The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released preliminary results from the National Health Interview Survey taken from July through December 2007. The survey is primarily intended to confidentially gather health-related information from the non-institutionalized U.S. civilian population as a data source to guide public health and policy decision-making. Over the years, the survey has asked participants whether they can be re-contacted, and beginning in 2003 the survey began including questions about whether a family’s telephone number was a traditional landline.
Tag Archive: telephone
Pretexting Now a Federal Offense
It’s official: new legislation signed by President Bush makes pretexting—the practice of obtaining a person’s phone records under false pretenses—a federal offense.
The Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006 criminalizes making false statements or presenting false documents to a telephone service operator in an attempt to gain access to a third party’s personal telephone records. The new loaw also makes it illegal to sell or transfer of confidential phone records; this ban applies to Internet sites offering to obtain or sell that information. Violators will be subject to up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000.
VoIP in 32.6 Mln U.S. Homes by 2010?
A new market forecast by Ireland’s Research and Markets predicts nearly 40 percent of broadband-enabled households in the United States
FCC Ends Facilities-Sharing Mandate for DSL
The Federal Communications Commission today eliminated facilities-sharing requirements on telephone companies providing broadband Internet service, meaning that by August 2006, telephone companies providing broadband via DSL or other technologies will no longer have to offer competitors discounted access to their telephone networks.
The FCC’s new Republican Chairman Kevin Martin put off the FCC’s meeting by a day to extend discussions with the other three sitting FCC commissioners; the commission has five seats, but one is currently vacant, leaving the commission equally split between Republicans and Democrats. The commission’s 4-0 vote on this issue is widely seen as a victory for Chairman Martin.
VoicePulse Broadband VoIP Service Review
Quote from the review at TechwareLabs:
“Over the past year or so voice-over IP telephone services have been becoming a more attractive alternative to plain old telephone service. With VOIP users can enjoy low costs and features that normal telephone carriers will never be able to offer. The best part: You can even use your current analog telephone as VOIP phones.”
Read the full review here
Read Designtechnica’s review of a similar service provided by Vonage. Compare the two services.
Feds Slap Fees On AT&T’s VoIP
This week the FCC announced its decision that traditional telephone calls that start and end on the public switched telephone network (PSTN), but are carried part of the time on AT&T’s Internet backbone, are classified as telecommunications service. Those calls are subject to the access charges that are exchanged when a telephone call made through one carrier ends on another carrier’s network.
Read more at PCWorld.
Regulators Deciding Fate Of VoIP
The Federal Communications Commission said it would decide how to regulate calls made via high-speed Internet connections, which bypass at least part of the conventional phone network.
Among the issues to be discussed is whether such calls should be subject to the same fees as regular telephone service, such for 911 emergency services or bringing telephone service to poor and rural areas, schools and libraries. Also to be decided is whether these new services need to pay fees to local telephone companies to complete calls to conventional phones.
Read the whole story at CNN.com.
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