Telecom Digest archives questions [TELECOM]

I would strongly argue in favor of continuing to maintain the existing archives.

Google groups is nice to have, but it dosen't have the ability to intelligently group a set of articles, based on some loose criteria, without picking up some extra cruft along the way.

I find mbox to be a very useful format.

One of my major frustrations with Yahoo groups is the lack of any bulk download capability, or any way of importing group archives into a offline reader, other than saving individual posts.

There is a widely available perl script that downloads en masse from Yahoo into mbox format.

One caveat is one's Yahoo account can get "locked out" for awhile if too much is downloaded at one time.

A Google search on "yahoo2mbox" will point you to the perl program and also many forums discussing how to get-around Yahoo's restrictions.

Before you go to the trouble, remember that the digest's archives are already available in mbox format, either from the web page, or from me if you need something more recent.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never see your post! Thanks!

We have a new address for email submissions: telecomdigestmoderator atsign telecom-digest.org. This is only for those who submit posts via email: if you use a newsreader or a web interface to contribute to the digest, you don't need to change anything.

Regarding the archives, I would like to say that having the Western Union Technical Review and other materials are a major asset.

Those who built and maintain these archives deserve a big THANKS.

As an aside, that 11 pm discount time was originally midnight; then they moved it to 11 pm. The 11 pm discount, was part of a new major long distance rate overhaul. IIRC, at that time introduced (1) a third large discount period (in addition to day and evening) and (2) one minute charging instead of the three minute minimum, and (3) applied to dial-direct calls only, operator handled calls cost more. This was introduced in the early 1970s that reflected virtually the whole country had DDD. (Those that didn't have DDD and those who had trouble placing a call and needed operator help still were charged DDD rates.)

It is important to note this was a major rate reduction. Critics of the old Bell System who claim divesture and "competition" was necessary to reduce toll rates ignore measures like this.