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http://www.checkyourphonebill.com/index.html

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/006/ripoff0006518.htm

http://www.phoneplusmag.com/articles/0c1rnew4.html?cntwelcome=1

tons more. Verizon has tried their hardest to screw the customer for a really long time.

Here's an example of how SBC is trying to win back the consumer. (The reason for this blog was SBC's incredibly poor customer service. The U.S. lags considerably behind other countries on price and speed. Taiwan: $23 USD. Hong Kong: $19 USD. etc.)

You should probably know that SBC has expanded outside California, even before it merged with AT&T. And you are right about them having a bad name. Not that AT&T has a much better one.

It seems that a year ago Pingtel had its doubts about SIP as the sole technology for VoIP. And they are right, of course.

The key to making this work is a combination of SIP and other related technologies, but most of all, VoIP needs a solid business plan to work. Despite good technologies and intentions, without a business plan that is well-designed, the project will be doomed to failure. Pingtel thinks they have the right business model. Time will tell

It seems that a year ago Pingtel had its doubts about SIP as the sole technology for VoIP. And they are right, of course.

The key to making this work is a combination of SIP and other related technologies, but most of all, VoIP needs a solid business plan to work. Despite good technologies and intentions, without a business plan that is well-designed, the project will be doomed to failure. Pingtel thinks they have the right business model. Time will tell

If you'd like something more recent, I can't help you. But if you check http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=C0_15_1 you should be able to find somtething.

• Complete Lawful Intercept Service

  VeriSign's NetDiscovery service provides telecom network operators, cable operators, and Internet service providers with a streamlined service to help meet requirements for assisting government agencies with lawful interception and subpoena requests for subscriber records. Net Discovery is the premier turnkey service for provisioning, access, delivery, and collection of call information from operators to law enforcement agencies (LEAs).

Verisign does this for telephony by using (or abusing) their control of Signalling System 7., the routing network for telephony. When a wiretap request comes in, they change the SS7 routing data to route calls to/from the phone of interest to their call monitoring center, from which the call is then routed outward again. To the telephone network, this looks like call forwarding. This approach requires no additional hardware at the wireline carrier; it's done through the existing SS7 infrastructure. (Incidentally, this should increase latency, depending on how far you are from Northern Virginia. But they may have remote monitoring centers by now to cut that down.)

Verisign also offers wiretapping services for mobile phones, and cable-based VoIP.

Efforts are underway to integrate NetDiscovery capability into future Cisco routers.

Verisign takes the carrier or ISP completely out of the loop. "Authorized Government agencies" can submit their wiretapping request to Verisign, where they are "reviewed by a paralegal" and then implemented. There's no need for the carrier or ISP to even be aware of the wiretap.

So that's why there's no need for Carnivore any more.

Verisign - your full service wiretapping solution provider.

Well this is more or less what I wrote, that the top 10 control 66% of the market.

"The ISP business is a very specific business for the broadband access. Why? Because it has very high set up costs: the lines themselves, the line equipement. So no, you cannot decide randomly: "hey, this month I will join Cablevision - hey this month I will join Comcast!" - each ISP is limited by geographical area."

It was the same when Dial-Up ISPs were in their infancy. The set up costs were high, and the service and equipment were expensive. Prices go down.

No. You missed the fundamental problem of and the fundemental cost of broadband: the lines. The physical lines. They cost a premium and they are worth a fortune. Most of the cost is physical digging, laying out the cables, and fill the holes back, all this on the property of others, or of the municipality. This is a low-tech job.

Actually, in my area, I have several choices for ISPs, including [to the best of my knowledge] at least three sources for broadband. ProLog/Service Electric, Shen-Heights, Verizon, all offer broadband. There are several ISPs in the area that offer Dial-Up, and since Dial-Up has new subscribers every day, and is still a significant portion of the market, they still count.

This looked strange to me: are you claiming that right now in your home, you have one wire going to ProLog, one wire going to Shen-Heights, and one wire going to Verizon? So I checked, and I saw the reason why there is competition at all is that the governement (the FCC) forced the cable/telco companies to let their competitors use the previous line to the customer. So your quote of a marvellous thousands of ISPs is only due to regulation. Besides that regulation was slashed in 2002, so the hundreds of ISP were poised to disappear (except the deregulation was overruled by some courts, so that's why your ISPs are not here).

People regularly buy up businesses across the country, or across the world. Your basic premise seems to be that new businesses are bought out when a particular company is looking to form an oligopoly. Explain then, how businesses, including ISPs, regularly open up shops or buy out businesses far away from their main office, including in other countries?

First, I know absolutly no small ISP (say 10,000 customer), who has business in both say, New Delhi, and San Francisco. It makes no sense - it is still possible if there is an economic reason for that. You have to have a pretty good reason to go abroad, and small international companies are the exception. If you are not in the top 10 market leaders going abroad is a question mark. Again, I stand that exactly what I said: if you are a small ISP, it makes no sense to buy another ISP at the other end of the country, because there is no business logic there, you are not creating any business synergy or nothing. You're not increasing the shareholder value. You may as well buy a bakery in St Petersburg instead. It may make sense, however, to create an "association of small ISPs". It may make sense to buy an ISP in the town next to yours - because then you can share backbone access. Different businesses have different business logic.

Second, monopolies or oligopolies make more profit than competitive markets. It's a smart CEO move, to buy his competitors to create a monopoly, or an oligopoly, all things being equal. It's just one possibility, not a necessity. Sometimes it's smarter to expand the market, or invest in innovation or whatever.

Being bought out is a safety net, no matter how much you try to convolute the issue.

Well, yes it is a safety net. But only part of the eq

Believe it or not, not everyone knows ahead of time they're going to get drunk. Yes, I know, shocking isn't it! Here's another shocker: some drunk drivers don't even know they're over the legal limit!

so sherlock, what are you suppose to do when the bar closes, you stumble out to your car and realize you're too drunk to drive? Oh right, find a payphone, except many phone companies are closing payphones because lots of people are using cellphones.

So there you are, drunk, standing in front of your car, don't have a cellphone and can't find a payphone. What would you do? Sleep on the sidewalk? That's bullshit. If someone wants to sleep it off in their car then the police shouldn't bother them. Arresting people for sleeping in there car and calling it drunk driving actually encourages "real" drunk driving. I mean what do you have to lose? If you're charged with the same crime either way then you might as well try a mad dash home and hope you don't kill anyone on the way home, right?

Verizon Introduces Wi-Fi Across Northeast

Verizon points Wi-Fi at small businesses

You might know the above but I betcha you don't know this:
You are not a nerd if you don't know this

(You have to read the link to Project for New American Century on this page

payphones are more complicated than just "do they make money"; there are a lotta regulatory issues as well. this article explains some of the mishmash of stuff involved in different types of calls, and who gets paid. also: while bellsouth might not consider the money they make on payphones to be worth it, a small, local operation like bob's payphones might find that small profit plenty to keep a business going.