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TELECOM Digest Sun, 3 Jul 2005 17:32:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 306 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Choreboy) ATT Merger (Lisa Minter) NASA Fireworks Tonight! (Lisa Minter) Facebook an Internet Sensation on Campus (Lisa Minter) Test May Measure Student's Web Wisdom (Lisa Minter) Congress Passes Fax Bill to Create EBR Exemption (Monty Solomon) Yellow Pages at eBay (Dandino) Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users (Chasman) DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone (shwekhaw) Re: DSL Speed (Choreboy) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (W Howard) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (DevilsPGD) Ombudsman on N. Korea Food Story (alan@bloomfieldpress.com) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Choreboy <choreboyREMOVE@localnet.com> Subject: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:00:49 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Ten years ago I happened to discover a potential of 0.25 VAC between the grounding electrode under my electrical entrance and the one under my telephone entrance. To protect my computer from lightning, I bonded them with twenty feet of wire. It paid off in 1998 when lightning struck a tree thirty feet from my electrical entrance. I was online and suffered no damage. A telco man restored service by replacing a fuse on the utility pole. When I asked the company's policy on bonding, he beat around the bush twenty minutes before saying the electrical code required it but the telco didn't like it because they would have to replace more fuses. Neighbors went online five years ago. Each time they've lost a modem or surge protector, they have asked me for an explanation and I've told them ground surges will keep getting them until they clamp a wire between their phone and power electrodes. They have always ignored my advice. I was online Monday during a quiet rain when lightning hit my chimney, blowing masonry and shingles sixty feet in all directions. My screen froze with a weird tint, but things were fine when I restarted. My neighbors weren't so lucky. Their phone electrode is 40 yards from my chimney. Their power electrode is 10 yards farther. They lost a modem, a satellite dish, and two telephones. Instead of demanding that I explain it again, they asked the telco to send a rep. He told them their ground is fine. My neighbors are pleased because this proves I have always been wrong. Article 250.54 of the NEC says local supplemental grounding electrodes (such as the one for phone service) must be bonded to the primary electrode. Where does the NEC apply? According to what the telco man admitted seven years ago, I assume our county code says the same thing. Is this a recent addition to the NEC? How is a citizen supposed to find out local code requirements? How is a citizen supposed to know his electrodes are not bonded or that it's necessary? If the telco assures a customer that there is nothing wrong with grounding which in fact is a code violation, does the telco have any liability? ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: AT&T Shareholders OK Acquistion by SBC Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 10:43:05 -0500 (AP) A bid to create one of the world's largest phone companies vaulted another hurdle Thursday as AT&T Corp. investors approved SBC Communication Inc.'s $16 billion acquisition at what will likely be the legendary company's final annual shareholder meeting. Nearly all the shares cast as votes approved the deal, though investors holding nearly 30 percent of AT&T's stock did not vote at all. The merger still requires regulatory approvals at the federal and state level, though the companies expect to complete the transaction by late 2005 or early 2006. SBC shareholders are not required to vote on the acquisition since the number of SBC shares being issued as payment for AT&T's stock amounts to less than a 20 percent increase in SBC's outstanding shares. The vote to end AT&T's 130-year run as an independent company proved bittersweet for some shareholders and employees at the meeting. Many said they recognized the deal was necessary, yet criticized AT&T management actions as damaging. AT&T, based in Bedminster, N.J., has seen its core long-distance business shrink dramatically amid growing competition from Bell rivals like SBC, cell phones and newer technologies such as Internet-based calling. "We can't go it alone because of bad management, because of regulatory constraints, because of divestiture," AT&T manager Lani Flesch of Chicago said after the meeting as her eyes welled with tears. "We could have had it all and instead we're being bought." San Antonio-based SBC, the local Bell for most of the Midwest and Southwest, expects to eliminate 13,000 jobs after the merger. The marriage of the rivals, announced in January, would add corporate services and a national fiber-optic network to the list of businesses where SBC holds a dominant industry role. It is already the largest or second-largest U.S. provider of local, long distance, wireless and Internet services. AT&T investors are slated to receive 0.77942 of a share of SBC common stock and a cash dividend of $1.30 for each share of AT&T they hold. SBC's stock closed Thursday at $23.75 a share, down 19 cents, so the deal now values AT&T's stock at about $19.80 per share. That's about 4 percent higher than AT&T's current share price, which fell 22 cents Thursday to close at $19.04 on the New York Stock Exchange. AT&T Chief Executive David Dorman told shareholders the merger is a strategic combination that will create a diversified company that can compete globally. "It is our view that the AT&T-SBC merger creates greater opportunity for shareholder value in the long term," he said. Some rivals and consumer advocates have opposed the merger as well as the proposed purchase of MCI Inc. by Verizon Communications Inc., arguing that the elimination of two major competitors from the market will lead to higher prices, less innovation and fewer product alternatives. AT&T Chief Financial Officer Thomas Horton said after the meeting that as the industry restructures, consumers will see more choices from companies offering a variety of services. The merger has won regulatory approval in 26 states and still needs the OK from 10 additional states and the federal government. On the net: AT&T: http://www.att.com SBC: http://www.sbc.com (c) 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: NASA Fireworks Display Planned for Sunday Night/Monday Morning Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 16:55:57 -0500 Two reports this weekend of the 'fireworks' display NASA has planned for us Sunday overnight/Monday morning. ========================================== NASA Readies Space Probe to Blast Comet By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer It's a space mission straight out of Hollywood -- launch a spacecraft 268 million miles so it can aim a barrel-sized probe toward a speeding comet half the size of Manhattan and smash a hole in it. But that's what NASA expects its Deep Impact mission to do this weekend, with a goal of viewing the icy core of a comet that may hold cosmic clues to how the sun and planets formed. It's not without challenges. To ensure a bull's-eye hit -- and a spectacular Independence Day fireworks display in space -- several things must happen just right. Around 2 a.m. EDT Sunday, the Deep Impact spacecraft must release the 820-pound copper "impactor" on course for a collision expected 24 hours later with the comet Tempel 1. Scientists are confident they will be able to position the probe in the onrushing comet's path, though that calls for precise maneuvers that the probe must execute without help from mission control. Once on auto-pilot, the probe has up to three chances before the collision to fire its thrusters to adjust its flight path for a direct strike. "To hit the nucleus of a comet is a little bit like a baseball player trying to hit a knuckleball," said Dave Spencer, mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which is in charge of the $333 million project. Comets are blobs of ice and dust that orbit the sun and were born about 4.5 billion years ago -- nearly the same time as the solar system itself. When a cloud of gas and dust condensed to form the sun and planets, comets formed from what was left over. Scientists hope studying them will provide clues to how the solar system formed. Tempel 1, their specimen, is a pickle-shaped comet that travels in an elliptical orbit between Mars and Jupiter. After springing the probe, the mothership must slightly change course and stake out a prime seat 5,000 miles from the collision, which is expected around 1:52 a.m. EDT Monday. The comet, hurtling through space at a relative speed of 23,000 mph, will run over the probe with energy similar to exploding nearly 5 tons of dynamite. All the while, a camera on the impactor will be shooting pictures as it heads toward its doom, as will the mothership from afar. Little is known about comet anatomy, so it's unclear what exactly will happen when Tempel 1 is hit. Scientists expect the collision to spray a cone-shaped plume of debris into space. The resulting crater could be anywhere from the size of a house to a football stadium, and be between two and 14 stories deep. "We still don't know what this comet holds in store for us," said Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager. Scientists will work feverishly to download data from the spacecraft before it makes its closest approach to the comet less than 15 minutes after impact. Their worry is that Deep Impact could be damaged by flying debris, risking the valuable data. A trio of space telescopes - the Hubble, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope - and dozens of ground observatories will also view the collision and aftermath. So will amateur astronomers in the western United States and Latin America, who should be able to view the impact through their own telescopes. It will not be visible in the eastern United States and upper Midwest. Launched in mid-January from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Deep Impact sent images of the comet's nucleus for the first time last month from a distance of 20 million miles away. It also witnessed two outbursts of ice from the comet -- not a major concern to scientists who have plenty else to worry about. On the Net: Deep Impact mission: http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ======= The second report on the expected fireworks; will you be watching it happen? =========== NASA Releases Probe to Collide With Comet By ALICIA CHANG PASADENA, Calif. - A NASA space probe was bearing down on its comet target Sunday in a mission scientists hope will end with a cataclysmic crash -- and new insights into the origins of the solar system. The 820-pound copper probe was on course to intercept the comet Tempel 1 to smash a hole in it so scientists can get their first peek at the heart of one of these icy celestial bodies. Comets are the leftover building blocks of the solar system, which formed when a giant cloud of gas and dust collapsed to create the sun and planets. Because comets were born in the system's outer fringes, their cores still possess some of the primordial ingredients and studying them could yield clues to how the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. The "impactor" probe separated from the Deep Impact spacecraft early Sunday and began a 500,000-mile suicide dive toward the sunlit section of Tempel 1, a pickle-shaped comet half the size of Manhattan and 83 million miles away from Earth. Workers in the mission control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena erupted in applause shortly after the separation. "The release went very well," said project manager Rick Grammier. "Half of the hurdles are over." Meanwhile, the mothership fired its thrusters to slightly change course and stake out a front-row seat 5,000 miles from the high-speed collision, which is expected to occur at 1:52 a.m. EDT Monday. The probe will switch to autopilot two hours before Monday's encounter, relying on computer software and thrusters to steer itself into the path of the onrushing comet. If the probe's maneuvers are off, the comet could miss and the mission would fail. As Tempel 1 closes in at a relative speed of 23,000 mph, the probe should beam back unprecedented pictures of its target in near real-time until it is run over. If all goes to plan, the mothership will record the crash and resulting crater with its high-resolution telescope. About 15 minutes after impact, the craft will make its closest flyby of the comet nucleus, approaching within 310 miles. Scientists expect it will be bombarded with flying debris and will stop taking pictures, turning on its dust shields for protection. NASA's brigade of space-based observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, also will be pointing toward the comet to record the impact. Professional astronomers from dozens of observatories in 20 countries also will observe the crash. Little is known about comet anatomy, so it's unclear what exactly will happen when Tempel 1 is hit. Scientists expect the collision will spray a cone-shaped plume of debris into space. The resulting crater can range anywhere from the size of a large house to a football stadium and be between two and 14 stories deep. The probe's anticipated impact could cause the comet to shine brighter than normal and sky-gazers may be able to see celestial fireworks with a telescope in parts of the Western United States and Latin America. Deep Impact blasted off in January from Cape Canaveral, Fla., for its six-month, 268 million-mile journey. In what scientists say is a coincidence, the spacecraft shares the same name as the 1998 movie about a comet that hurtles toward Earth. Discovered in 1867, Tempel 1 moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit between Mars and Jupiter every six or so years. In April, the 1,300-pound spacecraft took its first picture of Tempel 1 from 40 million miles away, revealing what amounts to a celestial snowball. Last month, still 20 million miles away, scientists saw the solid core of Tempel 1 for the first time. On the Net: Deep Impact mission: http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Facebook an Internet Sensation on Campus Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 16:58:48 -0500 By SORAYA NADIA McDONALD, Associated Press Writer Pamela Elder, a junior at Georgia State University, got hooked when she found some old high school classmates. Next she used the online yearbook of yearbooks to track down people she hadn't seen since grade school. No wonder the Facebook is an Internet sensation at campuses across the nation. Constantly updated by its 2.8 million registered users at more than 800 colleges and universities, the Facebook takes the local malt shop social nexus of the 1950s and makes it universal. Started by three Harvard sophomores in February 2004 as an online directory to connect the higher education world through social networks, the Facebook now registers more than 5,800 new users a day. "It becomes part of your daily routine. It's e-mail, the news, the weather, Facebook," said Lucas Garza, a senior from San Antonio studying aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Users of Facebook, http://www.thefacebook.com, can post a photo and a profile of themselves for free. The profiles include as little or as much information as the user desires, including basic biographies, lists of hobbies and interests, even home address and cell phone number. Users control who can see their profiles -- from only friends to all other users. Other users can then search the profiles for classmates, childhood acquaintances, people who share common interests. When users identify someone on the site they'd like to meet, they can ask to be designated as a "friend," a characteristic of other social networking Web sites such as Friendster or LinkedIn. Facebook friend requests can come from anyone on the site, including "some random drunk person you met at a party whose name you don't remember," said Garza, who has 143 "friends" on Facebook. The site has become so ubiquitous among college students that they tell others to "facebook" them -- to look them up on the site. Browsing it is known simply as "facebooking." Site creators Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz were roommates at Harvard when they designed Facebook so fellow Harvard students could get to know those living in other dorms. (The name comes from the real-life books of freshmen's faces, majors and hometowns that many colleges distribute to incoming students). The Web site proved so popular that the trio made it available to students at Columbia, Stanford and Yale within a month. With Facebook's success, Moskovitz and Zuckerberg left Harvard to run it as a 10-person company out of Palo Alto, Calif. Moskovitz had been studying economics; Zuckerberg, computer science and psychology. Hughes, a history and literature major, is studying abroad in Paris. "It's all at once a 'real-world' job and something surreal," Hughes said. "Instead of entering a company and working your way to the top, Mark has created something that has allowed him to start right off in the CEO seat." Hughes said Facebook turns a profit, mostly from advertising. He refused to disclose the private company's earnings. Besides corporate advertisers, Facebook users purchase "announcements" -- ads that can be seen only by students from the same school. They range from campaign posters for student government positions to fliers about upcoming parties. They cost $9 to $15 apiece; the smaller the school, the cheaper the announcement. Investments have boosted Facebook, too. Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel Partners put in $13 million; PayPal founder Peter Thiel recently invested $500,000. Users can register on the site only with a college e-mail adndress, which serves as verification that users are students. Once registered, the .edu address becomes a user ID. More than 60 percent of the site's users log in daily during the school year, and about half log in daily over the summer, Hughes said. Marketers who target students love the site, said Robin Raskin, a technology consultant whose three college-age children are all Facebook users. "You've got this great, great group. You know their demographic, you know how much disposable income they have, you know what they spend it on, and now you've got them in one place," Raskin said. "It's great for anybody who wants to talk to the youth audience, and that is why investors have run to give Facebook some money." Another result, however, is that students should be cautious about putting personal information on the site, said Raskin, a former editor of PC Magazine. "You think you're safe because of this .edu address, but anybody can get in there who wants to," said Raskin, adding she knows corporate marketers who have "infiltrated" the site. Many alumni get .edu e-mail addresses from their alma maters, allowing them to get on Facebook. Marcia Ammons, a Georgia State senior from Carrollton, Ga., swears by Facebook. She has two close friends on campus she first met on the Web site. "It's hard to find people with similar interests on a big campus," Ammons said. "We're so spread out ... you can put up party fliers in the Rec Center but half the people won't know about it because they won't see them." Garza uses Facebook to find people in his classes to compare notes and homework, since a single class at Georgia Tech can have up to 500 students. During last year's presidential campaign, he used the site to find students with similar views. His profile included quotes from George Orwell and links to his personal Web site. Students also meet on the site through groups, virtual clusters of users at the same school with a common interest. Ammons is a member of the "Wal-Mart Lovers" and "Rec Center Junkies" groups. Garza is in the "Anti-Leaf Blower Society" and "Ipodilicious," a collection of Ipod fans. Entirely new social protocols have formed around Facebook. One surrounds confirming friend requests. For some, a person's friend count is a social barometer. Says Hilton Gray, a 2003 graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and avid facebooker: "I know a few people who like the attention of it all, so they try to rack up as many friends as possible." Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Test May Measure Student's Web Wisdom Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 17:00:13 -0500 By MICHELLE LOCKE, Associated Press Writer Students apply to college online, e-mail their papers to their professors and, when they want to be cheeky, pass notes in class by text-messaging. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have a high Internet IQ. "They're real comfortable instant-messaging, downloading MP3 files. They're less comfortable using technology in ways that require real critical thinking," says Teresa Egan of the Educational Testing Service. Or as Lorie Roth, assistant vice chancellor of academic programs at California State University puts it: "Every single one that comes through the door thinks that if you just go to Google and get some hits -- you've got material for your research paper right there." That's why Cal State and a number of other colleges are working with ETS to create a test to evaluate Internet intelligence, measuring whether students can locate and verify reliable online information and whether they know how to properly use and credit the material. "This test measures a skill as important as having mathematics and English skills when you come to the university," says Roth. "If you don't come to the university with it, you need to know that you are lacking some skills that educated people are expected to have." A preliminary version of the new test, the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment, was given to 3,300 Cal State students this spring to see how well it works, i.e. testing the test. Individual scores aren't being tallied but campuses will be getting aggregate reports. Next year, the test is expected to be available for students to take on a voluntary basis. Cal State is the lead institution in a consortium which includes UCLA, the University of Louisville, the California Community College System, the University of North Alabama, the University of Texas System and the University of Washington. Some of the institutions involved are considering using the test on incoming students to see if they need remedial classes, says Egan, ETS' project manager for the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment. Other schools are thinking about giving the test as a follow up to communications courses to gauge curricula efficiency. Robert Jimenez, a student at Cal State-Fullerton who took the prototype test this spring, gives it a passing grade. "It was pretty good in that it allowed us to go ahead and think through real-life problems." Sample questions include giving students a simulated page of Web search results on a particular subject and asking students to pick the legitimate sources. So, a question on bee sting remedies presents a choice of sites ranging from ads to a forum for herb treatments to (the correct answer) a listing from the National Institutes of Health, identifiable by having "nih" in the URL (site address) along with the ".gov" suffix that connotes an official government listing. High tech has been a fixture of higher ed for some years. A 2002 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 79 percent of college Internet users thought the Internet had a positive impact on their academic experience. More than 70 percent used the Internet more than the library and 56 percent said e-mail improved their relationships with professors. Of course, some of those text-messaging students are still being taught by professors whose idea of a personal data assistant is a fresh pad of Post-Its. "The problem with technology and education is how do you fit the new technology into existing curriculum lesson plans. You can't add more class time and it's much easier to just keep teaching the way you were," says Steve Jones, a co-author on the Pew study and a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Jones folds lessons on Internet use into his classes. And he doesn't mince words about students who try the "click, copy and paste" approach to homework. "I tell the students, 'Some of you are going to put off this paper until the night before. You're going to go to Google, type in search words and just look at the top five hits and use those. I'm going to grade you on this. I'm going to look at these sources and so let's talk about how to evaluate sources.'" Which doesn't necessarily mean they all "suddenly become fabulous information evaluators and seekers, but it gives them a little bit of an idea that this isn't something that's apart from learning." Jones also finds himself learning from students, who are trying out new things like blogs and collaborating with other students online to create new sources of information. He thinks assessing students' Internet skills could be useful in figuring out ways to help them do better research but cautions that it's tough to test on something as changeable as the Internet. Roth notes that the bulk of the assessment focuses on critical thinking skills, being able to analyze the legitimacy of Web sites, and knowing the difference between properly cited research and plagiarism, things that "haven't changed very much since I enrolled in college in 1969." For today's students, working on the Net means not having the safety net of references vetted by campus librarians. But Roth isn't nostalgic. "Anybody want to go back to the bad old days when you had manual typewriters, and you had to get up and walk to the library to look up something?" she says with a laugh. "I don't think so." On the Net: http://www.calstate.edu http://www.ets.org/ictliteracy/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 17:07:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Congress Passes Fax Bill to Create EBR Exemption By: Scott Hovanyetz Senior Reporter Congress passed a bill that would permanently allow an existing business relationship exemption for commercial faxes, a victory for business media and nonprofit organizations that say they need to fax subscribers and members. The House of Representative's approval of the bill by voice vote yesterday followed the Senate's passage by unanimous consent June 24. It now remains for President Bush to sign the bill into law. According to American Business Media, a trade press association, Bush is expected to sign the bill this week. http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=33223 ------------------------------ From: Dandino <suit4enlightenment@gmail.com> Subject: Yellow Pages at eBay Date: 2 Jul 2005 05:06:22 -0700 Does eBay evolve into the advertising market? (the serious one) [url]http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=102333&item=5594068066&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW[/url] ------------------------------ From: Chasman <xarush@omelas.com> Subject: Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users Date: 2 Jul 2005 14:18:29 -0700 I am currently using an in-house IVR put together with tape and glue. I would rather use something that did not require hardware on our end and my maintenance. We use Vonage phones and they work well as we can blind transfer between them. However we drop one call out of 20 which is a pain. What I want to know is how sophisticated is the IVR on the virtual office. I need to basically be able to have some one choose between support, sales or a name directory and then do a call hunt on support or sales. That's can we do it and do it reliably? Regards, Chas ------------------------------ From: shwekhaw <zaw@1stuniverse.com> Subject: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone Date: 2 Jul 2005 15:05:53 -0700 DO NOT USE CINGULAR GO PHONE!! I had a lot of problems with GO Phone and know another two people who are getting ripped off. I bought the phone early June 2005. They told me no roaming charges free long distance and I pay just 10 cent a minute and $1 on a day I use the phone. So I bought it from my TX home. Then I visited to CA and I could not use the phone. I tried calling my friend with cingular plan who was sitting next to me. His phone rang but got disconnected right after he answered. It said "check service status" even though signal was very strong. I tried several times sine I pay nothing if I call within cingular network. Guess what! They charged me $1.30 for every try I made even though connection did not last one second. Basically I could not use the phone the whole time i was visiting there. It was so much trouble. When I called customer service they are very rude. They told me I could not use the phone anymore since my $25 balance was depleted. They ignored the fact that the balance was depleted due to overcharges and not bother looking into it the problem. I had to call customer service several times (at least 5 times) hoping somebody will notice the problem. I was told that technician will look into it and call me back. And they never call me back! Finally I called again and talked to supervisor directly (I had to beg to talk to supervisor). I obtained detail billing and calculated total charges which is not summing up to the balance I added. When I point this out, she, who was in total denial about their problems, said it was just a glitch in their system and agreed to make balance adjustment. A glitch! A glitch that took away $25 balance was not noticeable to several people in customer service department! Were they just trained how to ignore their problem and how to make customers miserable. I cannot return the phone since it is over 30 days now so I am stuck with the phone. They still not acknowledging the problem that I cannot use the phone in CA even though I should be able to according to their plan description. Be aware guys. If you are patient and can spend a lot of time calling customer service to get your money back, you are sure to lose your money with this Cingular plan. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You could have been telling my story. I have _two_ Cingular phones; the one works okay with an _Independence, KS_ 620-330 number. The other phone is a former AT&T (now Cingular Prepaid phone I think it is called 'Free to Go'.) Both phones are the older digital Nokia 5165 phones, the difference is only that one is prepaid via AT&T, the other is a 'regular' cell phone. Starting Friday, the prepaid phone quit fuctioning. It has a Wichita KS 316-841 number on it, with, I might add, twenty dollars in credit. Cingular customer service, which appears to be located in India these days, absolutely insisted I could not have a prepaid wireless phone since they had no wireless coverage in my area. They said "as soon as you get back in the Wichita area, your phone will start working again." I asked them if that was so, then (if the towers could not reach me) why wasn't voice mail kicking in to take the messages? They just kept repeating their stupid answer: because we have no service in your area. I finally said 'being an ignorant ##*@ based in your native land somewhere, you probably would not know much about our cell phones here.' They had just a few minutes earlier taken a twenty five dollar payment from my credit card. Those Cingular/AT&T/SBC customer service reps are so incredibly stupid it is beyond my comprehension. I said well, if you do not have service in my area, then please arrange to refund the twenty dollars you just now took on my account. And wouldn't you know it, the sweet dear little Indian lady who referred to herself as 'employee ID 627' insisted 'we do not give any refunds on prepaid service'. You will this time, I told her, Small Claims Court here in Montgomery County is just four block down the street from my house, and I do not have to sue you in California or Texas or India or wherever, _I just sue your local resale agent here in Independence_. Hopefully your superiors will screw up and not make any response to the suit. She finally came up with a post office box address (no phone nor fax nor email address available) for some entity called 'Cingular Free to Go' in Anaheim Hills, CA and I fired off a letter to them yesterday making demand for the return of my money _or_ preferably, a working phone with my 316-841 number since someone else told me the only service they will now initiate in 620 is GSM. I will tell you, if Ignorance was Bliss, then Cingular customer service people would be the happiest in the world. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Choreboy <choreboyREMOVE@localnet.com> Subject: Re: DSL Speed Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 19:02:35 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Dave Grebe wrote: >>> I wonder how they're modulated. >> Can any other reader answer this question? > Quadrature modulation using many channels. Look here: > http://www.alleged.com/info/dsl2/ > Dave Grebe Wow! No wonder most people don't go into detail! Here's a quote from the introduction: "Although many system designers are competent and comfortable with DSP and all things digital, they often find their understanding of analog issues to be a bit rusty when it comes to implementing the physical connection to and from the telephone line." nmclain@annsgarden.com wrote: > Choreboy <choreboyREMOVE@localnet.com> wrote: >> A carrier vor V.90 must have some very precise modulation. It's >> amazing that an 8kHz sampling can capture it well enough to be >> useful. > Frequently it can't, which is why your modem downgrades to a slower > speed. >>> All of these noise sources collectively impair the ability of the loop >>> to carry DSL signals. >> Local loop cables (trunk cables?) seem to deteriorate. Phone men seem >> to look for available pairs when customers complain of noise. I >> wonder if voltage from nearby lightning strikes might cause pinhole >> damage to the insulation of twisted pairs, and over the years it gets >> hard to find a good pair. > Nearby lightning strikes likely would do a lot more than cause > "pinhole damage." But you're right about telco cables deteriorating > over time. Water intrusion can cause severe interference ("every time > it rains, I get static on my telephone!"). I wonder if old cables have been analyzed to see why they went bad. Lightning-related voltage spikes can damage semiconductors although the damage may not be apparent. I wonder if that could happen to the insulation on telephone conductors. >> Load coils might be one reason a particular phone sounds distorted at >> a particular location. > I doubt that, but I guess it's possible. If the capacitance were lumped, it and an inductor would form a tuned tank. I suppose it's about the same with distributed capacitance. The tank would have high impedance at one frequency and lower impedance at higher or lower frequencies. The broadness of the curve would depend on the resistance in the coil and maybe in the line. An uneven frequency response could make it hard to recognize who's calling or understand his words. >> Across the street, a small trunk line (cable with lots of wire >> pairs) comes from the aerial terminal down a couple of feet to a >> fusebox on the utility pole. (I think the telco calls them something >> besides fuses.) The drop cables come out of that box. Probably >> just a junction box. After lightning knocked out my phone service, a telco man opened the box and replaced what he called a fuse. Those fuses have another name I can't remember. >>>> Think what would have happened if RG-59 hadn't been invented. >>>> Everybody would have used RG-6, which looks nearly the same but >>>> attenuates uhf much less. With better reception there would have >>>> been more uhf stations and less demand for cable. >>> As a former cable guy, I don't agree with that. Many UHF stations >>> depended on cable TV systems to distribute their signals throughout >>> their "specified zones" (which, back in the '60s and '70s, was a >>> 35-mile radius around the city of license). This was particularly >>> true in mountainous areas where cable T systems carried UHF signals >>> to specified-zone communities that were beyond the reach of their >>> transmitters. >> With a bow-tie antenna, a good UHF amp, a rotator, and RG-6U, we could >> receive so many channels that we weren't interested in cable. > Well, obviously you don't live in a place like Mahanoy City > Pennsylvania, Tuckerman Arkansas, or Astoria Oregon -- places where it > simply isn't possible to get any station -- UHF or VHF -- off the air. > Cable TV started in all three of those communities in 1948, and all > three still claim to have been first. > Neal McLain > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And don't forget Independence, KS where > until cable came along (via Time Warner in the 1980's) our television > reception consisted of TWO channels; channel 6 and channel 9, but only > one of those two if you wanted a good picture. Most people had very > _high_ antennas on their house if they wanted television, and they > compromised by using a 'rotor' attached to their TV set to turn the > rooftop antenna one way or the other. If they could not afford the > rotor, then they left the antenna turned sort of in the middle and > lived with that. We got one station from Tulsa, Oklahoma (80 miles > almost straight south) and one station from Joplin, Missouri (90 > miles more or less straight east.) Around here, 'big city' (as in > presence of television stations) means Wichita, KS which is 110 miles > northwest, or Topeka KS which is about 150 miles straight north, and > we could not get those stations very well at all in those days. PAT] In 1956 I moved to Rutland VT, in a valley. We had three floors above the basement, and the peak of our slate roof may have been forty feet above the ground. On the peak was a mast with guy wires. There were three antennae on the mast, one pointed to Burlington 70 miles away, on to Albany 90 miles away, and one to Boston 160 miles away. Three cables led from the antennae to a switch on the back of the TV. The snow was bad all year. Community cable, with an antenna mast on a nearby mountain, was discussed. A year or so later, Lucky 13 started in Albany. In spite of the distance and the mountains, it came in without snow. I heard no more about community cable. I don't know how much it cost to operate a small UHF station, but in Rutland I think it could have been started and operated much cheaper than cable. The audience would probably have needed something besides a loop on their TV, and I suppose advertising would have had to support it. ------------------------------ From: whoward@login2.srv.ualberta.ca (W Howard) Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 02:56:58 UTC Organization: University of Alberta In article <telecom24.305.8@telecom-digest.org>, mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu> wrote: >> Of course they say that. And every once in a while they dust off >> their announcement that broadcasting more than 5 watts on a CB radio >> is illegal and subjects the operator to fines and seizure of their >> equipment too. But they don't actually do it. They're stretched thin >> already trying to figure out where telecommunications is going so they >> can stay a little ahead of it, and they just don't bother with >> "crimes" that do not involve substantial amounts of money. > You haven't been reading the news on www.arrl.org, have you? You are right, I hadn't. So I went and did. Seven enforcement letters over the course of a week is what I found. I could find you the evidence for seven enforcement letters about every seventy seconds along any stretch of freeway near any major city. So my use of "never" was inaccurate; in a tiny fraction of the cases, somebody from the FCC attempts to enforce the regulations. It's still such a tiny fraction as to have negligible effect, and I doubt that the stern warnings about possessing/using cellphone jammers will be followed up with enough enforcement to make a difference there either. And I stand by my claim that the govt in general would have at least more respect if they didn't write laws/regulations that they won't enforce in any meaningful way. >>Walt ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <spamsucks@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 22:56:34 -0500 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.302.6@telecom-digest.org> mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu> wrote: >> The law should be modestly amended to declare those using cellphones >> in theaters, churches, and other places of public assembly outlaws >> subject to pummeling by the inconvenienced other inmates of such >> assembly. Exception might be made for surviving, on duty, emergency >> personnel. ;^) > Here I think there is a market for cell phone *detectors*. Cell > phones transmit every few minutes even when you're not making or > receiving a call, in order to keep the tower apprised of where they > are. "Turn off your cell phone" could have more teeth if equipment > were in use to detect cell phones that were still turned on. How do you figure? My phone *never* gets turned off. Period. Not in theatres, not in churches, not in other places of public assembly. Never. However, I do set it on do not disturb (Which is a profile I created, is completely silent, does not vibrate, and routes all calls to voicemail (although it does still log them on my caller ID) Why don't I turn it off? Well, in short, I want the calls logged on my caller ID. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 16:48:08 -0400 From: alan@bloomfieldpress.com Subject: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food story [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: An interesting essay on why so many of us have very little trust in the so-called 'mainstream' media. You know, the ones that are supposed to be so precious and so good, compared to all us imbeciles on the internet doing our thing. PAT] The Uninvited Ombudsman: An observation for news-media people in general -- July 2, 2005 Dear Editor, Cities nationwide just got short but saturation coverage of the "U.S. gives 50,000 tons of food to N. Korea" story. I got it from six outlets in Phoenix. Not surprisingly, all the versions were nearly identical. That's because the propagated story was a straight government handout, with no actual reporting involved. There in a nutshell is why we, the people, no longer trust you, the news media, as much as we used to, or would like to. In my "state" newspaper, The Arizona Republic, the two paragraphs began, "The Bush Administration announced ..." and "The White House said ..." pretty much like every other version. It was the same where you live, right? Your comrades aren't even pretending to report, or displaying even rudimentary curiosity. It's pure government lapdog, zero public watchdog. You only say you're a watchdog. Even the most frenzied writer or editor, with no legwork at all, could do some head math and find that though it sounds so magnanimous, it's not. Think -- Americans often eat meals that weigh a pound. If you could just subsist on one pound daily, the hundred million pounds would feed the 22 million communist subjects for 4-1/2 days. Many Americans would prefer that you ask the hardball questions, like, "Why does the executive branch think it has legitimate power to "donate" so much of our money to, well, anyone?" Aren't you the least bit curious how much money the public treasury loses in the deal? What sort of discount does one get on a million pounds of groceries? News orgs obviously ripped and ran -- took the handout without thought. It's become your job. What kind of food is it? Fresh produce or rice? Who sold it (and got all the cash)? You don't know (or care, we imagine), because from writer to publisher you seem content as a government tool. It's what you do. You haven't even questioned your source, "the wire." You never do. You believe it's truth. Pravda. We're wise to you. ------------------ The kind of food is important, and meaningful. What's really happened here is that government people made a deal with food people to take my money, and your money, and buy a mountain of food. This way, the food people get a lot of money, and their books look good this month. Most people do not realize that when we "give aid" we are often just pouring money into private hands. Salaries and overheads are covered by money taken personally from me and you under the guise of fair taxation. The government didn't announce that part, doesn't want you thinking about the man behind the curtain. The media is then complicit in the widely propagated announcement. Itsa complex. We might start believing you again when your stories start looking like the rewrite below. But then we'd be informed, and the public could start owning its government again, instead of the other way around. Most people do want this, but the political left (a euphemism for socialist-style governance) fundamentally opposes such empowerment. The news coverage and slants we get speak for themselves. "Cambpell's soup concluded a deal today to sell ten million cans of chicken soup to the U.S. Dept. of Magnanimous Giveaways, putting the company's books firmly in the black this quarter, The Arizona Republic has learned. Floundering recently, stock price for the parent food conglomerate jumped six percent on the news. The food, paid for with taxpayer's money, will be given to the communist North Korean ruling clique. Although the White House labeled the giveaway a "humanitarian gesture," it is presumed that strings are attached, and sources close to dictator Kim Jong-il said in 2002 he plans to create a nuclear crisis for leverage with us. At least five other food producers have made similar government deals, to raise the 100 million total pounds promised in this controversial 'donation'." Same word count. Everyone who has hopes that the news media will straighten up and become a watchdog again, raise your hands. See? Few hands go up. Time to change. ========================== FYI: The original, with no byline (presumably because no reporter had a hand in its creation) was attributed simply "Wire Services": U.S. to Give 50,000 Tons of Food Aid to N. Korea (6/23/05) Washington -- The Bush Administration announced Wednesday that it will donate 50,000 tons of food aid to North Korea, just days after the reclusive state indicated a willingness to return to regional talks over its nuclear program. The White House said the aid is a humanitarian gesture unrelated to the political climate or to the potential for renewed talks. At the same time, officials declined to comment on revelations Wednesday that the administration received an overture from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in November 2002, in which he said he wanted to resolve a budding nuclear crisis between the two countries. Sincerely, Alan Korwin Publisher Contact: Alan Korwin BLOOMFIELD PRESS "We publish the gun laws." 4718 E. Cactus #440 Phoenix, AZ 85032 602-996-4020 Phone 602-494-0679 FAX 1-800-707-4020 Orders http://www.gunlaws.com alan@gunlaws.com Call, write, fax or click for a free catalog. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alan Korwin believes, as do I, that when Americans begin taking the Second Amendment as seriously as they take the First, there is a good chance the government in the USA can be redeemed for the people. Until the time comes that American citizens are able to _openly and freely bear arms_ if that is their choice, without all sorts of bogus reasoning on why this person or that person should not be allowed to have a gun, then we should expect our freedoms to continue to deteriorate (as they have since 9-11-2001) in the name of Homeland Security, etc. Alan Korwin also believes, as do I, that the mass media in the USA has become more and more a disgrace in the past few years, as it parrots without question the policies and ideas presented by our resident president. And yet, people say that we here on the Internet are irresponsible in _our_ journalism. You might like getting on Alan Korwin's mailing lists, the man speaks the truth about so many things. Anyway, have a happy Independence Day, and wish for a time (hopefully in our lifetimes) when there will be _true independence for all_ in this land; not just the ones who say the right words and have the right thoughts. PAT] ------------------------------ 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, Yahoo Groups, 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. 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