title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Two days after this, the new gang (with Hamilton's participation as the sixth man uncertain) struck the Security National Bank at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In the robbery, which netted around $49,000 (figures differ slightly), Nelson severely wounded motorcycle policeman Hale Keith with a burst of sub-machine-gun fire as the officer was arriving at the scene. The six men were soon identified as "the Second Dillinger gang", due to Dillinger's extreme notoriety, but the gang had no official leader.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On March 13, a week after the robbery in Sioux Falls, the gang robbed the First National Bank in Mason City, Iowa. Dillinger and Hamilton were both shot and wounded in the robbery, where they made off with $52,000. On April 3, federal agents ambushed and killed Eddie Green, though he was unarmed and they were uncertain of his identity. In the aftermath of the Mason City robbery, Nelson and John Paul Chase fled west to Reno, where their old bosses Bill Graham and Jim McKay were fighting a federal mail fraud case. Years later, the FBI determined that on March 22, 1934, Nelson and Chase abducted and killed the chief witness against the pair, Roy Fritsch. Fritsch's quartered body was said to have been thrown down an abandoned mine shaft and was never found.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On the afternoon of April 20, Nelson, Dillinger, Van Meter, Carroll, Hamilton, and gang associate and errand-runner Pat Reilly, accompanied by Nelson's wife Helen and three girlfriends of the other men, arrived at the secluded Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, for a weekend of rest. The gang's connection to the resort apparently came from previous dealings between Dillinger's attorney, Louis Piquett, and lodge owner Emil Wanatka. Though gang members greeted him by name, Wanatka maintained that he was unaware of their identities until some time later that night. According to Bryan Burrough's book "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34", this most likely happened when Wanatka was playing cards with Dillinger, Nelson, and Hamilton. When Dillinger won a round and raked in the pot, Wanatka caught a glimpse of Dillinger's pistol concealed in his coat, and noticed that Nelson and the others also had shoulder holsters.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: The following day, while she was away from the lodge with her young son at a children's birthday party, Wanatka's wife informed a friend, Henry Voss, that the Dillinger gang was at the lodge, and the FBI was subsequently given the tip early on April 22. Melvin Purvis and a number of agents arrived by plane from Chicago, and with the gang's departure imminent, attacked the lodge quickly and with little preparation, and without notifying or obtaining help from local authorities.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Wanatka offered a one-dollar dinner special on Sunday nights, and the last of a crowd estimated at 75 people were leaving as the agents arrived in the front driveway. A 1933 Chevrolet coupé was leaving at that moment with three departing lodge customers, John Hoffman, Eugene Boisneau and John Morris, who apparently did not hear an order to halt because the car radio drowned out the agents yelling at them to stop. The agents quickly opened fire on them, instantly killing Boisneau and wounding the others, and alerting the gang members inside.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Adding to the chaos, at this moment Pat Reilly returned to the lodge after an out-of-town errand for Van Meter, accompanied by John Hamilton's girlfriend, Pat Cherrington. Accosted by the agents, Reilly and Cherrington backed out and escaped under fire.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Dillinger, Van Meter, Hamilton, and Carroll escaped through the back of the lodge, which was unguarded, and made their way north on foot through woods and past a lake to commandeer a car and a driver at a resort a mile away. Carroll was not far behind them. He made it to Manitowish and stole a car, making it uneventfully to St. Paul.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Nelson, who had been outside the lodge in the adjacent cabin, characteristically attacked the raiding party head on, exchanging fire with Purvis, before retreating into the lodge under a return volley from other agents. From there he slipped out the back and fled in the opposite direction from the others. Emerging from the woods ninety minutes later, a mile away from Little Bohemia, Nelson kidnapped the Lange couple from their home and ordered them to drive him away. Apparently dissatisfied with the car's speed, he quickly ordered them to pull up at a brightly lit house where the switchboard operator, Alvin Koerner, aware of the ongoing events, quickly phoned authorities at one of the involved lodges to report a suspicious vehicle in front of his home. Shortly after Nelson had entered the home, taking the Koerners hostage, Emil Wanatka arrived with his brother-in-law George LaPorte and a lodge employee (while a fourth man remained in the car) and were also taken prisoner. Nelson ordered Koerner and Wanatka back into their vehicle, where the fourth man remained unnoticed in the back seat.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: As they were preparing to leave, with Wanatka driving at gunpoint, another car arrived with two federal agents – W. Carter Baum and Jay Newman – as well as a local constable, Carl Christensen. Nelson asked the agents who they were and upon the agents identifying themselves, Nelson quickly opened fire with his fully automatic pistol, severely wounding Christensen and Newman and killing Baum, who was hit three times in the neck. Nelson was later quoted as having said that Baum had him "cold" and could not understand why he had not fired. It was found that the safety catch on Baum's gun was on.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Nelson stole the FBI car. Less than 15 miles away, the car suffered a flat tire and finally became mired in mud as Nelson attempted unsuccessfully to change it. Back on foot, he wandered into the woods and took up residence with a Chippewa family in their secluded cabin for several days before making his final escape in another commandeered vehicle.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Three of the women who had accompanied the gang, including Nelson's wife Helen, were captured inside the lodge. After grueling interrogations by the FBI, the three were ultimately convicted on harboring charges and released on parole.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: With an agent and an innocent bystander dead and four more severely wounded, including two more innocent bystanders, as well as the complete escape of the Dillinger gang, the FBI came under severe criticism, with calls for director J. Edgar Hoover's resignation and a widely circulated petition demanding Purvis' suspension.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: At the time of the Little Bohemia shootout, Nelson's identity as a member of the Dillinger gang had been known to the FBI for two weeks. Following the killing of Baum, Nelson became nationally notorious and was made a high-priority target of the Bureau. The focus on him and the murdered agent served to deflect some of the intense criticism directed at Hoover and Purvis following the Little Bohemia debacle.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: A day after the Little Bohemia raid, Dillinger, Hamilton, and Van Meter ran through a police roadblock near Hastings, Minnesota, drawing fire from officers there. A ricocheting bullet struck Hamilton in the back, fatally wounding him. Hamilton reportedly died in hiding on April 30 or May 1, 1934, and was secretly buried by Dillinger and others, including Nelson, who had rejoined the gang in Aurora, Illinois.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On June 7, gang member Tommy Carroll was killed while trying to evade arrest in Waterloo, Iowa. Carroll and his girlfriend, Jean Crompton (who had been captured and tried with Helen Gillis after Little Bohemia), had grown close to the Nelsons, and his death was a personal blow to them. Nelson and his wife went into hiding during the ensuing weeks, and although they were in the Chicago area, their precise movements in this period remain obscure. The Nelsons reportedly lived in various tourist camps, while continuing to secretly meet with family members whenever possible.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On June 27, former gang errand-runner and Little Bohemia fugitive Pat Reilly was arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On the morning of June 30, Nelson, Dillinger, Van Meter, and one or more additional accomplices robbed the Merchants National Bank in South Bend, Indiana. One man involved in the robbery is believed to have been Pretty Boy Floyd, based on several eyewitness identifications as well as the later account of Joseph "Fatso" Negri, an old Nelson associate from California who was serving as a gofer for the gang at this time. Another rumored participant was Nelson's childhood friend, Jack Perkins, also an associate of the gang at that time. (Perkins was later tried for the robbery and acquitted).


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: When the robbery began, policeman Howard Wagner had been directing traffic outside. Responding quickly to the scene and attempting to draw his gun, he was shot dead by Van Meter, who was stationed outside the bank. During the shootout that followed, Nelson exchanged fire with a local jeweler, Harry Berg, who had shot him in the chest - ineffectively, because of Nelson's bullet-proof vest. As Berg retreated into his store under a return volley from Nelson, a man in a parked car was wounded. Nelson also grappled briefly with a teenage boy, Joseph Pawlowski, who tackled him until Nelson (or Van Meter) stunned Pawlowski with a blow from his gun. When Dillinger and the man identified as Floyd (unconfirmed) emerged from the bank with sacks containing $28,000, they brought three hostages with them (including the bank president) to deter gunfire from three patrolmen on the scene. The policemen fired nonetheless, wounding two of the hostages before grazing Van Meter in the head. The gang escaped, and Van Meter recovered. In the constant and chaotic exchange of gunfire, several other bystanders were wounded by shots, ricochets, or flying broken glass. It was the last confirmed robbery for all of the known and suspected participants, including Floyd (unconfirmed).


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: During the month of July, as the FBI manhunt for him continued, Nelson and his wife fled to California with associate John Paul Chase, who remained with Nelson for the rest of his life. Upon their return to Chicago on July 15, the gang held a reunion meeting at a favorite rendezvous site. When the meeting was interrupted by two Illinois state troopers, Fred McAllister and Gilbert Cross, Nelson fired on their vehicle with his converted "machine gun pistol", wounding both men as the gangsters retreated. Cross was badly wounded, but both he and McAllister survived. Nelson's responsibility was uncertain until verification came later in the form of a confession from Chase.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On July 22, 1934, Dillinger was ambushed and killed by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park, Chicago. The next day the FBI announced that "Pretty Boy" Floyd was now Public Enemy No. 1. On October 22, 1934, Floyd was killed in a shootout with agents including Melvin Purvis. Subsequently, J. Edgar Hoover announced that Nelson was now Public Enemy No. 1.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On August 23, Van Meter was ambushed and killed by police in St. Paul, Minnesota, leaving Nelson as the sole survivor of the so-called "Second Dillinger Gang".


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: In the ensuing months, Nelson and his wife, usually accompanied by Chase, drifted west to cities including Sacramento and San Francisco, California and Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada. They often stayed in auto camps, including Walley's Hot Springs, outside Genoa, Nevada, where they hid out from October 1 before returning to Chicago around November 1. Nelson's movements during the final month of his life are largely unknown.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: By the end of the month, FBI interest had settled on a former hideout of Nelson's, the Lake Como Inn in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where it was believed that Nelson might return for the winter. When the Nelsons and Chase did return to the inn on November 27, they briefly came face to face with surprised and unprepared FBI agents who had staked it out. The fugitives sped away before any shots were fired. Armed with a description of the car (a black Ford V8) and its license plate number (639-578), agents swarmed into the area.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: A short but furious gun battle between FBI agents and Nelson took place on November 27, 1934, outside Chicago in the town of Barrington, culminating in the deaths of Nelson, and FBI agents Herman "Ed" Hollis and Samuel P. Cowley.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: On the morning of November 27, Nelson, along with his wife Helen Gillis and associate John Paul Chase, headed south in a stolen V8 Ford towards Chicago on U.S. Highway 12 (now US-14). Nelson, always keen to spot federal agents, caught sight of a sedan driven in the opposite direction by agents Thomas McDade and William Ryan. Both parties simultaneously recognized each other and after several U-turns by both vehicles, Nelson wound up in pursuit of the agents' car. When Nelson's powerful Ford caught up to the agents' slower sedan, Chase opened fire on the agents. Ryan and McDade returned fire, sped up, then pulled into a field and awaited Nelson and Chase, who had stopped pursuing. McDade and Ryan were unaware that one of their bullets had punctured the water pump of Nelson's Ford. With Nelson's Ford rapidly losing power, a Hudson automobile driven by Hollis (who had been given credit as one of the agents who fired the fatal shots that killed Dillinger the previous July) and Cowley, began pursuing the Ford.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: With his pursuers attempting to pull alongside, Nelson skidded into the entrance to Barrington's North Side Park. Hollis and Cowley overshot Nelson's car by over , and stopped at an angle. Upon exiting the vehicle's passenger door, the agents took cover behind their car. The ensuing shootout was witnessed by more than a dozen people.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Nelson yelled to Helen to take cover in a nearby ditch, then he and Chase opened fire on the agents. Both Cowley and Hollis returned fire from behind their vehicle. A single .45 slug from Cowley's machine gun struck Nelson in the lower abdomen. Nelson leaned on the Ford's running board, then wordlessly exchanged weapons with Chase. In the din of the gun battle, Chase heard Nelson complain that his weapon was jamming, and the wounded Nelson swapped it out for either a .351 Winchester or a Colt Monitor machine rifle. Despite his grievous wound, Nelson moved from behind the car and advanced toward the agents while firing his weapon. Two of his bullets struck Cowley. Several buckshot pellets from Hollis's shotgun then struck Nelson in the legs and knocked him down.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: As Nelson regained his feet, Hollis, possibly already wounded, moved to better cover behind a utility pole. As he drew his service pistol, Nelson fatally shot Hollis in the head. Nelson staggered over Hollis's body, aimed his weapon at the agent's fallen form for a moment then limped toward the agents' Hudson. Nelson drove the car over to the disabled Ford. After loading the agents' car with the Ford's guns and supplies, Nelson let Chase get behind the wheel of the agents' car and the two men and Helen Gillis fled the scene. Nelson was shot a total of nine times; a single (and ultimately fatal) machine gun slug had struck his abdomen and eight of Hollis's shotgun pellets had hit his legs. Later news reports inaccurately gave his number of wounds as 17, possibly due to a memorandum release by J. Edgar Hoover stating "seven to ten wounds" to Nelson's body. After telling his wife "I'm done for", Nelson gave directions as Chase drove them to a safe house on Walnut Street in Wilmette. Nelson died in bed with his wife at his side, at 7:35 p.m.


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Hollis was pronounced dead soon after arriving at the hospital. At a different hospital, Cowley lived for long enough to confer briefly with Melvin Purvis and have surgery, before succumbing to a stomach wound similar to Nelson's. Following a telephone tip from a Chicago Telephone Company employee, Carl Fyhrie, who was working on the telephone lines and saw a body on the ground, Nelson's body was discovered wrapped in an Indian patterned blanket by FBI agent Walter Walsh, in a ditch on the northeast corner of the St. Paul's Lutheran Cemetery in Skokie, and taken to Haben's Funeral Home, both of which still exist. Helen later stated that she had placed the blanket around Nelson's body because, "He always hated being cold".


title: Baby Face Nelson

text: Newspapers reported, based on the aggressive wording of an order from J. Edgar Hoover ("find the woman and give her no quarter"), that the FBI had issued a "death order" for Nelson's widow, who wandered the streets of Chicago as a fugitive for several days, described in print as the U.S. first female "public enemy". After surrendering on Thanksgiving Day, Helen, who had been paroled after capture at Little Bohemia, served a year in prison for harboring her husband. Chase was apprehended later and served a term at Alcatraz.


title: Oscar Nunez

text: Oscar Nunez (born November 18, 1958), sometimes credited as Oscar Nuñez, is a Cuban-American actor. He is best known for his role as the Dunder Mifflin accountant Oscar Martinez on NBC's "The Office".


title: Oscar Nunez

text: He was a member of The Groundlings and later became a regular cast member on "The Office". He also created and co-starred in the Comedy Central series "Halfway Home" in 2007, and in 2014 co-starred in the short-lived USA Network comedy series "Benched". Since 2018, he has appeared in a series of State Farm commercials.


title: Oscar Nunez

text: Nunez was born in Colón, Cuba. Nunez's mother, a dentist, and father, a lawyer, attended school at the University of Havana while Fidel Castro was a student there. The family moved first to Caracas, Venezuela in 1960 and then to the United States. His family moved to Boston when he was two years old and then to Union City, New Jersey, when he was four. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1964. He is bilingual, speaking English and Spanish. Nunez attended various colleges in New York, including Fashion Institute of Technology and the Parsons School of Design for writing. He became a certified dental technician after studying at the Magna Institute of Dental Technology.


title: Oscar Nunez

text: Nunez started his comedy career in New York, performing over 300 shows with "The Shock of the Funny" theater company. The troupe was active in the East Village for several years. In addition to his work with "Shock", Nunez appeared in theater in New York and Washington, D.C. before moving to Los Angeles in the mid 1990s. In L.A., he joined The Groundlings and performed in their Sunday Company. While with the Groundlings, he wrote and starred in a production called "Smooth Down There."


title: Oscar Nunez

text: In 1997, Nunez graduated from the Warner Brothers Comedy Writer's Workshop. In 1999, he was a finalist in the ABC Latino Writers Project.


title: Oscar Nunez

text: In 1998, he appeared on the game show "Match Game" but was not a winner. Nunez was Adam Carolla's stand-in on "The Man Show".


title: Oscar Nunez

text: Nunez's television credits include "Malcolm in the Middle", "24", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Reno 911!", "The District" and "Mad TV", in addition to his role on "The Office". He was also the creator and executive producer of the Comedy Central series "Halfway Home", in which he co-starred as the character Eulogio Pla.


title: Oscar Nunez

text: His film credits include "The Italian Job" (as a security guard), "", and "When Do We Eat?". In 2009, Nunez played the role of Ramon, the caterer, stripper, soda jerk, and finally clergy performing the wedding ceremony in "The Proposal". In 2012, Nunez played the role of Jose Baez, an attorney in the Lifetime movie "Prosecuting Casey Anthony".


title: Oscar Nunez

text: Nunez appeared as one of eight judges in the 2010 Miss USA Contest, posing a question about the Arizona undocumented immigrant law to Miss Oklahoma USA, Morgan Elizabeth Woolard. Nunez was booed by the audience before finishing the question; however he asked the audience to wait until he finished the question before they reacted. Although Woolard replied that she supports the law as a state rights issue, she added that she is against racial profiling.


title: Oscar Nunez

text: In 2014, Nunez co-starred alongside Eliza Coupe and Jay Harrington in the short-lived USA Network comedy series "Benched".


title: Oscar Nunez

text: In July 2018, Nunez took on the role of Desi Arnaz, starring in the world premiere production of "I Love Lucy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom," a behind-the-scenes stage comedy about "I Love Lucy" by Gregg Oppenheimer (son of series creator Jess Oppenheimer). Recorded before a live audience at the UCLA's James Bridges Theater, the L.A. Theatre Works production aired on public radio and has been released on Audio CD and as a downloadable mp3.


title: Oscar Nunez

text: From 2019 to 2020, Nunez portrayed Assistant Principal Carlos Hernandez on the Netflix original comedy series "Mr. Iglesias".


title: Oscar Nunez

text: Nunez is married to actress Ursula Whittaker, who gave birth to their first child, daughter August Luce Nunez, on October 4, 2012.


title: Plan B Entertainment

text: Plan B Entertainment, Inc., more commonly known as Plan B, is an American production company founded in November in 2001 by Brad Grey, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Kristin Hahn. In 2005, after Pitt and Aniston divorced, Grey became the CEO of Paramount Pictures and Pitt became the sole owner of the company. The president of the company was for many years Dede Gardner, but she and Pitt named Jeremy Kleiner co-president with Gardner in 2013. Three of the production company's movies, "The Departed", "12 Years a Slave" and "Moonlight", have won the Academy Award for Best Picture.


title: Plan B Entertainment

text: Pitt, Gardner and Kleiner received the Producers Guild of America's David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures in 2020.


title: Plan B Entertainment

text: This name was previously used for an unrelated production company that was headed by Bruce Berman from 1996 to 1997.


title: Plan B Entertainment

text: On October 30, 2022, it was reported that Mediawan was in talks to acquiring in a significant stake of the studio.


title: Kayfabe

text: In professional wrestling, kayfabe, as a noun, is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not staged. The term "kayfabe" has evolved to also become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect presence of the general public.


title: Kayfabe

text: Kayfabe, in the United States, is often seen as the suspension of disbelief that is used to create the non-wrestling aspects of promotions, such as feuds, angles, and gimmicks in a manner similar to other forms of fictional entertainment. In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe during a show would be likened to an actor breaking character on-camera. Also, since wrestling is performed in front of a live audience, whose interaction with the show is crucial to its success, kayfabe can be compared to the fourth wall in acting, since hardly any conventional fourth wall exists to begin with. In general, everything in a professional wrestling show is to some extent scripted, or "kayfabe", even though at times it is portrayed as real-life.


title: Kayfabe

text: Kayfabe was fiercely maintained for decades, but with the advent of the Internet wrestling community, and the sports entertainment movement, the pro-wrestling industry has become less concerned with protecting so-called backstage secrets and typically maintains kayfabe only during the shows. It is occasionally broken during shows, usually when dealing with genuine injuries during a match or paying tribute to wrestlers.


title: Kayfabe

text: "Kayfabe" is a shorthand term that involves acknowledging the staged, scripted nature of professional wrestling, as opposed to a competitive sport, despite being presented as authentic. Initially, people "in the business" (either wrestlers or those working behind the scenes) used the term "kayfabe" as a code among those in the wrestling profession, discussing matters in public without revealing the scripted nature. As a concept, kayfabe involves both the fact that matches are scripted and that wrestlers portray characters for their shows. Unlike actors who portray their characters only when on set or on stage, professional wrestlers often stay "in character" outside the shows, especially when interacting with fans, trying to preserve the illusion of professional wrestling. In contrast, something that is not kayfabe, be it a fight or a statement, is referred to as a "shoot".


title: Kayfabe

text: The term "kayfabe" was often used as a warning to other wrestlers that someone who was not "in the know" was in the vicinity. This could include wrestlers' family members who had not been clued into the scripted nature of professional wrestling. An example of kayfabe being kept even from family members was illustrated in an article describing how in the 1970s, the wife of James Harris (known under the ring name Kamala) was celebrating that her husband had just won a $5,000 prize as he won a battle royal; not realizing that the prize money was simply a storyline or kayfabe.


title: Kayfabe

text: The term "kayfabe" itself can be used in a variety of contexts, as an adjective, for instance, when referring to a "kayfabe interview", where the person being interviewed remains "in character", or when describing someone as a "kayfabe girlfriend", implying that she is playing a role, but is not actually romantically involved with that particular person. A person can also be said to be "kayfabing" someone, by presenting storylines and rivalries as real.


title: Kayfabe

text: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest known written evidence of the word "kayfabe" is from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Yearbook for 1988, though the term is believed to be much older. Various sources have suggested different origins, but the actual origin is not known with certainty. One theory suggests that it was derived from a word manipulation of the term "be fake" (à la pig latin and other argots), designed to conceal the true meaning. Another theory claims that there actually was a wrestler called "Kay Fabian" who was mute. Neither claim has ever been substantiated. Another theory suggests that the term derives from the expression "keep cavey", from the Latin verb "caveo", which means "look out for"; this phrase was used throughout Britain and by Jews living in East London between World War I and World War II. According to that theory, many US promoters and wrestlers at that time were of Eastern European origin and many had heavy accents, leading to the term being transformed into "kayfabe".


title: Kayfabe

text: While professional wrestling has been staged, or planned, from the time it was a sideshow attraction, the scripted nature of the performances has been hinted at over time. In 1934 a show held at Wrigley Field in Chicago billed one of the matches as "the last great shooting match", subtly disclosing that the other matches were kayfabe (in reality, even the "shooting" match was scripted). In 1957 comedian Groucho Marx described watching wrestlers "practice their match", hinting at the scripted nature of professional wrestling.


title: Kayfabe

text: While the scripted nature of professional wrestling was an open secret, it was not generally acknowledged by people in the business. Often wrestlers and promoters would make sure that on-screen rivals were not seen eating or traveling together between shows and so on. There were a few occasional mistakes at the time, such as an incident in 1987 in which police arrested The Iron Sheik and Hacksaw Jim Duggan, supposed rivals in an upcoming match at Madison Square Garden, as they sat together in a car drinking and using cocaine. The first public acknowledgment by a major insider of the staged nature of professional wrestling came in 1989 when World Wrestling Federation owner Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey State Senate that wrestling was not a competitive sport. The admission on McMahon's part was to avoid interference from state athletic commissions and to avoid paying the taxation some states placed on income from athletic events held in that state, as well as to avoid the need to meet the requirement of having to employ medical professionals standing by, as was generally mandatory for legitimate contact sports involving substantial possibility of injury.


title: Kayfabe

text: Faces, short for "babyfaces", are hero-type characters whose personalities are crafted to elicit the support of the audience through traits such as humility, patriotism, a hard-working nature, determination, and reciprocal love of the crowd. Faces usually win their matches on the basis of their technical skills and are sometimes portrayed as underdogs to enhance the story.


title: Kayfabe

text: Heels are villainous or antagonistic characters, whose personalities are crafted to elicit a negative response from the audience. They often embrace traditionally negative traits such as narcissism, egomania, unprompted rage, sadism, and general bitterness. Though not as prevalent today, xenophobic ethnic and racial stereotypes, in particular, those inspired by the Axis powers of World War II and Communist countries during the Cold War era, were commonly used in North American wrestling as heel-defining traits. Another angle of a heel could be approached from a position of authority; examples include Big Boss Man, a corrections officer; Mike Rotunda as Irwin R. Schyster, a federal tax collector; Jacques Rougeau wearing RCMP-inspired dress as The Mountie; and Glenn Jacobs (who would later become famous as Kane) as Isaac Yankem, a dentist. Heels can also be other characters held in low esteem by the public such as a repossession agent (a role played by Barry Darsow as Repo Man). Heels typically inspire boos from the audience and often employ underhanded tactics, such as cheating and exploiting technicalities in their fighting strategies, or use overly aggressive styles to cause (the perception of) excess pain or injury to their opponents.


title: Kayfabe

text: A wrestler may change from face to heel (or vice versa) in an event known as a turn, or gradually transition from one to the other over the course of a long storyline. Wrestlers like André the Giant, Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, and Randy Savage could work across the entire spectrum and often gain new fans as a result of each "turn".


title: Kayfabe

text: Matches are usually organized between a heel and a face, but the distinction between the two types may be blurred as a given character's storyline reaches a peak or becomes more complicated. In recent years, several wrestlers became characters that were neither faces nor heels, but somewhere in between—or alternating between both—earning them the term "tweener".


title: Kayfabe

text: Despite the wrestlers' character settings, the crowd may not react accordingly. This may be due to booking issues or a particular crowd's tendency to react positively to heels, and negatively (or at least in an indifferent manner) to faces. The divide also can be separated by fan demographics, where older male fans tend to cheer for heels and boo faces, while kids and female fans tend to cheer for faces and boo the heels, especially with John Cena and Roman Reigns.


title: Kayfabe

text: Many storylines make use of kayfabe romantic relationships between two performers. Very often, both participants have other real-life relationships, and the relationship between the two is simply a storyline. More than once, kayfabe romantic relationships have occurred alongside real-life relationships, such as between Matt Hardy and Lita; these real-life relationships may occasionally develop into a real-life marriage (e.g., Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, who married in 2003, more than a year after their kayfabe marriage ended). During the early 21st century, this kayfabe practice has given way to reality in the WWE, largely due to the creation of the reality television program "Total Divas" where four "legit" (legally binding) weddings have occurred: Natalya and Tyson Kidd, Brie Bella and Daniel Bryan, Naomi and Jimmy Uso, and Eva Marie and her fiancé Jonathan. In TNA, after American Wolves disbanded, Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards and their "legit" wives, Alisha Edwards and Angelina Love-Richards wrestled against each other.


title: Kayfabe

text: Tag teams of wrestlers, who may or may not look alike, are often presented as relatives, though they are not actually related. Examples include The Brothers of Destruction (The Undertaker and Kane), The Holly Cousins (Hardcore Holly, Crash Holly, and Molly Holly) and The Dudley Brothers. The "Brother" tag team concept was commonly used during the "territory years" (1950s-1980s) as a means to develop young talent, by pairing them with a veteran wrestler and giving the younger wrestler a "rub" by virtue of the association, such as the Valliant Brothers or the Fargo Brothers where none of the "brothers" were actually related.


title: Kayfabe

text: A wrestler or a promotion uses kayfabe in regard to injuries in one of two ways; "selling" a fake injury as part of a storyline, or they come up with a storyline reason to explain the absence of someone due to a legitimate injury. Sometimes a wrestler will be kept off shows to demonstrate the severity of what happened to them previously as part of a storyline. Prior to the spread of the internet, this was a common tactic used to explain the absence of a wrestler when said wrestler would tour Japan or was unable to appear on specific shows. If a wrestler appears on a show after a "brutal" attack they would "sell" the injury by limping or having their arm heavily bandaged and so on. In other instances, when a wrestler was legitimately injured either during a match or during training, a storyline would play out where a heel would attack the wrestler and "injure" them to give the impression that the injury was due to the attack. This normally would lead to the injured wrestler returning, later on, to "settle the score".


title: Kayfabe

text: Promoters have used in-ring accidents that led to injuries, or in extreme cases death, as a way to make a heel even more hated and unpopular. In 1971 Alberto Torres died three days after wrestling Ox Baker. Evidence indicated that Torres died of a ruptured appendix, but Baker's Heart punch finishing move was the kayfabe reason; the death was worked into Baker's wrestling persona by the promoters making Baker the most hated heel in the territory at the time. Acts exploiting personal tragedy or death became less and less prevalent by the turn of the century with fans being more aware of the worked nature of professional wrestling.


title: Kayfabe

text: On the other hand, due to the risks involved in professional wrestling, some measures are still in place to let the crowd and commentators know if the wrestlers are legitimately injured in serious or dangerous spots. The injured wrestler can squeeze the opponent or referee within short timeframe before giving thumbs up or wave to the crowd, if possible. If they cannot do so in a timely manner, the referee will cross their arms above their head to signal for medical help, often ending the match. The signal has been used as part of kayfabe in order to create drama partway through the match, such as the main event of .


title: Kayfabe

text: Wrestlers being publicly "fired" is a popular storytelling device, often for the fired wrestler to return under a mask or "earn their job" back through a match. In the days where the National Wrestling Alliance territories were at their height some wrestlers would travel from territory to territory, often using a Loser Leaves Town match to wrap up a storyline in the specific territory. At times a wrestler will make a surprise debut for a company, with the storyline presenting that the wrestler in question does not actually work for the company.


title: Kayfabe

text: In NXT, kayfabe is often broken post-match when a wrestler is promoted to the main roster, with the rest of the roster applauding them, regardless of storyline relationships. Before then, these breaks are apparent when they are promoted from OVW, or when they retired. Most notably, The Undertaker broke kayfabe as a mysterious Deadman, as he hugged and kneeled down to offer his respects to Ric Flair on his retirement ceremony. Since then, Daniel Bryan's rivals (notably The Miz and Brock Lesnar) broke kayfabe in interviews and on Twitter applauding his decisions to retire, although their rivalry resumed after Daniel Bryan returned as Smackdown GM, and escalated to a point where Daniel Bryan legitimately left "Talking Smack" because The Miz did a shoot that got personal.


title: Kayfabe

text: There have been several examples of breaking kayfabe throughout wrestling history, although exactly what constitutes "breaking" is not clearly defined. It is rare for kayfabe to be dispensed with totally and the events acknowledged as scripted. Often the "break" may be implied or through an allusion (for example calling a wrestler by his/her real name) and standards tend to vary as to what is a break. In the WWF during and after the Attitude Era, the line between kayfabe and reality was often blurred. With the growth of the industry and its exposure on the Internet and DVD and videos, kayfabe may be broken more regularly. Whereas in the past it was extremely rare for a wrestler or other involved person to recognize the scripted nature of events even in outside press or media, WWE DVDs and WWE.com routinely give news and acknowledge real life. In the case of the former, it has ostensible adversaries and allies talking about each other, and the angles and storylines they worked and their opinions on them. On WWE.com, the real-life news is often given which may contradict storylines.


title: Kayfabe

text: Before the Attitude Era and the advent of the Internet, publications such as "WWF Magazine", and television programs broke kayfabe only to acknowledge major real-life events involving current, or retired wrestlers, such as a death (for instance, the death of Ernie Roth, who was billed as "The Grand Wizard of Wrestling"), divorce (e.g., Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth) or life-threatening accident (such as the 1990 parasailing accident that seriously injured Brutus Beefcake), especially if said event received mass mainstream coverage. In addition, when WWF top officials and employees were facing allegations of anabolic steroid abuse and sexual harassment during the early 1990s, Vince McMahon responded via a series of videotaped comments defending his company and employees, and several full-page advertisements rebutting the allegations appeared in "WWF Magazine".


title: Kayfabe

text: In the Reality Era (2014 and onwards, specifically after WrestleMania XXX where The Undertaker had his winning streak broken) and the era of social media, kayfabe is often broken when wrestlers go on tour. Feuding stars in storylines can be seen being civil to each other when they are not wrestling. Off-ring persona can be strikingly different from the in-ring character with less disapproval.


title: Kayfabe

text: In some instances, the use of kayfabe to protect a storyline or a wrestler led to real life events mirroring the storylines.


title: Kayfabe

text: While working as a booker for WCW, Kevin Sullivan conceived an angle where Woman (Nancy Daus Sullivan, Sullivan's wife both on-screen and off), would leave his character for Chris Benoit. Sullivan insisted that the two should travel together to preserve kayfabe for the general public. This resulted in Sullivan's wife actually leaving him for Benoit when the two developed a real-life romantic relationship during their time together. Nancy ultimately married Benoit in 2000.


title: Kayfabe

text: Brian Pillman developed a "Loose Cannon" persona for himself while in WCW in 1996, conspiring with Vice President Eric Bischoff and booker Kevin Sullivan. Pillman's character was based entirely on straddling the fine line of kayfabe, presenting it as if he had legitimate problems with WCW management. He would engage in on-camera actions that seemed to be unscripted, even to the other performers, and even breached kayfabe protocol when he addressed Sullivan on air as "bookerman".


title: Kayfabe

text: When Triple H and Stephanie McMahon entered into a kayfabe marriage in late 1999, Triple H and McMahon started dating in real life, and continued to do so after their onscreen marriage ended in 2002; the two eventually married in real life in 2003. The Catholic priest at the wedding, not aware of the workings of the wrestling business, initially refused to marry the two when he found out about the kayfabe wedding from a choir boy who was also a wrestling fan. Linda McMahon later had to explain to the priest the difference between WWE programming and real life, allowing the marriage to go through. Afterward, the real-life marriage became an open secret on television before being acknowledged by Triple H in 2009.


title: Kayfabe

text: The opposite also holds true, where the kayfabe story is based on, or as a result of, real-life events, from disclosing relationship status to starting family feuds.


title: Kayfabe

text: CM Punk's 2011 pipe bomb has claimed that Vince McMahon has the potential to be a billionaire, when in fact, Vince was at one point, before it was revealed he lost $750 million of his $1.6 billion net worth, losing 350 million in a day due to WWE's over-valued stock price and lower-than-expected WWE Network subscribers (his net worth currently stands at a reported $2 billion). He also referred to John Cena and Cena's beloved Boston-based sports teams as heels because they are all no longer underdogs, and they have all forged dynasties and championship teams in their respective sports (Boston Celtics, Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, New England Patriots).


title: Kayfabe

text: Kurt Angle had legitimately won an Olympic Gold Medal for Freestyle Wrestling, and built heat as a heel because he was still not being recognized by his peers or the crowd. He also revealed his legit injury history and his separation from his first wife, and they divorced in 2008.


title: Kayfabe

text: Edge, Lita and Matt Hardy engaged in a feud in mid-2005, after Lita had cheated on with Edge (who was friends with Hardy), which caused Matt to be legitimately fired due to social media misconduct. He was rehired after fan backlash and the love triangle became a highlight in their storyline rivalry.


title: Kayfabe

text: In June 2017, Big Cass broke away from Enzo Amore and cited that Enzo's off-ring antics made him a distraction in the locker room. On September 11, 2017, The Miz and Maryse revealed they are expecting their first child, having previously been mocked by John Cena for not having children after being married.


title: Kayfabe

text: On the same day, Enzo Amore had been criticized by The Miz about him being thrown off the tour bus and banned from the locker room as he was a negative influence, while Amore answered back by saying The Miz's initial heel run in the WWE was because he wasn't a great in-ring performer despite having great mic skills. Under this feud, The Miz and Maryse also blurred the face/heel divide as they are built as faces in the feud when they are normally heels in other feuds and storylines.


title: Kayfabe

text: On May 10, 2020, Asuka won the Money In The Bank briefcase, which normally would allow her to compete against WWE Raw Women's Champion a calendar year from the day she won the briefcase. This would have continued a feud with Becky Lynch, who held the title for 399 days, but she surrendered the title to Asuka after she became pregnant with Seth Rollins, then her fiancé and later her husband.


title: Kayfabe

text: Asuka broke kayfabe by hugging and congratulating Lynch when Asuka found out that she was going "to become a mother". With the title, Asuka also became only the second Women's Grand Slam Champion, which required her to win the NXT Women's title, the Smackdown and Raw Women's titles and the Women's Tag Team Championship. Unlike Bayley, Asuka had also won a Women's Royal Rumble match before. Lynch was written out of storylines as she went on hiatus. It was later revealed that Asuka's reactions were legit and genuine despite being a heel, as the storyline was changed on short notice. This is also true for the members of the Raw roster that were faces at the time, when they also congratulated her on the news. Rollins was not included as he was a heel at the time of the announcement.


title: Kayfabe

text: On May 12, 2020, Sami Zayn's WWE Intercontinental Championship was stripped due to him refraining from competing during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Kayfabe

text: Last-minute injuries, contracts, and marital statuses can also change the storyline or how a segment is presented. When Enzo Amore's contract was terminated due to withholding information about his sexual assault investigation, his romantic storyline with Nia Jax was scrapped, while she has moved to have the storyline with Drew Gulak.


title: Kayfabe

text: The segments for Raw 25 has also changed on hours' notice due to Jimmy Fallon unable to arrive in New York in time for pre-taped segments for Raw 25 where he was supposed to interview the current and former GM's in Raw and SmackDown, but instead, they only waved in a Hall-of-Fame-like lineup.


title: Kayfabe

text: Kayfabe, while not referred to as such, has existed in other areas of show business, especially in feuds. For instance, the feuds between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen, and comedian/actor Bob Hope and singer/actor Bing Crosby were totally fake; in real life, Benny and Allen were best friends while Hope and Crosby were also close friends. A more recent example is the "feud" between talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and actor Matt Damon which has been a running joke on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" for many years and was even referenced when Kimmel hosted the 89th Academy Awards. In reality, the two are friends, and in 2013 the feud was used as a springboard for Damon guest-hosting an episode of Kimmel's show (while Kimmel himself was left tied to a chair off to the side of the set). Other examples of kayfabe rivalries include that between Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, and that of Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds.


title: Kayfabe

text: It has long been claimed that kayfabe has been used in American politics, especially in election campaigns, Congress, and the White House. In interviews as Governor of Minnesota, former wrestler Jesse Ventura often likened Washington to wrestling when he said that politicians "pretend to hate each other in public, then go out to dinner together."


title: Kayfabe

text: An example of kayfabe being broken outside of professional wrestling was in 2004, during the "I Love Bees" alternative reality game used to promote "Halo 2", when one of the calltakers who voiced the AI that had hacked the website in the game's storyline broke character to tell a caller to run to safety, since he was in the middle of Hurricane Ivan.


title: Kayfabe

text: In response to a request for suggestions of the single scientific concept with the greatest potential to enhance human understanding, Eric Weinstein proposed the system of kayfabe: If we are to take selection more seriously within humans, we may fairly ask what rigorous system would be capable of tying together an altered reality of layered falsehoods in which absolutely nothing can be assumed to be as it appears. Such a system, in continuous development for more than a century, is known to exist and now supports an intricate multi-billion dollar business empire of pure hokum. It is known to wrestling's insiders as "Kayfabe".


title: Kayfabe

text: In the WWE Universe era, the crowd also can be spontaneously used, mostly as a heel, either to distract promo, build more heat to heels, or used to distract referees on their count-outs to force a result, even when they have no physical power or rights to fight the wrestlers. Wrestlers can only react by shooting on them, either as scripted or as an improvisation. At WrestleMania 34, a 10-year-old boy named "Nicholas" was hand-picked by Braun Strowman as his tag-team partner for the WWE Tag Team title match. Strowman and Nicholas won the Tag-Team title, but it was later revealed that Nicholas is the son of the match referee, John Cone.


title: Kayfabe

text: The 2008 film "The Wrestler" portrays an aging wrestler with failing health and waning fame planning a re-match with his historic heel. Throughout the film, the fictional nature of the bouts is depicted openly, including a scene where a wrestler intentionally cuts his forehead with a razor to make the hit seem worse than what it was. Nevertheless, the physical damage suffered by the wrestlers is depicted as real and oftentimes serious.


title: Voice over IP

text: Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service specifically refer to the provisioning of communications services (voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging) over the Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN), also known as plain old telephone service (POTS).


title: Voice over IP

text: The steps and principles involved in originating VoIP telephone calls are similar to traditional digital telephony and involve signaling, channel setup, digitization of the analog voice signals, and encoding. Instead of being transmitted over a circuit-switched network, the digital information is packetized and transmission occurs as IP packets over a packet-switched network. They transport media streams using special media delivery protocols that encode audio and video with audio codecs and video codecs. Various codecs exist that optimize the media stream based on application requirements and network bandwidth; some implementations rely on narrowband and compressed speech, while others support high-fidelity stereo codecs.


title: Voice over IP

text: The most widely used speech coding standards in VoIP are based on the linear predictive coding (LPC) and modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) compression methods. Popular codecs include the MDCT-based AAC-LD (used in FaceTime), the LPC/MDCT-based Opus (used in WhatsApp), the LPC-based SILK (used in Skype), μ-law and A-law versions of G.711, G.722, and an open source voice codec known as iLBC, a codec that uses only 8 kbit/s each way called G.729.


title: Voice over IP

text: Early providers of voice-over-IP services used business models and offered technical solutions that mirrored the architecture of the legacy telephone network. Second-generation providers, such as Skype, built closed networks for private user bases, offering the benefit of free calls and convenience while potentially charging for access to other communication networks, such as the PSTN. This limited the freedom of users to mix-and-match third-party hardware and software. Third-generation providers, such as Google Talk, adopted the concept of federated VoIP. These solutions typically allow dynamic interconnection between users in any two domains of the Internet, when a user wishes to place a call.


title: Voice over IP

text: In addition to VoIP phones, VoIP is also available on many personal computers and other Internet access devices. Calls and SMS text messages may be sent via Wi-Fi or the carrier's mobile data network. VoIP provides a framework for consolidation of all modern communications technologies using a single unified communications system.


title: Voice over IP

text: "VoIP" is variously pronounced as an initialism, "V-O-I-P", or as an acronym, (). Full words, "voice over Internet Protocol", or "voice over IP", are sometimes used.


title: Voice over IP

text: Voice over IP has been implemented with proprietary protocols and protocols based on open standards in applications such as VoIP phones, mobile applications, and web-based communications.


title: Voice over IP

text: A variety of functions are needed to implement VoIP communication. Some protocols perform multiple functions, while others perform only a few and must be used in concert. These functions include:


title: Voice over IP

text: Mass-market VoIP services use existing broadband Internet access, by which subscribers place and receive telephone calls in much the same manner as they would via the PSTN. Full-service VoIP phone companies provide inbound and outbound service with direct inbound dialing. Many offer unlimited domestic calling and sometimes international calls for a flat monthly subscription fee. Phone calls between subscribers of the same provider are usually free when flat-fee service is not available.


title: Voice over IP

text: A VoIP phone is necessary to connect to a VoIP service provider. This can be implemented in several ways:


title: Voice over IP

text: It is increasingly common for telecommunications providers to use VoIP telephony over dedicated and public IP networks as a backhaul to connect switching centers and to interconnect with other telephony network providers; this is often referred to as "IP backhaul".


title: Voice over IP

text: Because of the bandwidth efficiency and low costs that VoIP technology can provide, businesses are migrating from traditional copper-wire telephone systems to VoIP systems to reduce their monthly phone costs. In 2008, 80% of all new Private branch exchange (PBX) lines installed internationally were VoIP. For example, in the United States, the Social Security Administration is converting its field offices of 63,000 workers from traditional phone installations to a VoIP infrastructure carried over its existing data network.


title: Voice over IP

text: VoIP allows both voice and data communications to be run over a single network, which can significantly reduce infrastructure costs. The prices of extensions on VoIP are lower than for PBX and key systems. VoIP switches may run on commodity hardware, such as personal computers. Rather than closed architectures, these devices rely on standard interfaces. VoIP devices have simple, intuitive user interfaces, so users can often make simple system configuration changes. Dual-mode phones enable users to continue their conversations as they move between an outside cellular service and an internal Wi-Fi network, so that it is no longer necessary to carry both a desktop phone and a cell phone. Maintenance becomes simpler as there are fewer devices to oversee.


title: Voice over IP

text: VoIP solutions aimed at businesses have evolved into unified communications services that treat all communications—phone calls, faxes, voice mail, e-mail, web conferences, and more—as discrete units that can all be delivered via any means and to any handset, including cellphones. Two kinds of service providers are operating in this space: one set is focused on VoIP for medium to large enterprises, while another is targeting the small-to-medium business (SMB) market.


title: Voice over IP

text: Skype, which originally marketed itself as a service among friends, has begun to cater to businesses, providing free-of-charge connections between any users on the Skype network and connecting to and from ordinary PSTN telephones for a charge.


title: Voice over IP

text: In general, the provision of VoIP telephony systems to organizational or individual users can be divided into two primary delivery methods: private or on-premises solutions, or externally hosted solutions delivered by third-party providers. On-premises delivery methods are more akin to the classic PBX deployment model for connecting an office to local PSTN networks.


title: Voice over IP

text: While many use cases still remain for private or on-premises VoIP systems, the wider market has been gradually shifting toward "Cloud" or "Hosted" VoIP solutions. Hosted systems are also generally better suited to smaller or personal use VoIP deployments, where a private system may not be viable for these scenarios.


title: Voice over IP

text: "Hosted" or "Cloud" VoIP solutions involve a service provider or telecommunications carrier hosting the telephone system as a software solution within their own infrastructure.


title: Voice over IP

text: Typically this will be one or more datacentres, with geographic relevance to the end-user(s) of the system. This infrastructure is external to the user of the system and is deployed and maintained by the service provider.


title: Voice over IP

text: Endpoints, such as VoIP telephones or softphone applications (apps running on a computer or mobile device), will connect to the VoIP service remotely. These connections typically take place over public internet links, such as local fixed WAN breakout or mobile carrier service.


title: Voice over IP

text: In the case of a private VoIP system, the primary telephony system itself is located within the private infrastructure of the end-user organization. Usually, the system will be deployed on-premises at a site within the direct control of the organization. This can provide numerous benefits in terms of QoS control (see below), cost scalability, and ensuring privacy and security of communications traffic. However, the responsibility for ensuring that the VoIP system remains performant and resilient is predominantly vested in the end-user organization. This is not the case with a Hosted VoIP solution.


title: Voice over IP

text: Private VoIP systems can be physical hardware PBX appliances, converged with other infrastructure, or they can be deployed as software applications. Generally, the latter two options will be in the form of a separate virtualized appliance. However, in some scenarios, these systems are deployed on bare metal infrastructure or IoT devices. With some solutions, such as 3CX, companies can attempt to blend the benefits of hosted and private on-premises systems by implementing their own private solution but within an external environment. Examples can include datacentre collocation services, public cloud, or private cloud locations.


title: Voice over IP

text: For on-premises systems, local endpoints within the same location typically connect directly over the LAN. For remote and external endpoints, available connectivity options mirror those of Hosted or Cloud VoIP solutions.


title: Voice over IP

text: However, VoIP traffic to and from the on-premises systems can often also be sent over secure private links. Examples include personal VPN, site-to-site VPN, private networks such as MPLS and SD-WAN, or via private SBCs (Session Border Controllers). While exceptions and private peering options do exist, it is generally uncommon for those private connectivity methods to be provided by Hosted or Cloud VoIP providers.


title: Voice over IP

text: Communication on the IP network is perceived as less reliable in contrast to the circuit-switched public telephone network because it does not provide a network-based mechanism to ensure that data packets are not lost, and are delivered in sequential order. It is a best-effort network without fundamental quality of service (QoS) guarantees. Voice, and all other data, travels in packets over IP networks with fixed maximum capacity. This system may be more prone to data loss in the presence of congestion than traditional circuit switched systems; a circuit switched system of insufficient capacity will refuse new connections while carrying the remainder without impairment, while the quality of real-time data such as telephone conversations on packet-switched networks degrades dramatically. Therefore, VoIP implementations may face problems with latency, packet loss, and jitter.


title: Voice over IP

text: By default, network routers handle traffic on a first-come, first-served basis. Fixed delays cannot be controlled as they are caused by the physical distance the packets travel. They are especially problematic when satellite circuits are involved because of the long distance to a geostationary satellite and back; delays of 400–600 ms are typical. Latency can be minimized by marking voice packets as being delay-sensitive with QoS methods such as DiffServ.


title: Voice over IP

text: Network routers on high volume traffic links may introduce latency that exceeds permissible thresholds for VoIP. Excessive load on a link can cause congestion and associated queueing delays and packet loss. This signals a transport protocol like TCP to reduce its transmission rate to alleviate the congestion. But VoIP usually uses UDP not TCP because recovering from congestion through retransmission usually entails too much latency. So QoS mechanisms can avoid the undesirable loss of VoIP packets by immediately transmitting them ahead of any queued bulk traffic on the same link, even when the link is congested by bulk traffic.


title: Voice over IP

text: VoIP endpoints usually have to wait for the completion of transmission of previous packets before new data may be sent. Although it is possible to preempt (abort) a less important packet in mid-transmission, this is not commonly done, especially on high-speed links where transmission times are short even for maximum-sized packets. An alternative to preemption on slower links, such as dialup and digital subscriber line (DSL), is to reduce the maximum transmission time by reducing the maximum transmission unit. But since every packet must contain protocol headers, this increases relative header overhead on every link traversed.


title: Voice over IP

text: The receiver must resequence IP packets that arrive out of order and recover gracefully when packets arrive too late or not at all. Packet delay variation results from changes in queuing delay along a given network path due to competition from other users for the same transmission links. VoIP receivers accommodate this variation by storing incoming packets briefly in a playout buffer, deliberately increasing latency to improve the chance that each packet will be on hand when it is time for the voice engine to play it. The added delay is thus a compromise between excessive latency and excessive dropout, i.e. momentary audio interruptions.


title: Voice over IP

text: Although jitter is a random variable, it is the sum of several other random variables that are at least somewhat independent: the individual queuing delays of the routers along the Internet path in question. Motivated by the central limit theorem, jitter can be modeled as a Gaussian random variable. This suggests continually estimating the mean delay and its standard deviation and setting the playout delay so that only packets delayed more than several standard deviations above the mean will arrive too late to be useful. In practice, the variance in latency of many Internet paths is dominated by a small number (often one) of relatively slow and congested bottleneck links. Most Internet backbone links are now so fast (e.g. 10 Gbit/s) that their delays are dominated by the transmission medium (e.g. optical fiber) and the routers driving them do not have enough buffering for queuing delays to be significant.


title: Voice over IP

text: A number of protocols have been defined to support the reporting of quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) for VoIP calls. These include RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) extended reports, SIP RTCP summary reports, H.460.9 Annex B (for H.323), H.248.30 and MGCP extensions.


title: Voice over IP

text: The RTCP extended report VoIP metrics block specified by is generated by an VoIP phone or gateway during a live call and contains information on packet loss rate, packet discard rate (because of jitter), packet loss/discard burst metrics (burst length/density, gap length/density), network delay, end system delay, signal/noise/echo level, mean opinion scores (MOS) and R factors and configuration information related to the jitter buffer. VoIP metrics reports are exchanged between IP endpoints on an occasional basis during a call, and an end of call message sent via SIP RTCP summary report or one of the other signaling protocol extensions. VoIP metrics reports are intended to support real-time feedback related to QoS problems, the exchange of information between the endpoints for improved call quality calculation and a variety of other applications.


title: Voice over IP

text: DSL modems typically provide Ethernet connections to local equipment, but inside they may actually be Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) modems. They use ATM Adaptation Layer 5 (AAL5) to segment each Ethernet packet into a series of 53-byte ATM cells for transmission, reassembling them back into Ethernet frames at the receiving end.


title: Voice over IP

text: Using a separate virtual circuit identifier (VCI) for audio over IP has the potential to reduce latency on shared connections. ATM's potential for latency reduction is greatest on slow links because worst-case latency decreases with increasing link speed. A full-size (1500 byte) Ethernet frame takes 94 ms to transmit at 128 kbit/s but only 8 ms at 1.5 Mbit/s. If this is the bottleneck link, this latency is probably small enough to ensure good VoIP performance without MTU reductions or multiple ATM VCs. The latest generations of DSL, VDSL and VDSL2, carry Ethernet without intermediate ATM/AAL5 layers, and they generally support IEEE 802.1p priority tagging so that VoIP can be queued ahead of less time-critical traffic.


title: Voice over IP

text: ATM has substantial header overhead: 5/53 = 9.4%, roughly twice the total header overhead of a 1500 byte Ethernet frame. This "ATM tax" is incurred by every DSL user whether or not they take advantage of multiple virtual circuits – and few can.


title: Voice over IP

text: Several protocols are used in the data link layer and physical layer for quality-of-service mechanisms that help VoIP applications work well even in the presence of network congestion. Some examples include:


title: Voice over IP

text: The quality of voice transmission is characterized by several metrics that may be monitored by network elements and by the user agent hardware or software. Such metrics include network packet loss, packet jitter, packet latency (delay), post-dial delay, and echo. The metrics are determined by VoIP performance testing and monitoring.


title: Voice over IP

text: A VoIP media gateway controller (aka Class 5 Softswitch) works in cooperation with a media gateway (aka IP Business Gateway) and connects the digital media stream, so as to complete the path for voice and data. Gateways include interfaces for connecting to standard PSTN networks. Ethernet interfaces are also included in the modern systems which are specially designed to link calls that are passed via VoIP.


title: Voice over IP

text: E.164 is a global numbering standard for both the PSTN and public land mobile network (PLMN). Most VoIP implementations support E.164 to allow calls to be routed to and from VoIP subscribers and the PSTN/PLMN. VoIP implementations can also allow other identification techniques to be used. For example, Skype allows subscribers to choose "Skype names" (usernames) whereas SIP implementations can use Uniform Resource Identifier (URIs) similar to email addresses. Often VoIP implementations employ methods of translating non-E.164 identifiers to E.164 numbers and vice versa, such as the Skype-In service provided by Skype and the E.164 number to URI mapping (ENUM) service in IMS and SIP.


title: Voice over IP

text: Echo can also be an issue for PSTN integration. Common causes of echo include impedance mismatches in analog circuitry and an acoustic path from the receive to transmit signal at the receiving end.


title: Voice over IP

text: Local number portability (LNP) and mobile number portability (MNP) also impact VoIP business. Number portability is a service that allows a subscriber to select a new telephone carrier without requiring a new number to be issued. Typically, it is the responsibility of the former carrier to "map" the old number to the undisclosed number assigned by the new carrier. This is achieved by maintaining a database of numbers. A dialed number is initially received by the original carrier and quickly rerouted to the new carrier. Multiple porting references must be maintained even if the subscriber returns to the original carrier. The FCC mandates carrier compliance with these consumer-protection stipulations. In November 2007, the Federal Communications Commission in the United States released an order extending number portability obligations to interconnected VoIP providers and carriers that support VoIP providers.


title: Voice over IP

text: A voice call originating in the VoIP environment also faces least-cost routing (LCR) challenges to reach its destination if the number is routed to a mobile phone number on a traditional mobile carrier. LCR is based on checking the destination of each telephone call as it is made, and then sending the call via the network that will cost the customer the least. This rating is subject to some debate given the complexity of call routing created by number portability. With MNP in place, LCR providers can no longer rely on using the network root prefix to determine how to route a call. Instead, they must now determine the actual network of every number before routing the call.


title: Voice over IP

text: Therefore, VoIP solutions also need to handle MNP when routing a voice call. In countries without a central database, like the UK, it may be necessary to query the mobile network about which home network a mobile phone number belongs to. As the popularity of VoIP increases in the enterprise markets because of LCR options, VoIP needs to provide a certain level of reliability when handling calls.


title: Voice over IP

text: A telephone connected to a land line has a direct relationship between a telephone number and a physical location, which is maintained by the telephone company and available to emergency responders via the national emergency response service centers in form of emergency subscriber lists. When an emergency call is received by a center the location is automatically determined from its databases and displayed on the operator console.


title: Voice over IP

text: In IP telephony, no such direct link between location and communications end point exists. Even a provider having wired infrastructure, such as a DSL provider, may know only the approximate location of the device, based on the IP address allocated to the network router and the known service address. Some ISPs do not track the automatic assignment of IP addresses to customer equipment.


title: Voice over IP

text: IP communication provides for device mobility. For example, a residential broadband connection may be used as a link to a virtual private network of a corporate entity, in which case the IP address being used for customer communications may belong to the enterprise, not the residential ISP. Such off-premises extensions may appear as part of an upstream IP PBX. On mobile devices, e.g., a 3G handset or USB wireless broadband adapter, the IP address has no relationship with any physical location known to the telephony service provider, since a mobile user could be anywhere in a region with network coverage, even roaming via another cellular company.


title: Voice over IP

text: At the VoIP level, a phone or gateway may identify itself by its account credentials with a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) registrar. In such cases, the Internet telephony service provider (ITSP) knows only that a particular user's equipment is active. Service providers often provide emergency response services by agreement with the user who registers a physical location and agrees that, if an emergency number is called from the IP device, emergency services are provided to that address only.


title: Voice over IP

text: Such emergency services are provided by VoIP vendors in the United States by a system called Enhanced 911 (E911), based on the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act. The VoIP E911 emergency-calling system associates a physical address with the calling party's telephone number. All VoIP providers that provide access to the public switched telephone network are required to implement E911, a service for which the subscriber may be charged. "VoIP providers may not allow customers to opt-out of 911 service." The VoIP E911 system is based on a static table lookup. Unlike in cellular phones, where the location of an E911 call can be traced using assisted GPS or other methods, the VoIP E911 information is accurate only if subscribers keep their emergency address information current.


title: Voice over IP

text: Sending faxes over VoIP networks is sometimes referred to as Fax over IP (FoIP). Transmission of fax documents was problematic in early VoIP implementations, as most voice digitization and compression codecs are optimized for the representation of the human voice and the proper timing of the modem signals cannot be guaranteed in a packet-based, connectionless network.


title: Voice over IP

text: A standards-based solution for reliably delivering fax-over-IP is the T.38 protocol. The T.38 protocol is designed to compensate for the differences between traditional packet-less communications over analog lines and packet-based transmissions which are the basis for IP communications. The fax machine may be a standard device connected to an analog telephone adapter (ATA), or it may be a software application or dedicated network device operating via an Ethernet interface. Originally, T.38 was designed to use UDP or TCP transmission methods across an IP network.


title: Voice over IP

text: Some newer high-end fax machines have built-in T.38 capabilities which are connected directly to a network switch or router. In T.38 each packet contains a portion of the data stream sent in the previous packet. Two successive packets have to be lost to actually lose data integrity.


title: Voice over IP

text: Telephones for traditional residential analog service are usually connected directly to telephone company phone lines which provide direct current to power most basic analog handsets independently of locally available electrical power. The susceptibility of phone service to power failures is a common problem even with traditional analog service where customers purchase telephone units that operate with wireless handsets to a base station, or that have other modern phone features, such as built-in voicemail or phone book features.


title: Voice over IP

text: VoIP phones and VoIP telephone adapters connect to routers or cable modems which typically depend on the availability of mains electricity or locally generated power. Some VoIP service providers use customer premises equipment (e.g., cable modems) with battery-backed power supplies to assure uninterrupted service for up to several hours in case of local power failures. Such battery-backed devices typically are designed for use with analog handsets. Some VoIP service providers implement services to route calls to other telephone services of the subscriber, such a cellular phone, in the event that the customer's network device is inaccessible to terminate the call.


title: Voice over IP

text: Secure calls are possible using standardized protocols such as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol. Most of the facilities of creating a secure telephone connection over traditional phone lines, such as digitizing and digital transmission, are already in place with VoIP. It is necessary only to encrypt and authenticate the existing data stream. Automated software, such as a virtual PBX, may eliminate the need for personnel to greet and switch incoming calls.


title: Voice over IP

text: The security concerns for VoIP telephone systems are similar to those of other Internet-connected devices. This means that hackers with knowledge of VoIP vulnerabilities can perform denial-of-service attacks, harvest customer data, record conversations, and compromise voicemail messages. Compromised VoIP user account or session credentials may enable an attacker to incur substantial charges from third-party services, such as long-distance or international calling.


title: Voice over IP

text: The technical details of many VoIP protocols create challenges in routing VoIP traffic through firewalls and network address translators, used to interconnect to transit networks or the Internet. Private session border controllers are often employed to enable VoIP calls to and from protected networks. Other methods to traverse NAT devices involve assistive protocols such as STUN and Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE).


title: Voice over IP

text: Standards for securing VoIP are available in the Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) and the ZRTP protocol for analog telephony adapters, as well as for some softphones. IPsec is available to secure point-to-point VoIP at the transport level by using opportunistic encryption. Though many consumer VoIP solutions do not support encryption of the signaling path or the media, securing a VoIP phone is conceptually easier to implement using VoIP than on traditional telephone circuits. A result of the lack of widespread support for encryption is that it is relatively easy to eavesdrop on VoIP calls when access to the data network is possible. Free open-source solutions, such as Wireshark, facilitate capturing VoIP conversations.


title: Voice over IP

text: Government and military organizations use various security measures to protect VoIP traffic, such as voice over secure IP (VoSIP), secure voice over IP (SVoIP), and secure voice over secure IP (SVoSIP). The distinction lies in whether encryption is applied in the telephone endpoint or in the network. Secure voice over secure IP may be implemented by encrypting the media with protocols such as SRTP and ZRTP. Secure voice over IP uses Type 1 encryption on a classified network, such as SIPRNet. Public Secure VoIP is also available with free GNU software and in many popular commercial VoIP programs via libraries, such as ZRTP.


title: Voice over IP

text: In June 2021, the NSA (National Security Agency) released comprehensive documents describing the four attack planes of a communications system – the network, perimeter, session controllers and endpoints – and explaining security risks and mitigation techniques for each of them.


title: Voice over IP

text: Voice over IP protocols and equipment provide caller ID support that is compatible with the PSTN. Many VoIP service providers also allow callers to configure custom caller ID information.


title: Voice over IP

text: Wireline telephones which are manufactured in, imported to, or intended to be used in the US with Voice over IP service, on or after February 28, 2020, are required to meet the hearing aid compatibility requirements set forth by the Federal Communications Commission.


title: Voice over IP

text: VoIP has drastically reduced the cost of communication by sharing network infrastructure between data and voice. A single broadband connection has the ability to transmit multiple telephone calls.


title: Voice over IP

text: As the popularity of VoIP grows, governments are becoming more interested in regulating VoIP in a manner similar to PSTN services.


title: Voice over IP

text: Throughout the developing world, particularly in countries where regulation is weak or captured by the dominant operator, restrictions on the use of VoIP are often imposed, including in Panama where VoIP is taxed, Guyana where VoIP is prohibited. In Ethiopia, where the government is nationalizing telecommunication service, it is a criminal offense to offer services using VoIP. The country has installed firewalls to prevent international calls from being made using VoIP. These measures were taken after the popularity of VoIP reduced the income generated by the state-owned telecommunication company.


title: Voice over IP

text: In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regulates telephone service, including VoIP telephony service. VoIP services operating in Canada are required to provide 9-1-1 emergency service.


title: Voice over IP

text: In the European Union, the treatment of VoIP service providers is a decision for each national telecommunications regulator, which must use competition law to define relevant national markets and then determine whether any service provider on those national markets has "significant market power" (and so should be subject to certain obligations). A general distinction is usually made between VoIP services that function over managed networks (via broadband connections) and VoIP services that function over unmanaged networks (essentially, the Internet).


title: Voice over IP

text: The relevant EU Directive is not clearly drafted concerning obligations that can exist independently of market power (e.g., the obligation to offer access to emergency calls), and it is impossible to say definitively whether VoIP service providers of either type are bound by them.


title: Voice over IP

text: In Oman, it is illegal to provide or use unauthorized VoIP services, to the extent that web sites of unlicensed VoIP providers have been blocked. Violations may be punished with fines of 50,000 Omani Rial (about 130,317 US dollars), a two-year prison sentence or both. In 2009, police raided 121 Internet cafes throughout the country and arrested 212 people for using or providing VoIP services.


title: Voice over IP

text: In September 2017, Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on VoIPs, in an attempt to reduce operational costs and spur digital entrepreneurship.


title: Voice over IP

text: In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it is illegal to provide or use unauthorized VoIP services. Web sites of unlicensed VoIP providers have been blocked. Some VoIP services such as Skype were allowed. In January 2018, internet service providers in UAE blocked all VoIP apps, including Skype, but permitting only 2 government-approved VoIP apps (C’ME and BOTIM). In opposition, a petition on "Change.org" garnered over 5000 signatures, in response to which the website was blocked in UAE.


title: Voice over IP

text: On March 24, 2020, the United Arab Emirates loosened restriction on VoIP services earlier prohibited in the country, to ease communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, popular instant messaging applications like WhatsApp, Skype, and FaceTime remained blocked from being used for voice and video calls, constricting residents to use paid services from the country's state-owned telecom providers.


title: Voice over IP

text: In India, it is legal to use VoIP, but it is illegal to have VoIP gateways inside India. This effectively means that people who have PCs can use them to make a VoIP call to other computers but not to a normal phone number. Foreign-based VoIP server services are illegal to use in India.


title: Voice over IP

text: In South Korea, only providers registered with the government are authorized to offer VoIP services. Unlike many VoIP providers, most of whom offer flat rates, Korean VoIP services are generally metered and charged at rates similar to terrestrial calling. Foreign VoIP providers encounter high barriers to government registration. This issue came to a head in 2006 when Internet service providers providing personal Internet services by contract to United States Forces Korea (USFK) members residing on USFK bases threatened to block off access to VoIP services used by USFK members as an economical way to keep in contact with their families in the United States, on the grounds that the service members' VoIP providers were not registered. A compromise was reached between USFK and Korean telecommunications officials in January 2007, wherein USFK service members arriving in Korea before June 1, 2007, and subscribing to the ISP services provided on base could continue to use their US-based VoIP subscription, but later arrivals are required to use a Korean-based VoIP provider, which by contract will offer pricing similar to the flat rates offered by US VoIP providers.


title: Voice over IP

text: In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission requires all interconnected VoIP service providers to comply with requirements comparable to those for traditional telecommunications service providers. VoIP operators in the US are required to support local number portability; make service accessible to people with disabilities; pay regulatory fees, universal service contributions, and other mandated payments; and enable law enforcement authorities to conduct surveillance pursuant to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).


title: Voice over IP

text: Operators of "Interconnected" VoIP (fully connected to the PSTN) are mandated to provide Enhanced 911 service without special request, provide for customer location updates, clearly disclose any limitations on their E-911 functionality to their consumers, obtain affirmative acknowledgements of these disclosures from all consumers, and may not allow their customers to opt-out of 911 service. VoIP operators also receive the benefit of certain US telecommunications regulations, including an entitlement to interconnection and exchange of traffic with incumbent local exchange carriers via wholesale carriers. Providers of "nomadic" VoIP service—those who are unable to determine the location of their users—are exempt from state telecommunications regulation.


title: Voice over IP

text: Another legal issue that the US Congress is debating concerns changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The issue in question is calls between Americans and foreigners. The National Security Agency (NSA) is not authorized to tap Americans' conversations without a warrant—but the Internet, and specifically VoIP does not draw as clear a line to the location of a caller or a call's recipient as the traditional phone system does. As VoIP's low cost and flexibility convinces more and more organizations to adopt the technology, the surveillance for law enforcement agencies becomes more difficult. VoIP technology has also increased Federal security concerns because VoIP and similar technologies have made it more difficult for the government to determine where a target is physically located when communications are being intercepted, and that creates a whole set of new legal challenges.


title: Voice over IP

text: The early developments of packet network designs by Paul Baran and other researchers were motivated by a desire for a higher degree of circuit redundancy and network availability in the face of infrastructure failures than was possible in the circuit-switched networks in telecommunications of the mid-twentieth century. Danny Cohen first demonstrated a form of packet voice in 1973 as part of a flight simulator application, which operated across the early ARPANET.


title: Voice over IP

text: On the early ARPANET, real-time voice communication was not possible with uncompressed pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital speech packets, which had a bit rate of 64kbps, much greater than the 2.4kbps bandwidth of early modems. The solution to this problem was linear predictive coding (LPC), a speech coding data compression algorithm that was first proposed by Fumitada Itakura of Nagoya University and Shuzo Saito of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in 1966. LPC was capable of speech compression down to 2.4kbps, leading to the first successful real-time conversation over ARPANET in 1974, between Culler-Harrison Incorporated in Goleta, California, and MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts. LPC has since been the most widely used speech coding method. Code-excited linear prediction (CELP), a type of LPC algorithm, was developed by Manfred R. Schroeder and Bishnu S. Atal in 1985. LPC algorithms remain an audio coding standard in modern VoIP technology.


title: Voice over IP

text: In the following time span of about two decades, various forms of packet telephony were developed and industry interest groups formed to support the new technologies. Following the termination of the ARPANET project, and expansion of the Internet for commercial traffic, IP telephony was tested and deemed infeasible for commercial use until the introduction of VocalChat in the early 1990s and then in Feb 1995 the official release of Internet Phone (or iPhone for short) commercial software by VocalTec, based on the Audio Transceiver patent by Lior Haramaty and Alon Cohen, and followed by other VoIP infrastructure components such as telephony gateways and switching servers. Soon after it became an established area of interest in commercial labs of the major IT concerns. By the late 1990s, the first softswitches became available, and new protocols, such as H.323, MGCP and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gained widespread attention. In the early 2000s, the proliferation of high-bandwidth always-on Internet connections to residential dwellings and businesses, spawned an industry of Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs). The development of open-source telephony software, such as Asterisk PBX, fueled widespread interest and entrepreneurship in voice-over-IP services, applying new Internet technology paradigms, such as cloud services to telephony.


title: Voice over IP

text: In 1999, a discrete cosine transform (DCT) audio data compression algorithm called the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) was adopted for the Siren codec, used in the G.722.1 wideband audio coding standard. The same year, the MDCT was adapted into the LD-MDCT speech coding algorithm, used for the AAC-LD format and intended for significantly improved audio quality in VoIP applications. MDCT has since been widely used in VoIP applications, such as the G.729.1 wideband codec introduced in 2006, Apple's FaceTime (using AAC-LD) introduced in 2010, the CELT codec introduced in 2011, the Opus codec introduced in 2012, and WhatsApp's voice calling feature introduced in 2015.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: The Dalmatian is a breed of dog, which has a white coat marked with black or brown-colored spots. Originating as a hunting dog, it was also used as a carriage dog in its early days. The origins of this breed can be traced back to present-day Croatia and its historical region of Dalmatia. It is thought that early ancestors of the breed were certain breeds of pointers and a spotted Great Dane. Today, it is a popular family pet and many dog enthusiasts enter Dalmatians into kennel club competitions.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: The Dalmatian is a muscular dog with excellent endurance and stamina. When fully grown, according to the American Kennel Club (AKC) breed standard, it stands from tall.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Dalmatian puppies are born with plain white coats and their first spots usually appear within 10 days; however, spots may be visible on their skin from birth. They continue to develop until the dog is around 18 months old. Spots usually range in size from 2 to 6 cm (1.25 to 2.5 in), and are most commonly black or liver (brown) on a white background. Liver is the recessive colour in dalmatians, meaning that both parents have to carry the liver gene to produce this colour of pups. If both parents are liver, then all puppies will be liver-spotted. A dog who is dominate black is defined as being BB, a dog who is black spotted but carries liver is Bb and a liver dog is bb. Black spotted dogs always have black noses, and liver spotted dogs always have brown noses.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Other colors that occur occasionally include blue (a blue-grayish color), brindle, mosaic, orange or lemon (dark to pale yellow), or tricolored (with black, brown and orange or lemon spots). Orange and lemon occur the most frequently, especially in America, and are dilutes of the standard colours. They are defined as orange or lemon depending on their nose colour.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Another coloration pattern is a larger solid patch of color, which appears anywhere on the body, but most often on the head, ears, or tail. Patches are visible at birth and are not a group of connected spots; they are identifiable by the smooth edge of the patch, and that they have no interlacing white hairs in them. Pure white individuals without spots also occur occasionally.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: The Dalmatian coat is usually short, fine, and dense; however, smooth-coated Dalmatians occasionally produce long-coated offspring. Long-coated Dalmatians are not acceptable in the breed standard, but these individuals experience much less shedding than their smooth-coated counterparts, which shed considerably year-round. The standard variety's short, stiff hairs often weave into carpet, clothing, upholstery, and nearly any other kind of fabric and can be difficult to remove. Weekly grooming with a hound mitt or currycomb can lessen the amount of hair Dalmatians shed, although nothing can completely prevent shedding. Due to the minimal amount of oil in their coats, Dalmatians lack a dog odor and stay fairly clean relative to many other dog breeds.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Low uric acid (LUA) Dalmatians typically have smaller spots, which do not have as strong a pigment as standard Dalmatians. LUA breeders are trying to deal with this aspect, but it still remains possible to be able to pick a LUA out in a line up.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Like other breeds, Dalmatians display a propensity towards certain health problems specific to their breed, such as deafness, allergies, and urinary stones. Reputable breeders have their puppies' BAER (brainstem auditory evoked response) tested to ensure the status of the hearing on their pups. The Dalmatian Club of America lists the average lifespan of a Dalmatian at between 11 and 13 years, although some can live as long as 15 to 16 years. Breed health surveys in the US and the UK show an average lifespan of 9.9 and 11.55 years, respectively. In their late teens, both males and females may suffer bone spurs and arthritic conditions. Autoimmune thyroiditis may be a relatively common condition for the breed, affecting 11.6% of dogs.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: A genetic predisposition for deafness is a serious health problem for Dalmatians; American Dalmatians exhibit a prevalence for bilateral congenital sensoneural deafness of 8% (for which there is no possible treatment), compared with 5.3% for the UK population. Deafness was not recognized by early breeders, so the breed was thought to be unintelligent. Many breeders, when hearing testing started to become the norm, were amazed to discover that they had unilateral hearing dogs. Even after recognizing the problem as a genetic fault, breeders did not understand the dogs' nature, and deafness in Dalmatians continues to be a frequent problem.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Researchers now know deafness in albino and piebald animals is caused by the absence of mature melanocytes in the inner ear. This may affect one or both ears. The condition is also common in other canine breeds that share a genetic propensity for light pigmentation. This includes, but is not limited to Bull Terriers, Dogo Argentinos, Poodles, Boxers, Border Collies and Great Danes.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Typically, only dogs with bilateral hearing are bred, although those with unilateral hearing, and even dogs with bilateral deafness, make fine pets with appropriate training. The main, and most noticeable, difference in a dog with uni hearing is that they do not have directional hearing; though the dog will be able to hear someone, they will not be able to hear the direction they are in. The Dalmatian Club of America's position on deaf pups is that they should not be used for breeding, and that humane euthanasia may be considered as an "alternative to placement". The British Dalmatian Club recommends only purchasing pups who are BAER-tested, and requests all members to provide BAER testing results of their puppies so that the true deafness statistics can be looked at.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: It has been proved that it is the inheritance of the extreme piebald gene that causes blue eyes. It is therefore frowned upon to breed from blue-eyed Dalmatians even if they are fully hearing. Blue-eyed Dalmatians are not typically shown in the UK.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Even though there is no evidence nor statistically relevant data to suggest that hip dysplasia is another disease that affects Dalmatians, some blogs say that it affects nearly 5% of purebred Dalmatians, causing those to experience limping, fatigue, moderate to severe pain, and trouble standing up. Even though this data is not available, it is believed that Dalmatians who eventually develop hip dysplasia are born with normal hips, but the soft tissues surrounding the joint grow abnormally due to their genetic make-up. The disease may affect both hips, or only the right or left hip, leading afflicted dogs to walk or run with an altered gait. The most cited scientific report about canine hip dysplasia does not include Dalmatians among the breeds usually affected by that disease.


title: Dalmatian (dog)

text: Dalmatians, like humans, can suffer from hyperuricemia. Dalmatians' livers have trouble breaking down uric acid, which can build up in the blood serum (hyperuricemia) causing gout. Uric acid can also be excreted in high concentration into the urine, causing kidney stones and bladder stones. These conditions are most likely to occur in middle-aged males. Males over ten are prone to kidney stones and should have their calcium intake reduced or be given preventive medication. To reduce the risk of gout and stones, owners should carefully limit the intake of purines by avoiding giving their dogs food containing organ meats, animal byproducts, or other high-purine ingredients. Hyperuricemia in Dalmatians responds to treatment with orgotein, the veterinary formulation of the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase.