ISP Information:
This usually refers to an IDE setting on a hard drive or other IDE device. When two devices are used on a single IDE channel, one is set to master and the other to slave. See also master.
ISP Glossary:
Slave - AllstonParkingRefugee@hotmail.com (Allston Parking Refugee) wrote inmessage news:: So I recently switched long distance companies to Covista, aka Capsulecare aka Capsulecom, since they were offering a long-distance plan with no monthly fees. Now that I received my first bill, I see a 0.99 cent "carrier cost recovery charge". Their customer service people claim that this is a new "federally-regulated charge" to pay for services for the hearing impaired and that all long distance companies now charge it. They also play word games and claim that it isn't a "monthly fee". I keep an eye out for telecom industry news, and this was news to me. I would guess that this charge is like the Universal Service Fund charges, in that the government assesses the company a certain amount, and companies can choose to absorb the cost, or they can pass it on to you and me, or they can even add it as a line item that costs us *more* than they're paying to the FCC. Is this the case? The promotional portion of their website still claims they have no monthly fees. http://capsulecom.com/products/longDistance.html says "As for access fees, well, we appreciate your business and wouldn't think of charging you just for doing business with us." Is it worth fighting this on deceptive advertising grounds? Can anyone recommend a long distance company that charges no monthly fees, and is reputable and stable enough so that it isn't likely to start doing so the month after I switch? -AprMany firms are adding fees to their bill and attempting to hide themusing quasi-regulatory language. The most common wording is somethinglike "regualtory compliance." Often the phrase will be prefaced withfederal or something else, but it is not a federally or even statemandated fee. It is a fee added by the company to each phone line toallow them to recover some of their costs in complying with regualtorymatters. When actually the fee is used to offset business overheadcosts, like executive perqs (AKA perks.)I personally find it difficult to believe that it costs a company likea Verizon or SBC or Bell South a dollar a month to handle theregulatory paperwork on a phone line that has not changed sinceinstallation. Now, if the line changes, such as a provisioningchange, then perhaps a fee could be added to reflect the paperworknecessary - but wait a moment, isn't that why we pay a hefty serviceorder fee in the first place?Rodgers Platt[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I *thought* there was a specific federallaw against referring to some sum of money as a 'tax' when in factthere was no such tax. I do know that McDonald's Restaurants in Chicagogot sued once on that point and lost the suit. They were using cashregisters which automatically added taxes to purchases; they wereusing some registers (in a suburb) which usually were used in Chicagoitself, and programmed accordingly. Some suburban customers complainedabout why the food there was a penny or two more per purchase than thesame food in a McDonald's down the street. The manager said it was thecash register's fault: the registers are programmed according to theChicago tax structure. We can't change that. You can't do that, hewas told. You cannot say, or claim or imply or force collection ofsome sum of money blaming it on a tax that does not exist or is somelesser amount of money. It wound up as a class action, anyone who sentinto the class action administrator got a coupon in the mail good forone free hamburger or small drink, or tiny bag of french fries.Illinois Bell in Chicago had the same kind of hassle once. City ofChicago added some municipal tax on pay telephones, the end resultwas pay phone calls went up by *one cent* each. Since Bell does notmake payphones that can collect pennies, they said raise the rate forcalls a nickle which we can get. Trouble was, in cases of calling cardcalls and collect calls, where they could charge the one penny withease, they were charging a nickle also and blaming it on that evil oldMayor
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