  Making use of a derivative dispersion approach, we investigate the behavior
of the the total cross section and the rho parameter for pp and p(bar)p
scattering from accelerator to cosmic ray energies. The discrepancies in the
cosmic ray information is treated through the definition of two different
ensembles of data. Simultaneous and individual fits to the above quantities
through the Donnachie-Landshof and Kang-Nicolescu parametrizations allows to
infer an upper bound for the intercept of the soft Pomeron and also show that
the data investigated do not favor the Odderon hypothesis.
