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And what's wrong with moral lessons?

Nothing, if you don't mind getting beat over the head with preachy messages. However, I didn't watch Batman (the Paul Dini WB Batman) for moral content, but for damn good story and character (not to mention bitchin' design and good animation.)

It is a hard line to walk to write a 3-act teleplay which is involving and dramatic (or humorous, depending on genre), with character development, story arc, and good dialogue, within a 22 minute time limit, while trying NOT beat the audience over the head with a required moral theme. Many writers wouldn't even bother with these limitations - and the good ones who do often find their work butchered to fit for time and studio requirements. Ever wondered what the writer was thinking when he/she wrote something? It may not have been the writer's fault - likely some key piece of information was cut, rendering the whole episode totally meaningless.

And where is this educational content you speak of?

FCC regs mandate that each network screen at least 3 hours of "educational" programming per week in order to maintain their broadcast licenses. Regarding Schoolhouse Rock, those programs would have to be at least 30 minutes or more in order to qualify, since the FCC specifically excludes shorter programs, as well as PSAs from their definition of programs that fall under the 3 hour requirement:

From the FCC regs: "We will not credit educational and informational PSAs, interstitials, or other short segments as core programming."

This is insanity, as the Schoolhouse Rock segments were (and continue to be) often more entertaining than the programs there were playing at the time. (Although the FCC recognizes the contribution of shorter programs, they really want to have stations air actual shows that fullfill the "educational imperative".) Even worse, the FCC will not recognize once-time episodes (ie, programming that is not regularly scheduled) such as "ABC Afterschool Specials" (this is directly taken from paragraph 103 from the above FCC link.)

So, given the 3 hour rule, if you don't play animated shows on a daily basis, then a significant portion of your Saturday/Sunday lineup (if you even have one anymore) MUST have, as a significant (if not primary) focus, shows that, on an ongoing basis, be considered "educational."

Here's the clincher - in order to earn money back on an animated series, you need to syndicate. In order to increase the "educational" value of your syndicated programming (so that it can fulfill some affilate station's educational programming requirement), ALL children's programming must at some level, be arguably "educational" - or at least, that's what the executives want to see. Hence, I'll bet that even shows like Kirby's Adventures, the new TNMT, or Ultimate Muscle - IF they air on network TV, probably had to undergo review in order to be deemed (even at the flimsiest level) "educational."

These are some of the constraints I was referring to when I condemned the myriad requirements that writers had to hew to when trying to create entertaining programming. Don't blame the writers (mostly.)

The infrastructure may not exist yet, but it's mandated to be completed by December 31, 2005. So the idea is just slightly ahead of its time.

Then apparently you're not read the FCC regulations then buddy
"Developed by industry standards group - - widespread support & explosive growth
Also known as "Wi-Fi"
Key features:
Direct sequence spread spectrum
Operates in the 2.4 GHz band
Low power less than 100 mW; range less than 100 m
Designed for network operations
Bandwidth: 22 MHz; data rates up to 11 Mb/s"
That's Less than .1 watts. FCC regs, you're VIOLATING the Law if you're broadcasting at the 2 watts of a cellular telephone.
Here is the relevent cluestick i beat you with
As powerpoint
As googled html (requires selecting all text to see)

It may be the FAA's issue but it is the FCC that has the regulation banning cell phone use. http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/cellular/operatio ns/aircraft.html

I've seen this in action. Not only did a polite, detailed letter to the FCC clear up the problem almost instantly, the responsible manager at Qwest (my local telco) sent a very polite apology explaining that the phone line was being taken care of and the rude operator was being investigated.

>'nuff said.
Could you say a little more please....

Quick question....do you know how your "universal service charge" money is being spent? It's a required "tax" that was started to "keep phone service affordable for everyone"
see here
But do you REALLY know where it goes?

Basically, I'm scratching at this as one of these unenforceable laws out there. These laws, while well meaning: you want to protect children, but as other posters here have mentioned, you really can't shore up minor negligent parenting by technology or laws. You can legislate and enforce abuse, certainly, but unenforceable "babysitter" laws are bad for everyone. Recall the v-chip?

First of all, this makes it sound like there was a law passed which specifies all routers must have this kind of capability. I sure have not heard about that.

In the US, that would be the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.

Cisco is playing lab dog to the government but not its customers.

No. Cisco is trying to self-regulate so they can perform IP "wiretapping" on their own terms. The arrival of IP telephony tapping at your local ISP is inevitible; Cisco would be foolish to ignore it.

I work for a telecom equipment manufacturer. (yes, one of the few remaining..) My current project is testing the feature on our TDM switch that supports CALEA. (hence the anonymous post..) The capabilities of CALEA-compliant systems do not greatly expand on the old-fashioned method of physically tapping a suspect's copper line. They just simplify the telephone company's ability to administer taps. Basically, it just brings wiretapping to the digital age.

One thing to note is that the telephone companies, not the law enforcement agencies, are the people administering the taps. It is this separation that protects us from over-zealous police. Before the telco creates a tap, they must receive a court order. If they don't have a judge's signature, they tell to agency to blow smoke.

The FBI is scared $hitless about the convergence of circuit and packet-switched networks. IP telephony is much easier to secure than twisted-pair. But, just as people can buy a set of encrypting handsets for their regular telephones, people can add encryption on top of their IP voice call. Its generally only the crooks that do that, but the capability exists for anyone to do so. In fact, its significantly easier in IP, which is why the FBI is so scared.

I'm not worried about Cisco's RFC. I would rather the rules for how to tap IP telephony come from a knowledgable IP player than from the FBI. If Cisco doesn't write the RFC and get some semblance of a working system, Congress (through the FBI) will write it, and THAT would be a disaster. If Cisco does it right, you can expect the RFC to become law. And we should also expect an OSS implementation so ISPs can continue using Linux routers instead of having to buy Cisco just for the tapping ability.

In fact, I smell a potential business op^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H uh, never mind...

Both the WPC55AG and WMP55AG adapters are based on Broadcom's chips. As well, both the WPC54G and WMP54G also use Broadcom's chips. There are no public linux drivers for this chip as of yet. From what I've read, the WRT and WAP products also use the Broadcom chips, but since they require no client drivers, it is a non-issue. What I find interesting is that these access points run embedded linux, which means that there is linux code out there for talking to these chips.

If you don't believe me about the chips, look at the photos of the internals of these things. They can be found in the FCC database here.

I made the mistake of purchasing the WAP54G and WPC54G products without checking for linux support. It had been so long since it was an issue that I had forgotten to check.

The Commission also adopted a system for allocating numbers in blocks of 1,000 rather than 10,000 (thousands-block number pooling). The Commission determined that all carriers, including wireless carriers, would be required to participate in thousands-block number pooling once they became LNP-capable. The pooling deadline is November 24, 2002 (in area codes where wireline carriers are providing pooling), for wireless carriers operating in the largest 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). And as other posts already pointed out, the technical issues are all ironed out. Other wireless operators already have the infrastructure in place to provide WNP (presumably Verzion Wireless too, but they'll never admit it as long as the case is still open).

its amazing that AOL is circumventing the FCC rules, I was pretty disapointed when AOL IM protocol wasn't forced open during the merger but this is ridiculous. To brashlly declare it doesnt hold a dominant control over IM, have they forgotten about AOL IM & ICQ???

News.com article
"The petition argues that AOL's IM services, AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ, face more competition from Microsoft and Yahoo, both of which have launched video conferencing features on their respective IM clients. The petition also disputes the order's original argument that AOL's dominance would increase given the lack of interoperability, now that MSN and Yahoo have amassed millions of users as well.

"There is no longer any plausible reason to conclude either that AOL is dominant or that the market is in danger of 'tipping' to AOL," said Northwestern University professor William P. Rogerson, who provided an affidavit on behalf of AOL Time Warner. "

also alarming, William P. Rogerson is the Chief Economist of the FCC

I worked as an assistant rf engineer for a wireless ISP for about a year and apparently bandwidth does matter. When writing and refining the business plan we discovered that in order to advertise as broadband (also "high speed") the minimum offered service has to provide 200 kbps at least one way. This is defined in the FCC's Section 706 advanced service inquiry in their second report. The UK I couldn't comment on but you can look here.

I'm not sure why the guy fought it, wasted money. I would've just put "fast" or since they're electrical impulses "lightning fast" or even "three times the speed of dialup!" in the adds.

The way the rules written, one could provide 128 down 200 up, still advertise broadband or high speed, and extend their bandwidth budget a bit. Though I'm betting there would be a test case before too long.

In other words, he wants the technology, and they have the green light UNLESS it causes problems with existing technologies. Promoting this is an official part of the FCC agenda: 2003 FCC Agenda (PDF). See page 17.

There was footage of the demo from Maryland on the local Ch. 4 news. They played MotoGP online from Xbox Live. I.e., it's not a fake VCR scam. They interviewed one of the beta testers who uses powerline broadband now. It's real. The question is whether it's economically viable.

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?na tive_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6513398631

And this is why Clear Channel and all the rest of them are kissing up to the current government. Michael Powell, Colin Powell's son head up the FCC. Now with this big bill coming up, and nepotism at it's extreme throughout the current government, everyone has to kiss ass.

I have no doubt what-so-ever that they will loosen the restrictions, and eventually the radio stations will come down to two different conglomerates owning 95% of all stations.

If you're thinking they're gonna realise this and do anything about it, remember that this is the administration that basically gave microsoft a slap on the wrist.

And this is why Clear Channel and all the rest of them are kissing up to the current government. Michael Powell, Colin Powell's son head up the FCC. Now with this big bill coming up, and nepotism at it's extreme throughout the current government, everyone has to kiss ass.

I have no doubt what-so-ever that they will loosen the restrictions, and eventually the radio stations will come down to two different conglomerates owning 95% of all stations.

If you're thinking they're gonna realise this and do anything about it, remember that this is the administration that basically gave microsoft a slap on the wrist.

Yes. In fact, it was in the article.

Public Comments Filing for Media Ownership Policy Reexamination

Public "People's Forum" on Media Ownership, at Phoenix, Arizona (April 7)

That's not exactly what Enhanced 911 is all about. Dialing 911 from your cell phone has always patched you to the correct 911 center (unless the cell tower happens to be close to a border). The major goal of E911 is the tell the emergency operaror where you are located. You can read more about E911 on the FCC website.

There are many cell phones currently on the market which have what is called Assisted GPS. As another posted mentioned, Assisted GPS cell phones merely take measurments of the signal strength coming from various GPS satellites. These measurements are forwarded to the cell tower which calculates the mobile phones location. This is mainly implemented to support E911 in the cheapest way possible. However, I have seen numerous postings on the SprintPCS developer website forums that there are plans to put together a Java library which will permit application developers to write J2ME apps which can query the lat/long of the phone. Those postings are from Sprint employees, but they currently seem to be suggesting that we will see this as part of the Location API included with the Java MIDP 2.0 to be released 4th Quarter 2003.

If I did not state it clearly above, once the cell tower calculates your position, it currently has no reason to pass that info back to your phone. The Location API will work by asking the cell tower for your location, not by reading some registers in your phone. Without the Location API (and the supporting software on the towers), there would be no way for you to write a mapping application that ran on your phone, regardless of how much memory you have. For obvious reasons, such a library would have to query the phone user before permitting the application to obtain location information. I also imagine that Sprint would have to come up with a scheme to prevent folks from reverse engineering the Sprint library and then implementing their own libraries which would not bother asking for permission. That is probably at least part of the reason why it is taking so long to get support for polling your phones location.

The FCC, the government organization that deals with radio transmissions, gives us the same right you have, that it shall not be made illegal to recieve a radio transmission.

Sorry, but this is absolutely not true and hasn't been since at least 1934. From:

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/subcarriers/

Section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, which states that no one may receive, or assist in receiving, any radio communication to which they are not entitled and use that information for their own benefit. In addition, 18 U.S.C. Sections 2510 through 2521 prohibit the manufacture, assembly, possession, and sale of any device primarily useful for the surreptitious interception of such radio transmissions.

This is just one of the first in the long list of things you are not allowed to receive if they are provided to you.

they dont require you to sign anything, simply activate your minutes and go. however prepaid phones carry a much higher cost per minute. as a cell phone user you are coverd by the tcpa dont fret.. read the bottom of the page on what info you need to file a report.. keep it handy... $500 for every offense. if its a telemarketing company with any brains they wont be calling cell phones.

i submitted this story because my bank wellsfargo couldnt seem to stop calling me on my cell. i tried in good faith many times to get them to stop. i received over 5 calls from them. when i contacted my cellphone provider at&t on getting help on getting the numbers of the person calling because under the tcpa solicitations are not allowed to be made to phones. you guesed it though. att was about as much help as, well, dead flash light batteries when the power goes out.

Did anybody else notice the site had an article on the Matrix phone? Apparently it will be a Sprint PCS phone, and match one used in the new movie.

Photos here

LPFM stations are available to noncommercial educational entities and public safety and transportation organizations, but are not available to individuals or for commercial operations.

How does shutting down your SMTP server block port 80 or access to open relays running on other ports? I think you've exagerated a bit here.

It doesn't. I am referring to Formmail, an HTML to email CGI that is installed everywhere. A lot of the spammers we kill have scripts that run against other peoples' web servers looking for unsecured formmail scripts. Since that runs on port 80, there is not much we can do to block that kind of traffic from our users who would abuse it.

Blocking outbound port 25 stops a lot of spam. But when someone runs a server without locking down formmail, there is not much we can do to prevent our users from spamming against it. As I said, we can't exactly block port 80. We can only clean up and ban access later. Hell, if our abuse department gets logs of someone who was even *trying* to run scripts against formmail, the user is banned.

Security Focus lists formmail as the 3rd highest type of attack for the 1st quarter of 2002, behind Code Red and Nimda.

Is there really some law preventing you from doing so?

As a nationwide wholesale ISP, we fall under different FCC rules than your local ISP. The FCC does not regulate intrastate communications, so most local ISPs are not covered by the FCC. Notice the FCC website clearly says interstate communications. Since we are interstate, we fall under their scope, and thus, their regulations. IANAL, so I can't tell you the exact law. I will assume when our lawyers tell us that, they are telling the truth. That's what they get paid for, and if I wanted to argue with them, I'd have been a lawyer, not a professional geek.

And while this is getting off-topic, we can't tell if it is the same phone, due to the blocking of caller-ID. And we are a wholesaler, not a retail ISP, so we never deal with the end users directly. It is our customers who do so. And yes the authorites and banks *do care*. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you completely missed the comment about how we are routinely answering subpeonas for logs from federal and state authorities? And how they usually end at dead ends?

As for going after the guy with guns, the FBI does that for us, and we are not a "small business." Quite a few of our customers are not "small businesses" either.

Now maybe you have a small glimpse of how identity theft hurts businesses as much as it does consumers. And leads to more SPAM. See how it all ties together?

(Note: I may not be old enough to remember this, but I'm a small Bell telephone equipment collector, and have done a pretty good deal of research on this. :-)

1) AT&T had a great service record before they were broken up. Granted, AT&T didn't have to deal with everybody's DSL lines and such. But in the day of the Bell System, there weren't nearly as many problems, and your linemen would come fix them quickly. AT&T was known for its outstanding service record. Sure you had to lease your phone from the phone company, but they were high quality phones. Old Bell System phones still work, your new cordless phone will last you two years if you're lucky.

2) It's a common misconception that rates have gone down since the breakup. Take a look at the FCC reports. What's really happened with long distance calls is they've standardized so that the rates don't depend on the distance of the call. For longer distance calls, rates had been going down steadily up until the breakup talks.

3. Consumers didn't bring complaints against AT&T, it was MCI and Sprint that did most of the complaining to the government. They were really responsible for the breakup talks. The government had brought complaints against AT&T before, but AT&T had always agreed to new regulation or a change in policies to meet the government's demands. Along come MCI and Sprint in the early 70s and they want to play ball. They not only want to play ball, they want the government to make AT&T give up their bats, balls, and ballfields. Consumers were fine with their telephone service. AT&T often gets accused of stifling innovation. On the contrary, they were regularly innovating since the beginning, and the government was often preventing them from trying new things (like cell phones for instance, which AT&T developed 30 years ago).

Now that they broke up AT&T, service went all to heck. Rates went down and back up. Obviously we can't put Ma Bell back together, but let's at least remember that the phone company wasn't always bad.

I work at a small-sized ISP in northern california.

That wouldn't happen to be my ISP, would it?

With only around 12k customers, it's not economically feasable for us to offer voice communcation service. So, our DSL service goes "poof". If ILECs aren't forced to share, they won't!

There's more than one form of sharing involved here. There's the ILEC offering access to its copper pairs and central office space to CLECs, and there's the ILEC offering access to its ADSL transport to ISPs.

I'm not sure I see anything in the attachment to the press release discussing anything having to do with the latter (are any requirements on ILECs to offer access to ISPs other than any ISP owned by the ILEC or the ILEC's parent federal requirements, state requirements, or both?).

The attachment seems to discuss issues for CLECs, not ISPs; my DSL circuit is provided by SBC , but my Internet access is provided by Sonic.net, and I'm quite happy with both (and would prefer not to have to switch the latter to SBC).

To file a Public comment with the FCC

(Does "packet switching" count? The document with the new rules [fcc.gov] says

Packet Switching - Incumbent LECs are not required to unbundle packet switching, including routers and DSLAMs, as a stand-alone network element. The order eliminates the current limited requirement for unbundling of packet switching.

but I don't know whether that's what's used by competitive ISPs.)

Line Sharing - The high frequency portion of the loop (HFPL) is not an unbundled network element. Although the Order finds general impairment in providing broadband services without access to local loops, access to the entire stand-alone copper loop is sufficient to overcome impairment.

Is the FCC trying to encourage or destroy competition in the telecommunications industry? Based on the decision to relax line-sharing rules, I'd say that the FCC is trying to quash the last vestige of competition in broadband, and turn it all over to the baby bells, who have systematically tried to exploit their position as local monopolies to shut out competitors.

In case you haven't seen this is what your gift to the bells is being called on Slashdot (www.slashdot.org):

"FCC Abandons Linesharing, Kills DSL Competition"

As a Covad subscriber for several years, I agree with them. I know for a fact that Covad pays MORE for the local loop they lease from Verizon, than I do for my home telephone (they're on separate lines, I'm not using that ADSL on the same line as my regular phone as most folks do.) Couple this with the fact that I can subscribe to a phone service over DSL (www.vonage.com) for an additional $25, and the requirement that a company have to provide both voice and internet in order to lineshare is ridiculous. COMPETITION IS ALREADY HERE - and up until today, it was driving a healthy growth in businesses across the US.

Although I get my local loop from Covad, I get internet access via Speakeasy (www.speakeasy.com). Couple that with regular telephone access via Vonage (www.vonage.com), and I have everything your decision is supposed to encourage. However, the consequence of your decision today gives Verizon (in my area) back their monopoly on voice and data, and destroys these three other businesses. A monopoly, I might add, which in the past has refused to allow number portability, DESPITE my paying a "number portability fee" for many years.

In summary, a data provider need not provide voice for there to be voice competition - all they have to do is provide a high speed connection, and voice competition will use that route to compete (as they already are, for both long distance and local service.) By giving the baby bells the decision they wanted, you have destroyed not only the broadband competition, but also the voice competition that relied on that broadband being available. Why would I subscribe to Vonage, if I used Verizon DSL (which requires that I have Verizon voice service)? I WOULDN'T. Whereas, with Covad, which runs their own loop WITHOUT voice, I can order whatever kind of voice service I want, given enough broadband bandwidth. Just so you know, I pay more for service through Covad/Speakeasy, but their quality of service is justifiably better.

If you doubt that the market has formed the correct impression of your decision (FCC kills broadband on behalf of the baby bells), take a look at Covad stock (COVD): A drop of 39.85% in ONE DAY. Making line-sharing available only to providers that also sell voice is silly and unnecessary, and frankly, incredibly stupid.

FCC Chairman Powell writes:
I do, however, dissent from the Majority's decision to immediately eliminate line sharing as an unbundled network element. Most of our policies to promote the goals of the Telecommunications Act have produced little yield to date. However, line sharing has clear and measurable benefits for consumers. It has unquestionably given birth to important competitive broadband suppliers. That additional competition has directly contributed to lower prices for new broadband services. By some estimates, 40% of DSL providers use line shared inputs. The decision to kill off this element and replace it with a transition of higher and higher wholesale prices will lead quite quickly to higher retail prices for broadband consumers.

Tell them how you feel through the "Email the Chairman" form located at http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/powell/mkp_email. html.

G

So, being a user of EarthLink DSL for the past two and a half years, does this mean I should start looking into Verizon's DSL price plans?

That depends on whether any of the items that no longer have to be unbundled are the ones that EarthLink could use to provide Internet access over Verizon's ATM transport. (Does "packet switching" count? The document with the new rules says

Packet Switching - Incumbent LECs are not required to unbundle packet switching, including routers and DSLAMs, as a stand-alone network element. The order eliminates the current limited requirement for unbundling of packet switching.

but I don't know whether that's what's used by competitive ISPs.)

Some articles discussing this speak of it limiting the ability of competitors to provide "high-speed Internet access", but the authors of those articles might not understand the difference between a LEC and an ISP - my DSL service is provided by SBC Advanced Services, over the wires owned by Pacific Bell^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSBC California, but my Internet access is provided by Sonic.net.

Took me a while to find it, but maybe I'm just spacy.

Hopefully the FCC will fast track this petition.

For those who remember The ACTA Petition, I do hope that this is something that the FCC does decide to rule on.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

"This process contains three phases: (1) Completing a cover sheet, and (2) Attaching documents or submitting typed comments, and (3) Receiving a Confirmation." (from ECFS user manual)

Upload expert, submitting an attached MS Word 6.0 and higher, MS Excel 4.0 and higher, Word Perfect 5.1 and higher, ASCII Text, and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF), as specified in the ECFS user manual. Or (maybe?) do a quick file submission under "Broadband over the traditional telephone." (I'm not sure if this files under the proper proceeding, as it provides minimal information so you may want to use expert.)

File using expert

1. Proceeding: 03-45
2. Fill in relevant information (pers info)
3. Document type: Comment
4. Attach document or just type in a quick comment

Now instead of ranting here on the issue. Make your statements on the issue available to people other then techies, law types and such. Not that I'm saying law types don't come here, or techies don't understand ... err ... shut up ... right. The rest of this comment is thrown in for reference.

Home Site ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System)
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Documentation in regards to proper response filings in response to the petition posted by pulvar.com":
http://pulver.com/fwd/fccfwd.html
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-03-439A1.pdf

The CFRs referenced from time to time are Code of Federal Regulations. On the site referenced, you should come to see quickly there are different titles corresponding to various sectors of industry, Title 47 referencing Telecommuniation.

USC stands for United States Code. You can search this database or download each to view structurally.

I have just discovered all this information out in the past 15 minutes via Google and the www.fcc.gov site and www.pulvar.com. I can't give you a cut clear definition of the difference of U.S.C. and C.F.R., however there is an about page that clearly defines this on each respective home site.

In other words, I'll leave my post and allow the higher states of entropical discussion to follow ;)

P.S.I'm not really a coward, just an ignorant fool who forgot his password/email. Ohhly well. That also means to imply I am not affliated with anybody pertaining to the topic of discussion.

I'm pretty sure that doesn't cut the legal mustard (at least in the U.S.). If my skim of the JunkBusters [junkbusters.com] site picked up the right info, once you tell them to put you on their do-not-call list they can't call you again for ten years or you can quite easily file some legal papers and get $500 per infringement out of the bastards.

From 64 CFR 64.1200:

Maintenance of do-not-call lists. A person or entity making telephone solicitations must maintain a record of a caller's request not to receive future telephone solicitations. A do not call request must be honored for 10 years from the time the request is made.

If you just interrupt the telemarketer with "Take me off your list", it'll take a week of calls... MAYBE two, and it'll ALL STOP.

I haven't gotten a telemarketing call in years.

Note that, if you want to take the telemarketers to court for violating your requests, you need to ask for the right thing.

47 CFR 64.1200 requires telemarketers to honor "do not call" requests, but says nothing about requests to "remove [you] from [their] list".

IANAL, but if you issue a "do not call" request, and they violate it more than once, you have private right-of-action in court for at least $500 per violation. This is not available if you continue to demand that they remove you from their phone list.

We've had a couple of single-time violations on telemarketers we've asked Do Not Call, but so far none of them have managed to do it twice.

The Fax Law (47 U.S.C. 227) works fine for me. I have successfully collected about $200,000 from junk faxers and telemarketers over the past 5 years... all in small claims court.

A bunch of cases are collected at the FCC here .

The FTC do-not-call list will not apply to calls from those industries (the FTC is not empowered to regulate them) but it WILL apply to calls from telemarketing firms hired BY those industries that call on their behalf. The second shoe (a bigger and heavier one) is the FCC action that will be announced in a month or two... the FCC DOES have the express authority to enact a nationwide do-not-call list that does apply to all of those industries - every one of them.

"Every radio station in every city that's making any money is probably 9 times out of 10 part of ClearChannel's vast network"

Probably more like 8 times out of 10, but only because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 limits a corporation to owning 8 stations in a given major regional market (as ClearChannel does in Washington, DC).

A good friend of mine works for ClearChannel* who, of course, owns nearly every decent venue here in Philadelphia. As far as I'm concerned, the only good things to come out of her employment there are free tickets to any shows I wish. feh.

--fletch

*Yeah, I know, but it's not entirely her fault. She went to work for local promotions house Electric Factory Concerts, who's since been bought by SFX, who's since been bought by ClearChannel.

Since you are living in Morocco, any idea of how to make inexpensive calls to Morocco from North America. It looks like the moroccan telco is practicing very high rates to make any incoming call to Morocco.

I believe Morocco is one of the countries where US phone companies have failed to reach termination agreements at or below the $0.19 benchmark set under the FCC's 1997 Settlement Rate Reform rule. The FCC has just finished taking comments on this issue and will be considering approaches to dealing with it.

This doesn't just affect calls to or from the USA, since third countries can (and do) route calls via the USA in cases where it's cheaper to do so. The FCC has been quite aggressive - to the considerable annoyance of telecom monopolies in many countries - in using US market power to force down the cost of international calls, to spectacular effect. Just look at how prices have come down since 1997: Transatlantic minutes from the USA are now widely available to consumers for US$0.03 and transpacific from $0.06.

One of the key factors under consideration is how the emergence of IP telephony has changed the landscape of the marketplace. I think it's reasonable to predict that countries banning VOIP services will find their pet monopolies at the ugly end of the forthcoming ruling.

So, stay tuned - there's a good chance the prices will come down soon.

Somehow I believe there will always be a demand for open hardware. Even if Microsoft's wet dream of everyone having Palladium embedded in their notebook computer, TV, dish washer, and cerebral cortex comes true, there will always be demand for a piece of hardware that can run code without Bill Gates' say-so.

And where there's Demand, someone will step up to the plate and Supply.

The only risk here is government interference. In America's case, that seems to be a big risk. Look at the V-Chip. Rather than let the open market handle things, it has become law that all American televisions have electronic parental controls built in. I have to pay for that crap because I *might* have a kid one day and I *might* want to keep that kid from watching pr0n.

Hell, maybe if our tax dollars have to go towards enforcing crypto laws, maybe they'll cut funding to the War on Drugs, and if I couldn't use my computer for what I wanted to I could twist up a big doobie and get baked in peace and not give a crap.

Actually, KISS is kind of a station brand, like a "theme" package. If you look closer, you'll find that KISS FM 108 in Boston, is actually licensed by the FCC as WXKS. (In the fine print on their contact page.)

The station with the actual KISS callsign, is in San Antonio, Texas, on 99.5.

One example of a before the rules station, is KDKA-AM (and TV) in Pittsburgh. They predate the rule.

Actually, KISS is kind of a station brand, like a "theme" package. If you look closer, you'll find that KISS FM 108 in Boston, is actually licensed by the FCC as WXKS. (In the fine print on their contact page.)

The station with the actual KISS callsign, is in San Antonio, Texas, on 99.5.

One example of a before the rules station, is KDKA-AM (and TV) in Pittsburgh. They predate the rule.