Rural Telecommunications articles from March 2004

Rural Telecommunications archives from March 2004

No simple answers.(From the Editor)(Voice over Internet protocol)(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... Voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, seems to be the talk of the town, these days. It is yet another technology that managers of rural telcos must consider when determining the breadth of the services they intend to provide. ...

Spammers junk CAN-SPAM law.(ShortTakes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... The enactment of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) seems to have done little to discourage spammers from continuing to deluge e-mail inboxes with unwanted junk mail, according to a...

Getting the message out.(ShortTakes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Getting employees to "get the message" is not an easy task for most employers. Messages about goals, strategies, initiatives and other company business often miss the mark, despite the countless hours invested in crafting the communique. Davis...

Online privacy: a matter of trust.(ShortTakes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Shoppers remain wary of giving personal information to online sites for fear of being "spammed" or having their identity stolen, according to a survey of 3,500 online buyers conducted by BizRate.com, a comparison-shopping site. More than...

Putting the 'meet' back in meetings.(ShortTakes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Statistics have shown that the average executive spends at least one day each week in meetings. Moreover, 75% of meetings are unnecessary and some are even counter-productive. To boost productivity and eliminate wasted time, Jacqueline...

Virtual field trip.(ShortTakes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Learning geography has become a whole lot more interesting for more than one million middle school students around the world with the live, interactive delivery of a Panamanian rainforest expedition via two-way Internet protocol (IP) over...

Note to FCC: proceed with caution on VoIP.(Perspective)(Federal Communications Commission )
March 1, 2004... In February, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched its long-anticipated notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on the regulatory issues associated with Internet protocol (IP) services, and more specifically, voice over Internet...

What impact will VoIP have on rural telcos in the next five years?(FirstPerson)
March 1, 2004... "It's here," said Dana Olson, manager of Farmers Independent Telephone Co. (Grantsburg, Wis.). "And it's becoming more and more prevalent." For Lonnie Pedersen, president and manager of Telephone Service Co. (TSC) in Wapakoneta, Ohio,...

Hilda Gay Legg: carrying out RUS's mission.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Administrator Hilda Gay Legg has come a long way from rural Kentucky. Born and raised in Kniflcy, Legg has often shared her childhood memories of carrying water to the house from a nearby well because her family...

VOIP: the good, the bad and the ugly.
March 1, 2004... Imagine buying a luxury limousine with the intent of charging clients a premium to drive them to various destinations. Shortly after your purchase, walkers along your route find a way to hitch a free ride in your nice new vehicle. You discover...

Seeking safe harbor: ISPs and the copyright law.(Internet service providers )
March 1, 2004... The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides Internet service providers (ISPs) with powerful tools to protect themselves against claims of copyright infringement. These tools are known as the DMCA "safe harbor" provisions. ...

P2P and the ISP: the ins and outs of file-sharing liability.
March 1, 2004... The ease of duplication and distribution of music and movies via peer-to-peer (P2P) software is a developing threat to the business models and revenue streams of not only the recording and motion picture industries, but the telecommunications...

Protecting the homeland: the role of rural telcos.
March 1, 2004... Events since September 11, 2001, have caused a national stir among policy-makers and the technology industry to create funding and technology standards that would allow interoperability between multiple jurisdictions and levels of government....

NTCA celebrates golden anniversary at 50th Annual Meeting.(2004 NTCA Annual Meeting & EXPO)
March 1, 2004... NTCA's 50th Annual Meeting & EXPO '04 made a lasting impression on the close to 2,500 attendees in Miami Beach, Fla., February 8-11, as the meeting commemorated the association's 50th anniversary as the voice of rural telecommunications. ...

NTCA '04 EXPO reflects mood of telecom industry.(2004 NTCA Annual Meeting & EXPO)(National Telephone Cooperative Association)
March 1, 2004... From plain old telephone service (POTS) to entertainment content delivered over the local loop, from fiber optic solutions to digital subscriber line (DSL), almost every imaginable telecommunication technology was on display at the '04 EXPO,...

The state of the association: CEO Michael E. Brunner presented the following state of the association address February 9 at NTCA's 50th Annual Meeting & EXPO in Miami Beach, Fla.(2004 NTCA Annual Meeting & EXPO)(National Telecommunications Cooperative Association)
March 1, 2004... Good morning. Welcome to Florida, where orange juice and tax exemptions make the perfect blend. How appropriate to be in Miami to celebrate NTCA's 50th year. A half century ago, a group of visionaries met in a Miami hotel room to hammer out the...

Award winners.(2004 NTCA Annual Meeting & EXPO)(National Telecommunications Cooperative Association )
March 1, 2004... Following are the winners of NTCA's 2004 Annual Awards, which recognize the outstanding achievements of the leaders in rural telecommunications. NTCA Chief Executive Officer Michael E. Brunner presented the awards February 11 at the...

NTCA 2004 Policy Resolutions.(2004 NTCA Annual Meeting & EXPO)(National Telecommunications Cooperative Association)
March 1, 2004... Resolutions approved by the membership at the NTCA Annual Meeting represent NTCA's policy and objectives for the year. Resolutions are proposed by NTCA member committees or by joint committee action, reviewed by the NTCA resolutions committee,...

ID theft: keep your information to yourself; If it can be shown that you failed to take adequate steps to protect information on your computers, your employees could engage in a class action lawsuit.(WorkForce)
March 1, 2004... Not long ago, good security meant locking your doors and activating your burglar alarm when you closed up shop for the day. How times have changed! Physical barricades still are essential, but today's sophisticated thieves want something more...

Sarbanes-Oxley sets standard for small companies ... rather than view the law as another burdensome government requirement, many companies are looking to the rules as an impetus to thoroughly "clean house.".(BusinessMatters)
March 1, 2004... Documenting business practices and processes is a time-consuming chore, but it can expose technological and operational opportunities for improvement. This concept has led some companies to embrace the new Sarbanes-Oxley law as a tool for...

Putting a 'patch' on the COBAK 'virus': our data found that rural carriers would stand to lose at least $2 billion per year, if COBAK was implemented in its current form.(ExecutiveViewpoint)
March 1, 2004... At the end of January, the MyDoom virus, a humanly engineered computer virus designed to automatically forward itself to the e-mail addresses of an affected computer's address book, struck computers across the world. Microsoft scrambled to...