Date: 19 Sep 2000 06:15:10 -0400 Message-ID: <20000919101510.9357.qmail@xuxa.iecc.com> From: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org (Telecom Digest) To: telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Subject: Telecom Digest V2000 #59 Reply-To: editor@telecom-digest.org Sender: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Errors-To: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: b7e8bbbd323422375fdecb9d7dc912b1 Status: RO X-Status: Telecom Digest Tuesday, September 19 2000 Volume 2000 : Number 059 In this issue: Re: Landline to Wireless Number Portability (article) Re: More Area Code Fun in Eastern Massachusetts Re: More Area Code Fun in Eastern Massachusetts Re: Message format (was: Radio Shack gives away barcode scanner...) Re: Message format (was: Radio Shack gives away barcode scanner...) Re: Message format Re: Telecom Digest V2000 #55 Re: Message format (was: Radio Shack gives away barcode scanner...) Re: Message format Re: Message format Re: Message format Re: Sorry, but... Re: More Area Code Fun in Eastern Massachusetts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Sep 2000 23:02:19 -0400 From: "Michael D. Sullivan" Subject: Re: Landline to Wireless Number Portability (article) wrote in message news:8q55kh$hue$1@solaris.cc.vt.edu... > Yes, but if I recall correctly, there can only be 2 analog cell providers > plus 5 digital cell providers in a given area. So NPA-NXX should resolve > down to 7 or fewer possible carriers. If the central authority database > just sends a query to all 7, then it should only get a response from > the one who holds the service, and can store that info in its cache. Given the wireless carriers' ability to disaggregate spectrum and partition service areas, there is no specific upper bound on the number of providers in a given area. As a practical matter, yes, in most cases there will be 7 or fewer. Now I see where you are going: Instead of splitting the current MIN (Mobile Identification Number), which serves as both the phone number and identification of the phone and carrier, into separate MDN (Mobile Directory Number [dialable phone number]) and MIN (unique identification of the phone and carrier), simply use the MIN, or directory number of the phone. From that, determine what rate center it's from, look up all of the wireless carriers there, and query all of them. There are several problems with this. First, it requires multiple queries just to determine the proper carrier, resulting in about a sevenfold increase in costs for that function of the clearinghouse, imposing costs on six carriers not associated with the phone and disclosing CPNI to those six carriers, and delaying verification. If I were a carrier with a small subscriber base competing with larger carriers, my switch would be queried every time my competitors' customers roamed, imposing disproportionate costs on me. For example, a provider with a 5% market share would get 19 queries concerning other providers' roaming customers for every query concerning the provider's own roaming customers (assuming roaming patterns are the same among the various carriers). The small carrier's costs associated with roaming verification would therefore be disproportionately high per actual customer. This system will not scale well when more carriers are authorized and participate in the roaming clearinghouse, since costs will increase based on the number of carriers, with no increase in the number of customers. Second, it requires multiple database lookups. Presented with a roamer phone number, the clearinghouse would have to determine, (1) what rate center the NPA-NXX is associated with, (2) what wireless carriers have a presence in that rate center (either through assignment of an NPA-NXX, a thousands' block, or ported numbers), and (3) what switches of those carriers to query -- all before even making the multiple queries. The MIN/MDN split, on the other hand, gives the clearinghouse a unique index into a single database that identifies the carrier and switch, as well as the user account, all with one database dip; and only one query then needs to be made. Third, it provides no forward-looking ability to expand the implementation of number portability beyond the rate center. If and when number portability extends across an entire NPA or metro area, your system would have to query many more providers, since a number from one part of an NPA could be ported elsewhere in the NPA where the carriers may be different from those in the original serving rate center. Moreover, the system will break completely if and when number portability becomes nationwide instead of local. Under that scenario, a 202-NXX number originally assigned to a Washington, D.C. mobile could be ported to a Hawaiian wireless carrier, eliminating the geographic mapping of NPAs. This would potentially require queries to every wireless provider in the North American Numbering Plan. Having the MIN as a unique identifier of the serving carrier and account avoids the need for all of these queries. > See above. NPA-NXX should resolve down to very few carriers. It occurs to > me that the separate MIN may have some other advantages though. It's what > they are doing, so there is little point to second guessing them now. Again, NPA-NXX will *now* resolve to a small number of carriers, after some hefty database dips. Remember, roaming mobiles need to undergo registration (automatically) every time they move into another provider's service area. There are a lot of lookups involved for a mobile roaming along an interstate highway, and minimizing the cost of this process is essential. > >> So maybe next year (Nov. 2001) I'll be able to cancel my wired line > >> and go cellular. I look forward to it, because there is no other > >> competition in my area. > > > Wireline LNP is in place now. That doesn't mean that there are companies in > > place everywhere who can make a successful business of porting numbers. I'm > > not surprised that CLECs haven't made it to Blacksburg, VA (home of Virginia > > Tech) yet; they have to make a profitable business case. > > I'm not surprised either. We are really quite rural here, except for > the university and immediate surroundings. Anyway, there are cellular > carriers with local service and they are adding capacity. And maybe one or more of those wireless carriers will find wireline replacement to be a good business. Given the cost of providing rural wireline service, wireless can be an attractive alternative technology. Western Wireless, in particular, has been active in this out West. Whether LNP will be an important factor remains to be seen. > > If the wireless companies don't see porting wireline numbers as a profitable > > endeavor, they won't spend the money to do it. You can cancel your wired > > line and go cellular right now; you just won't be able to keep your number. > > There is no assurance that your cellular company will rush out and spend > > billions of dollars in November of next year to be able to port every > > wireline number in their service area just because they have to become > > LNP-capable. > > Huh? I thought they were going to be required to do it. > Of course, that leads back to my original question. Will > the FCC *really* require it? All we can do at this point > is speculate. Wireless companies are entitled to port wireline number right now, because the wireline carriers are required to be LNP-capable. The wireline does the porting. For the wireless company to accept a ported wireline number, it has to establish a presence in the rate center. When wireless carriers are obligated to become LNP-capable, they will have to port numbers *to* other carriers wanting to acquire them, provided the carrier accepting the ported number has a presence in the rate center and the technical capability of accepting the ported number. You can't port your number to a carrier that isn't present to be ported to. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 2000 23:10:33 -0400 From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: More Area Code Fun in Eastern Massachusetts "Ed Ellers" writes: > Fred Goldstein wrote: > > "We just split all of Eastern MA two years ago, creating 781 and 978 to > relieve 617 and 508. They split in order to retain seven-digit dialing, > since the FCC, again causing unnecessary pain, demands that overlays be > accompanied by ten-digit dialing." > > Somebody ought to take that one to court. How in the bleeping bleep does > the FCC get to define how a call *that does not cross a state line* has to > be dialed? Stop and *think* for a minute. An overlay *without* 10-digit dialing is insane. The dialing rules get really messy. - -- Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 2000 23:42:39 -0400 From: stheri01@emerald.tufts.edu (Seth Theriault) Subject: Re: More Area Code Fun in Eastern Massachusetts Leonard Erickson wrote: > Stop and *think* for a minute. An overlay *without* 10-digit dialing is > insane. The dialing rules get really messy. Of course, any messiness doesn't seem to affect NYC, where dialing within and among 212, 646, 718, 347, and 917 seems to follow the standard 7-digit and 1+NXX procedures. I haven't even tried to dial locally with just ten digits. I seem to remember that NYC was specifically exempted from the mandatory 10-digit dialing for "historical" reasons: the city has always had at least two area codes. Anyone care to refresh my memory? Seth - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 00:07:20 -0400 From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Message format (was: Radio Shack gives away barcode scanner...) John De Hoog writes: > John David Galt wrote... > >>> The problem is not with the writer, but the reader. Some usenet junkies >>> run reader or client software that's somewhat outdated. Rather than >>> increase their capabilities, or find more flexible supported platforms, >>> they choose to complain. >> >>The standard says you're wrong: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1036.txt > > The standard is dated 1987. Time for an update? Why? It works perfectly well as it is. And besides, you'll find *several* RFCs that expand upon it. Funny thing though. None of them remove that "limit" on line lengths. > I'm always amused when certain Internet users want to stop the clock > on progress at the point when *they* started using the Internet. What makes you think that reformatting message text is progress? I've yet to see a program do that *without* messing up things by reformatting text that *shouldn't* have been reformatted. - -- Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 00:07:21 -0400 From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Message format (was: Radio Shack gives away barcode scanner...) "Ed Ellers" writes: > John De Hoog wrote: > > "The standard is dated 1987. Time for an update?" > > I'd say so, especially since both that standard and the email standard on > which it is based went through long before the Web (based on HTML) made its > appearance. Seems to me that the standards could be rewritten to allow a > *subset* of HTML to be used in messages while specifically disallowing those > things that are most troublesome when abused (funny colors, too-small type, > JavaScript, pictures, etc.), so that we could get beyond ASCII and into more > readable text. Well, to start with, fonts would have to be forbidden. In fact the *only* things that would really be of much use are text "styles" (bold, italic, underline), and maybe paragraph begin/end markers. I can't really see the need for anything beyond that. BTW, one of the atrocities that MS seems fond of is "enhancing" text by changing ASCII characters such as quotes and apostrophes to the characters they added to the reserved range in ISO Latin 1. With the result that folks running other character sets get weird characters instead of the perfectly readable ASCII. Macs do that sort of thing occasionally also. - -- Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 00:07:20 -0400 From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Message format "Ed Ellers" writes: > Gary Novosielski wrote: > > "Refusing to use html is not an ad hominem [q.v.] attack." > > But accusing those who do use HTML of having nothing worthwhile to say, > based solely on that practice, is such an attack. That's not what he said. They may have something worthwhile to say. It's just not worth the hassle of setting things up so the HTML is readable. Especially given the security problems that enabling HTML introduces. It's similar to saying that it's not worth the trouble to read messages in languages you don't know. That doesn't mean that the poster didn't have anything worthwhile to say. It means that it requires to much effort on the reader's part to extract the content. And people who post in the "wrong" language in a group *are* going to get ignored, and have no one but themselves (or the maker of the software that presents the message in HTML) to blame. - -- Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 00:07:18 -0400 From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Telecom Digest V2000 #55 "Ed Ellers" writes: > Fred Goldstein wrote: > > "Second, this digest is an email digest gatewayed to Usenet, not a web site > Both email and Usenet are "plain text" media by specification. HTML is > abusive." > > Oh, not this old chestnut again. If, in fact, HTML is so inappropriate, why > do both Microsoft and Netscape include that option in their mail and news > programs? Because they don't give a damn about the standards. > I fully agree that HTML *can* be abused (especially since many list servers > don't pass it properly), but I do not agree that it *is* abusive by > definition. HTML in news is extremely inappropriate. In mail, it can be useful, but should only be sent to people expecting it. I've gotten messages on one system here that after stripping the MIME and HTML went from 30k to 2k. - -- Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 00:33:27 -0400 From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Message format (was: Radio Shack gives away barcode scanner...) In <8q6dm9$en111$1@ID-39509.news.cis.dfn.de>, "Ed Ellers" wrote: }Joel B Levin wrote: } }"This applies to postings from any ISP. You keep bringing up webtv and }AOL." } }As examples of classes of Internet users who are widely viewed with scorn by }those who consider themselves "true Netizens." Yes, but I never said anything about them, only about articles posted in HTML. You want "ad hominem", look in the mirror. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 01:09:14 -0400 From: Joseph Singer Subject: Re: Message format 18 Sep 2000 21:07:57 -0400 "Ed Ellers" wrote: >John De Hoog wrote: > >"The standard is dated 1987. Time for an update?" > >I'd say so, especially since both that standard and the email standard on >which it is based went through long before the Web (based on HTML) made its >appearance. Seems to me that the standards could be rewritten to allow a >*subset* of HTML to be used in messages while specifically disallowing those >things that are most troublesome when abused (funny colors, too-small type, >JavaScript, pictures, etc.), so that we could get beyond ASCII and into more >readable text. This may have some validity *but* every digest that I've ever been on for mailing lists every one that anyone posted in HTML shows every damned markup. HTML does crap in a digest including this one. Even in today's mailing someone posted an HTML message that showed first the text and then displayed three times the length of the original posting in HTML markups. Truly ugly and a true waste of space. Other than to make pretty colors and fonts what's the big advantage of HTML? Not a lot that I can see. My guess is that people feel that the content of their messages isn't important enough so they feel that they muss dress it up to make it worth something. It isn't any more readable in HTML and more often than not is downright ugly especially if you have a reader that's incapable of rendering HTML. If your goal is to limit your audience you'll do that by sending HTML to a public group either a mailing list or a usenet newsgroup. Many people will not be bothered. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joseph Singer Seattle, Washington USA [ICQ pgr] +1 206 405 2052 [voice mail] +1 206 493 0706 [FAX] - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 01:19:35 -0400 From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Message format In <00918.204959.3T6.rnr.w165w@krypton.rain.com>, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: }It's similar to saying that it's not worth the trouble to read messages }in languages you don't know. That doesn't mean that the poster didn't }have anything worthwhile to say. It means that it requires to much }effort on the reader's part to extract the content. } }And people who post in the "wrong" language in a group *are* going to }get ignored, and have no one but themselves (or the maker of the }software that presents the message in HTML) to blame. What he said. And I'm done with this topic, which is no longer germane to this newsgroup / list. /J - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 01:33:27 -0400 From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Message format In article <3.0.5.32.20000918220241.0083ccf0@oz.net>, Joseph Singer wrote: >If your goal is to limit your audience you'll do that by >sending HTML to a public group either a mailing list or a usenet newsgroup. > Many people will not be bothered. Particularly since many Usenet servers have spam filters which are configured to reject HTML automatically. (Such as the one I run; hence, I did not see the post referred to by the previous poster in text not quoted above.) [1] HTML adds next to nothing to discourse. Just as in the Real World, people who have something of value to say, say it with a minimum of tarting-up, and people who have nothing to say continually find new ways to prove it. Compare, if you will, the informational content of the average newsmagazine (or, Ghu help me, /WiReD/), to an opinion magazine like /The New Republic/ or /The Weekly Standard/ (or even a non-political publication like /National Geographic/), and then compare the amount of (for lack of a better phrase) ``user interface''. Good writing and quality information speak for themselves. Bad writing and poor (or absent) informational content need the flash and glitter to distract readers from what's missing. - -GAWollman [1] This is not to suggest that all possible uses of markup in USENET or in electronic mail are automatically bogus. Indeed, it's easy to come up with examples where a little added intelligence would give a large benefit in ease-of-expression. (Diagramming would be one obvious example.) However, there is no markup mechanism under the sun that cannot be misused, and many USENET administrators have decided that the abuse is worse than the difficulty of expressing everything in 80-character lines of 7-bit ASCII [2]. [2] Most if not all servers will accept any 8-bit character set as well, provided it is appropriately indicated to readers. - -- Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same wollman@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 01:55:16 -0400 From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steve Sobol) Subject: Re: Sorry, but... >>From 'Ed Ellers': >"Posts from usenet ARE accepted..." > >Not if one's NNTP host is not properly configured to recognize moderated >newsgroups as such. But that's not the moderator's fault. That's a misconfiguration of the NNTP server. - -- North Shore Technologies, Cleveland, OH http://NorthShoreTechnologies.net Steve Sobol, BOFH - President, Chief Website Architect and Janitor Linux Instructor, PC/LAN Program, Natl. Institute of Technology, Akron, OH sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net - 888.480.4NET - 216.619.2NET - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 2000 02:15:55 -0400 From: John David Galt Subject: Re: More Area Code Fun in Eastern Massachusetts Seth Theriault wrote: > > Leonard Erickson wrote: > > > Stop and *think* for a minute. An overlay *without* 10-digit dialing is > > insane. The dialing rules get really messy. > > Of course, any messiness doesn't seem to affect NYC, where dialing within > and among 212, 646, 718, 347, and 917 seems to follow the standard 7-digit > and 1+NXX procedures. I haven't even tried to dial locally with just ten > digits. > > I seem to remember that NYC was specifically exempted from the mandatory > 10-digit dialing for "historical" reasons: the city has always had at > least two area codes. Anyone care to refresh my memory? They were allowed to have a wireless-only overlay (and 7 digit dialing within each area code) because they got both in place early. Then a cellular carrier complained and got wireless-only overlays banned (when California tried to create 562 as one) and CLECs got overlays that allowed 7-digit dialing banned (when Texas tried to do them, IIRC). So NYC has been "grandfathered" in both respects. I understand they've agreed to give up this special status a few months after 646 and 347 are working, however. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ End of Telecom Digest V2000 #59 *******************************