a defendant awaiting > trial for rape is exonerated. > But if DNA's capacity to exculpate makes for a compelling story, its > ability to help cops solve crimes is reshaping law enforcement. After a > push by Congress begun in 1994, every state is now collecting DNA from > violent offenders, while the courts are batting away constitutional > challenges to the practice. > http://www.lawnewsnet.com/stories/A1301-1999May7.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Police have long had the right to take > fingerprints from persons who are arrested, and we do not hear too > many complaints from civil liberties advocates about that. I would > assume by extension that police have the right to gather whatever > identifying information they can from arrested people, but the catch > is that fingerprints -- once years ago the latest technology in > people identification -- are rather feeble when compared with DNA > type-casting. DNA records are just a bit too-perfect for comfort > it would seem compared to fingerprints, handwriting analysis and > all those older techniques, although the most banks have started > using thumbprints on checks they cash now; had you noticed that? > Ah, DNA and cookies; what a combination as we enter Century 21. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 18:42:07 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Internet Pioneers Update Over the weekend, a *large* groups of links was edited and verified for presentation at internet-pioneers.org / internet-history.org .... About thirty principal, or 'root' links are presented there now which lead to a very wide variety of sources of history about the net. The earliest include messages from Vint Cerf in the 1969-70 period and the latest go through 1995 with comments by and about Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW project. Most of the principal links given present in- turn other links, etc. Also included there are hundreds of VERY old messages from 1981-82 which were part of the Unix Users Network, what we today call Usenet. These old messages and mailing lists were part of either the 'fa.' group or the 'net.' group. If you go there and look at fa.telecom you will even see the first several issues of this Digest, from August, 1981 onward. The software then was called 'A-News'. On checking out that link, I was surprised to find them there myself. This was good news for me, because I had earlier felt certain a few of the very oldest issues from Volume 1 were long since lost. Now, my own collection is complete once again! Sometime later today or tomorrow I am going to be adding one of the 'maps' from the middle 1980's, contributed by Garrett Wollman of the MIT/LCS staff. You can even see Jon Postel's home page which was carefully preserved by someone among the links. Anyway, all the old 'A-News' archives from the beginning, and many hours or days worth of reading through links are available if you want to check it out. The idea behind IHS/Pioneers is to have all the links and the people behind them sort of in one place where any new user who wants to learn about it can find it handily. Its purpose is not to put down or denigrate efforts by other repositories, but to have all the respositories and people involved easily locatable, if they want to be located. A 1995 'home page' by Tim Berners-Lee found among the links includes a note by Tim BL discouraging users who would send him email. I can't imagine why he would be tired of receiving email from users by now, can you? :) ... and a further memo in the stack implies that CERN was just a bit weary of all the publicity the Web was leaving at its doorstep by the same year. So if you did not know that Tim Berners-Lee 'invented' the World Wide Web or that Vint Cerf typed out the letters L-O-G at one end of a phone line while the other end confirmed it was being recieved by them back around 1969 or that we have an Internet Public Library at ipl.org, then check out the links page installed over the weekend. Sir Isaac Newton once commented that, "if I appear to have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants ..." and that is sort of how I felt late last night when I finished editing the links page to the point I felt it was at least presentable enough to be placed on the web. What is still missing? You are! If you were on the net in the 1970's and early 1980's, please write to pioneers@internet-pioneers.org and be part of it. http://internet-pioneers.org (and/or) http://internet-history.org PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #87 *****************************