From telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Fri Jan 26 00:22:40 1990 Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU via TCP with SMTP id AA24602; Fri, 26 Jan 90 00:21:04 EST Resent-Message-Id: <9001260521.AA24602@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU> Received: from WINNIE.FIT.EDU by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11430; 25 Jan 90 9:43 CST Received: from zach.fit.edu by winnie.fit.edu (5.57/Ultrix2.4-C) id AA01751; Thu, 25 Jan 90 10:26:32 EST Received: by zach.fit.edu (5.58/HARRIS-4.0) id AA06378; Thu, 25 Jan 90 10:26:40 EST Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 10:26:40 EST From: Bill Huttig Message-Id: <9001251526.AA06378@zach.fit.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Resent-Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 23:21:44 CST Resent-From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Resent-To: ptownson@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU Status: RO 24-Jan-87 04:51:29-EST,16492;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sat 24 Jan 87 04:51:27-EST Date: 22 Jan 87 02:12-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #1 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, January 22, 1987 2:12AM Volume 6, Issue 1 Today's Topics: What kind of access is 800-950 ? Bar codes, ISDN What number am I calling from? Hold Circuit bar codes on mail Called by an answering machine! More Hold Circuit redundant routing Directory Assistance Routing Regulation of the packet switched networks MCI; Calling Cards ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Dec 86 01:02:15 EST From: johnl%ima.UUCP at CCA.CCA.COM Reply-To: johnl at ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) Subject: What kind of access is 800-950 ? This morning I was trying to make a call with my MCI card. Since I was in the boondocks in Vermont 950-1022 didn't work, it gave a "being checked for trouble" recording like it always does there. When I tried MCI's 800 number, it told me that their new number for calling card calls is 800-950-1022. Does anybody know if this is a FG C number, like a regular 950 number, or just a more mnemonic 800 number? John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him? [Administravia: This begins volume 6 of Telecom. This issue was reconstituted from the New Years' edition that got lost in amidst moderator bungling. Issue 2 follows immediately. -Elmo] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Dec 86 17:45:31 EST From: ima!johnl at harvard.HARVARD.EDU Subject: Bar codes, ISDN Bar codes on the mail: The postal service has new high-speed sorting equipment which reads the bar codes and sorts the mail. They also are putting in OCR equipment that reads the bottom line of the address and prints the bar code. Companies that pre-print the bar code on their envelopes are likely to get their incoming mail faster, since the P.O. can skip the OCR step and proceed directly to the sorting. ISDN: There was a whole issue of the AT&TTJ (nee BSTJ) on ISDN earlier this year. The standard 2B+D interface allows one 16KB supervisory channel which is always X.25-like data. This channel is used to exchange messages to control the other two channels, but you can use it for virtual circuit data, too. The other two channels can be used for anything you want, such as high speed data or voice. The channels can be assigned to various services per-call, so at different times you could have two voice calls, two data calls, or one of each. The standards for the X.25-like channel seem to be be pretty well defined, but what they're haggling about now are some rather fundamental things like how to encode voice into the 64KB channel, and how to encode the three channels onto a phone line. There is also a 23B+D interface for larger systems like PBXes, which would map 23 64KB channels plus another 64KB supervisory channel onto a T1 trunk, and there's still wrangling about that, too. Don't hold your breath. John Levine, ima!johnl or Levine@YALE.something ------------------------------ Date: Thu 1 Jan 87 17:09:34-EST From: Vic Christensen Subject: What number am I calling from? Noticing all the questions about ring-backs, I thought I'd send this one in...it's for finding out what number you're calling from, though. In the Boston area (at least), the number is 1-200-555-1212. I assume the last four digits may be anything, but I haven't tried it out, yet. I suggest you not use it too much, though, lest the phone company catch on and change it. Does anyone know what the number for this "service" is out in Southern California (Los Angeles area, specifically)? And also the ring-back number out there? Quick responses would be much appreciated, for I leave for home (for good...graduating) on 17 Jan 87...thanxz!!! Vic Christensen ET@MIT-DEEP-THOUGHT (or ET@EE) ET%MIT-DEEP-THOUGHT@MIT-MC (or ET%EE@MC) 2109 Amelia Avenue San Pedro, CA 90731 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Dec 86 23:20:16 EST From: kitty!larry at seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Hold Circuit >> From: tj >> >> put a resistor, and LED, a Zener, and an SCR in series. The Gate of the scr >> goes through a resistor and a pushbutton to + phone line. Lets draw a >> schematic online... [schematic delected for brevity] >> The SCR is off until pushbutton PB is pressed making contact thus >> turning it on. Upper Zener is some voltage higher than the off hook >> voltage of the line. (say 10 volts) Until the line goes higher than >> 10 volts it is off, even though the SCR is on. Hold the push button >> as you hang up. This turns on the SCR and as the line voltage rises >> the zener conducts and the current through the SCR will hold it on >> (get a low hold current scr, say 3 ma) The resistor in series with >> the push button supplies the small turn on current. 5 k should do. >> The lower zener limits the voltage across the LED. Make say 5 >> volts. This would put the r in series with the LEd at about 150 >> ohms. > I doubt this circuit would work, and it could be dangerous. There is > no impedience between a 28 volt source and ground; that voltage will > be pulled down to 15 volts. What would limit the current through the > SCR and two zener diodes? The circuit should work under most circumstances, and is by no means "dangerous". The current on a telephone subscriber loop is limited by the central office apparatus. In most central offices there is effectively 200 ohms between the tip of the line and ground, and 200 ohms between the ring of the line and -48 volt office battery. This results in a total of 400 ohms resistance so that from Ohm's law a short circuit across the loop sitting right at the CO would draw 0.120 ampere. There are two discreet resistances as described above so that the subscriber line will be longitudinally balanced with respect to ground. Since it is necessary for the CO apparatus to detect current flow in the subcriber loop to indicate an off-hook condition, the above resistances may be incorporated as two windings in a "line relay", ferrod sensor, repeating coil, etc. While a line relay and ferrod sensor sense current flow directly, the voltage drop across a resistor or repeating coil is used for current detection in other types of CO's. So the point is: 0.120 ampere _worst_ case isn't going to hurt anything or destroy a properly selected SCR (I would use 200 V @ 1 ampere to be conservative and handle surge voltages). A more typical short circuit current value for a subscriber loop (since most subscribers don't live next door to the CO) is .030 to .060 ampere. One minor improvement which could be made to the circuit is to make it polarity-independent and protect against possible false ring-tripping by placing a full-wave bridge rectifier (use 200 PIV @ 1 ampere to be conservative) between the circuit and the telephone line (the AC leads go to the telephone line). Also, a small resistance may be required in series with the SCR cathode to make certain that the circuit releases properly under some subscriber loop conditions. You could add say, a 500 ohm pot and know that you'll be in range. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|bbncca|decvax|nike|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jan 87 01:46:12 EST From: ceo!BKR!Stuart_Freedman%dgloki.UUCP at wjh12.HARVARD.EDU Subject: bar codes on mail If you look carefully, the automatic sorters only put bar codes on mail that has the address typed or printed (rather than handwritten).V0 In order to get the bar code on your very own outgoing mail then, I believe that you have to type the address on the envelope and make sure that the ZIP code is in the bottom-right corner (relative to all other text on the envelope). Since I don't work for the postal service, I can't guarantee the accuracy of this info, but it is seemingly-reliable hearsay! Apologies for carrying on a somewhat irrelevant issue in TELECOM... Happy New Year, --- Stuart Freedman ARPA: stuart%dgloki.uucp@wjh12.harvard.edu Data General Corp.(Mail Stop E-219) CSNET: rti-sel!dg_rtp!freedman@mcnc Westboro, MA 01580 +1(617)870-9659 UUCP: mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!freedman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Jan 87 16:19:14 PST From: dick at cca.ucsf.edu (Dick Karpinski) Subject: Called by an answering machine! The other day I answered the phone and heard nothing, so I said, "Hello? ... Hello? ... I can't hear you. ... Goodbye." and hung up. Later in the day I got a call from my brother-in- law about the call. It was recorded, including the ringing of the phone, on his answering machine! We chatted about it for some time. It seemed highly unlikely that his machine would call me until he recalled that he had my number on his speed-dial-8 service. With this fact, it took only the recognition of the speed-dial prefix ("*"?, "#"?) and a single digit. Even then, perhaps the digit came from cross- talk rather than his message.... We concluded that someone had called him, heard the machine and hung up. But the message continued until the phone line had presented dial tone. Two or so keypresses were detected by the central office equipment and I got the call. I've encountered dead lines calling me a dozen times or so but this is the first that got an explanation like that. Dick ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jan 87 03:58:02 pst From: rpw3 at amdcad.AMD.COM (Rob Warnock) Subject: More Hold Circuit Forget trying to build a hold circuit; it's not worth it. Just go to Radio Shack and buy their hold module (or whatever it's called). It plugs in anywhere, in parallel with your other phones. (Also requires A.C. line power, but the whole module is one of those "wart on the wall" styles, so it hides away o.k.) You activate it with a quick double switch-hook flash (it beeps at you if it saw your flash), then hang up. Pick up any line and it drops out. Only "problem" is that it holds onto the line (necessarily) for about one second when you hang up, which can be somewhat tricky if you also have Call Waiting (which I do), but you very quickly learn to add that delay to the flash needed for Call Waiting. (That is, to switch to the waiting call, you flash for 1.5 seconds -- one sec to get the hold module to drop, and 1/2 sec for Call Waiting.) I think I only blew it once before I got the knack... Rob Warnock Systems Architecture Consultant UUCP: {amdcad,fortune,sun}!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)572-2607 USPS: 627 26th Ave, San Mateo, CA 94403 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jan 87 11:25:56 EST From: Barry Nelson Subject: redundant routing RE: circuit routing to avoid network outages We at BBN Communications are sometimes asked by commercial customers to specify sufficiently redundant circuits such that the built-in adaptive routing of the backbone won't be undermined by any single telco outage. In one particluar case, the customer went so far as to request a hard breakdown of the *SATELLITE* and transponder each circuit used and of course the various earth stations. They were apparently worried about killer asteroids. Access to this info is of varying difficulty. However, this is serious business and many are willing to pay the delta. Q: What to do when ALL international circuits to a given country pass through a single point? e.g. Caracas, CANTV Central Switch A: Get a license from that country to put in your own earth station! (This is no longer a small delta although VSATs are coming down.) "This document contains statements of opinion by the author which are not attributable to BBN Communications Corporation or its management." Barry C. Nelson - Network Consultant - International Certifications ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jan 87 19:15:19 CST From: tness1!hcsjgh%ots.UUCP at rice.edu (Greg Hackney) Subject: Directory Assistance Routing >>allegra!phri!roy@seismo.CSS.GOV (Roy Smith) writes >>Subject: Directory assistance & long-distance routing >> >> Here's something I've often wondered about. When you call long >>distance directory assistance, after you get the number you want (either >>from a human operator or a digi-cording, the connection is broken and you >>have to dial the number yourself. Wouldn't it make more sense to just >>connect you with the number? The DA operators are not always in the same area as the number you are looking for. The operators can be pooled to handle several areas. Also, the records are databased and centralized, and polled via data links. The routing for the actual call will most likely be totally different from the DA call. Also, with numerous long distance companies available, the caller might wish to use another company for the actual call. Greg Hackney Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. Texas Network Engineering Support Systems P.O. Box 1530, Room 806 Houston, Texas 77001 UUCP: ihnp4!tness1!hcsjgh ARPA: hcsjgh!tness1%ots.UUCP@rice.edu "What hath God wrought?" -A.G. Bell and company ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 87 17:37:40 EST From: Keith F. Lynch Subject: Regulation of the packet switched networks From: jsol@buita.bu.edu This regulation was aimed directly at the commercial networks. I don't think the research networks (or DEC which supplies its own packet switched network for internal use), will suffer. At the very least the costs will be absorbed in grants and other expenses. The main threat to individual users is the threat to PC PURSUIT and similar services. ...Keith ------------------------------ Date: Sat 3 Jan 87 22:08:10-EST From: Philip A. Earnhardt Subject: MCI; Calling Cards Over the past year, MCI has sent me three letters with saying "Urgent Reminder" and "Signature Required" on the outside. A cursory reading of the letter seems to imply that you must return the enclosed ballot; actually, it's just a request that you send a reply. Your signature is required iff you're signing up for their Dial "1" Long Distance Service. Granted, MCI has no monopoly on potentailly misleading direct mail. However, the long-distance market is far too confusing already! I despise solicitors who demand information they have no right to. Do other folks agree? Is there any federal agency I can talk with who could/would stomp on these guys? One MCI service I find useful is what their rep called "Secondary Carrier Service", where you call a local 7-digit number, 5-digit account code, and the entire long-distance number. The rates are the same as MCI's "Dial '1' Service". I use this service to make personal long-distance calls from work. This is much cheaper than the AT&T Calling Card. What is the Calling Card overhead per call? Is it a constant charge at all times, whether or not the call goes through? Does MCI have plans to keep these local numbers, or will they phase them out when all have equal access? Will AT&T attempt to compete with this service, or are they better off keeping their larger profit margin on their Calling Cards? How much of this market has AT&T lost? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- ------- 25-Jan-87 04:19:19-EST,22703;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sun 25 Jan 87 04:19:16-EST Date: 20 Jan 87 01:35-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #2 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, January 20, 1987 1:35AM Volume 6, Issue 2 Today's Topics: Re: Postal bar codes Re: Pending FCC ruling threat to modem users Re: What number am I calling from? info request on USR Robotic 2400 Wiring diagram for 25-pair plugs bad area code on a pay phone? Line In Use Circuit: How do I make one? Line In Use Indicator More on British PhoneCard ld carrier access codes Hold circuit More on British PhoneCard fraud New AT&T Countries dialable eff. 13 March ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: blarson%castor.usc.edu@usc-oberon.arpa (Bob Larson) Date: 4 Jan 87 15:28:20 GMT From: blarson@castor.usc.edu (Bob Larson) Subject: Re: Postal bar codes In article <8612240416.AA04419@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> wales@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales) writes: > >I have some observations and questions regarding the "bar codes" which >the U.S. Postal Service has been using for a while on mail. The post office is not secritive about such matters, espessially if they think you will be using them in large quantity mailings. I've seen a brochure on where to position the address, stamp, etc. (including bar code) picked up at the post office. When USC made an inquiry about converting to 9-digit zips, they not only gave us information, but had a couple of people come out and help us evaluate what would be involved in the conversion. The database is free, on 9-track tapes. (If I remember correctly, something like 25 6250 bpi tapes -- several hundred megabytes of data if packed, a couple of gigabytes if left in their fixed length format with some unused bits.) The program to access the database is non-trivial, unless your input data is standarized (2nd St. vs Second Street, etc.) and perfect. Once you have a good program, it can even be used to test the plausiblity of an address: i.e. there is no 1200 block of Ridge Way in Medford, OR. They also offer regional tapes and will convert small mailing lists free. $.005/peice is the extra discount for using 9-digit zip or carrier route sorting rather than 5-digit zip sorting. -- Bob Larson Arpa: Blarson@Usc-Eclb.Arpa Uucp: (several backbone sites)!sdcrdcf!usc-oberon!castor.usc.edu!blarson seismo!cit-vax!usc-oberon!castor.usc.edu!blarson ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 86 06:30:52 GMT From: joel%gould9@NOSC.ARPA (Joel West) Subject: Re: Pending FCC ruling threat to modem users BizComp and Hayes may have the biggest threat to modem users. BizComp claims a patent on auto-dialing technology, controling dialing with the data line (unlike the earlier UNIX modems, which required a separate calling unit.) Apparently Hayes paid about $2 million to license (or buy off, if you like) BizComp's patent threat, and also claims its own patent on the 1 second before and after the +++ escape. BizComp has sued Prometheus, a modem clone company. Needless to say, if Hayes and BizComp win, cheap competition in the modem market would be threatened. US Robotics has filed a pre-emptive lawsuit alleging antitrust violations against both companies, but if the patents are valid, it doesn't stand a chance. -- Joel West MCI Mail: 282-8879 Western Software Technology, POB 2733, Vista, CA 92083 {cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 86 18:11:57 GMT From: kitty!larry@SEISMO.CSS.GOV (Larry Lippman) Subject: Re: What number am I calling from? In article <2263@well.UUCP>, rab@well.UUCP (Bob Bickford) writes: > > Dialing a three-digit access code which immediately provides an > > announcement over the telephone circuit. This unrestricted > > implementation has generally been considered a "security" problem > > (use your imagination) by telephone company management; I am > > somewhat surprised to see people posting articles reporting the > > implementation of unrestricted ANAC. > > Why? I'm afraid my imagination does not present me with any > compelling reason to belive this a 'security risk'. Certainly it > is of little or no use to a telco cracker. Well, I guess I have to spell it out... The availability of ANAC at any outside plant location (like cross-connect terminal) is of significant value to anyone bent upon unlawful wiretapping. Telephone company security personnel are always concerned about unauthorized persons obtaining any information with respect to subscriber line pair identity and circuit routing. In fact, in New York State it is a specific criminal offense (Penal Law 250.30) for an "unauthorized" person to obtain "information concerning identification or location of any wires, cables, lines, terminals or other apparatus used in furnishing telephone or telegraph service". Since people are reporting unrestricted ANAC in California, perhaps life there is more permissive. :-) > > You are referring to milliwatt test lines which provide a 1,000 Hz > > signal at 0 dBm (1 mw) into a 900 ohm termination. Some milliwatt test > > lines provide a continuous tone; others have 9 seconds of tone followed by > > 1 second of silence (with or without answer supervision). > > Ours are 8 seconds and 2 seconds; the tone by the way is 1004 Hz > and NOT 1000 Hz. Traditionally, the milliwatt reference frequency was 1,000 Hz, and still is 1,000 Hz in many central offices (especially those that are still electromechanical). Interestingly enough, the milliwatt reference frequency has been changed in some areas to 1,004 Hz because of small measurement errors which occur when measuring through PCM (i.e., digital) CO's or transmission (T-carrier) facilities. The reason is that 1,000 Hz is an even divisor of the 8,000 Hz PCM sampling rate, and any frequency within say 1 Hz of 1,000 Hz exhibits erratic results (to a minor degree, however) during measurement. > > A word of caution concerning the use of milliwatt test lines: if > > you don't know what you are doing and don't have the proper test equipment, > > you will be fooling yourself with incorrect measurements. > > Quite true. We wasted several weeks working on the audio portion of > our video conferencing system when I was at Vitalink Communications. > Finally we purchased a Halcyon tester (don't recall model #) and > stopped listening to the linemen who kept insisting that the line was > a 600 ohm line. There is a good moral to be learned here: Don't ever accept as gospel any transmission-related information given by telephone company craftspersons (also salespersons!) - either get it from someone that you _know_ is an engineer, or measure it yourself. Not that I have anything against non-engineers, but many telephone company craftspersons just follow orders and directions, with little or no understanding beyond that. For example, even a craftsperson using a TTS to make transmission measurements will have _explicit_ instructions how to set the controls on his TTS and then get a meter reading - but more often than not, will have no idea why the TTS is operated as he has it configured. > > Almost all CO's provide three "quiet lines" for noise measurement > > purposes and repeater test purposes: (1) a balanced termination; (2) an > > open-circuit termination; and (3) a short-circuit termination. The latter > > two lines are primarily used to test negative impedance repeaters for > > noise and "singing". > > That's strange, we seem to only have one variety of quiet line around > here, and that's the terminated one. You might not know the numbers for the others. Actually, there may be TWO lines with balanced terminations (in addition to one for open-circuit and one for short-circuit). Many CO's use a CLA (combined loop-around) for a milliwatt test line. The CLA uses two sequential numbers (common example 9911 and 9912 applied to New York Telephone) which work as follows: 1. Dialing _only_ the 9911 number gives you milliwatt tone. 2. Dialing _only_ the 9912 number gives you a balanced termination. 3. Dialing _both_ 9911 and 9912 gives you a bridged connection between the two lines whose insertion loss is the typical CO switching loss (usually well under 1.0 dB). This is referred to as "loop-around" mode, and is used for remote transmission measurements to and from a CO; its primary purpose is to test interoffice trunks, and it has no usefulness for subscriber loop meqsurements. Many newer CO's have a speech energy detector on the CLA which drops the connection if _other_ than SF tones are sent in loop-around mode; this has been implemented to stop "unauthorized" people from using the CLA for talking. So, in addition to the balanced termination available through the CLA, most CO's still have a short-circuit termination (typical 9954 suffix for New York Telephone), an open-cicruit termination (typical 9955) and another balanced termination (typical 9956). Note that in addition to a milliwatt line being available through the CLA (9911 as above), there is usually a dedicated milliwatt line (typical number is 9910). There is generally an important distinction between this apparent duplication of test lines: the CLA is used primarily for interoffice trunk measurements, so its impedance is 600 ohms - whereas all of the other lines have 900 ohm impedance. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|bbncca|decvax|nike|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 86 22:08:42 GMT From: csustan!elric@LLL-CRG.ARPA (Elric of Imrryr) Subject: info request on USR Robotic 2400 Has anyone here had any experiences with the USR Robotics 2400 baud external modem? I am considering the purchase of one from Softline in NY, since the have them for $189. (Which seems to be a good deal, so I'm try to find the catch...) Brad Falk -- elric Lunatic Labs @ Csustan {lll-crg,lll-lcc}!csustan!elric ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Jan 87 20:47:31 est From: allegra!phri!roy@seismo.CSS.GOV (Roy Smith) Subject: Wiring diagram for 25-pair plugs Reply-To: phri!roy@seismo.CSS.GOV (Roy Smith) I have been appointed to hook up an answering machine in our office, on one of those multi-line key phones. I think they figured that since I'm the computer jock, I must know how phones work. Silly them. :-) The phone has a 50-pin conectorized cable coming out of it; presumably all I have to do is find the right pair and tap off some wires to an RJ-11 and plug the answering machine in. If somebody would be so good as to send me a wiring diagram for the connector (is there a standard wiring pattern?) I think I could take it from there. I found a little gizmo which has male and female 50-pin connectors and a panel of about 2 dozen screw terminals bringing out many of the pins in the "lower half" of the connectors (roughly pins 15-35). The terminals are labeled A1, A2, B1, B2 .... A12, B12, V, SG. Most of the pins are wired straight through from one connector to the other. Some of the other pins only go to a screw terminal, and some are wired straight through plus a tap to a terminal. I assume the [AB]# pairs are tip and ring (I don't actually know much, but I can talk jargon as well as anyone) for each of 12 lines; is that right? What about V and SG? If I can find the right pair, can I just hook the answering machine up to that and ignore the extra wires for the key equipment hiding in a closet some where? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Jan 87 8:50:17 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: bad area code on a pay phone? Have you ever seen a case where the wrong area code appeared on a pay phone? I recently saw (not hand printed) 215-943 on a pay phone near New Ringgold, Pa.; area code should be 717. (215-943 is Levittown, a Phila. suburb; 717-943 is McKeansburg.) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 87 00:21:30 pst From: well!ewhac@lll-lcc.ARPA (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) Subject: Line In Use Circuit: How do I make one? Reply-To: well!ewhac@lll-lcc.ARPA (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) [ Hello. My name is Peabody. I suppose you know yours.... ] Hold circuits are nice, but I'd like to build a little circuit that turns an LED on or something on all other phone extensions when one of the extensions is in use (thus letting someone in another part of the house know the phone is in use). This will go a long way to keeping my mother from picking up the phone when I'm talking to another computer. Has anyone seen such a beast? Pointers to such would be appreciated. AtDhVaAnNkCsE. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ ________ ___ Leo L. Schwab \ /___--__ The Guy in The Cape ___ ___ /\ ---##\ ihnp4!ptsfa!well!ewhac / X \_____ | __ _---)) ..or.. / /_\-- -----+==____\ // \ _ well ---\ ___ ( o---+------------------O/ \/ \ dual ----> !unicom!ewhac \ / ___ \_ (`o ) hplabs -/ ("AE-wack") ____ \___/ \_/ Recumbent Bikes: "Work FOR? I don't work FOR The _O_n_l_y Way To Fly! anybody! I'm just having fun." ------------------------------ From: crash!kevinb@sdchem.UCSD.EDU (Kevin Belles) Subject: Line In Use Indicator Is there anybody out there who knows of a simple circuit that can light up when any extension on a line is in use, preferably phone-powered? This would be quite useful for those on one line with a modem arrangement on it. Ideas, anyone? -Kevin Belles Kevin J. Belles - UUCP {noscvax,sdcsvax,ihnp4!gould9,cbosgd} ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ !crash!pnet01!kevinb - ARPA crash!pnet01!kevinb@{ucsd,nosc}.ARPA [DAK sells such a beast - "Drew's Brainstorm" - it eats 9V batteries for breakfast, so get a Lady O'Shack battery elminator too... -Elmo\ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 87 14:42:04 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: More on British PhoneCard The following items are from two different issues of the RISKS Digest, and are followups on the posting I sent to Telecom some issues back on the possibility of a scheme for toll fraud using the British "PhoneCard": Will Martin ----- Forwarded message > Date: Wed 24 Dec 86 09:36:03-PST > From: Peter G. Neumann > Subject: Still More on PhoneCards > To: RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM > > I had a call from Colin Sex at British Telecom at 5PM Christmas Eve GMT. > He stated that "The card itself is completely secure." They indeed do a > READ-AFTER-WRITE check (along with some other checking), so that part of it > looks OK. However, there are problems with physical damage to the laser > reader/writer. In the case at hand, nail polish had been caked onto the > card, and gummed up the works. But in such cases the unit is supposed > either to reject the card, or else keep the card if it cannot eject it -- > and then shut down. I think they are still vulnerable to some active-card > attacks, but on the whole they think they protect themselves well against > the man on the street. > > ------------------------------ > > [It is altogether possible that BT is covering up. On the other hand, > their description of the system (by phone, to me) stated that the > READ-AFTER-WRITE check is properly implemented and that there are three > other checks as well. They claim that the Sunday Post will print a > retraction. (As yet no one has reported seeing it.) Of course, there > may be still be other vulnerabilities. RISKS readers are learning to look > the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, as well as the horse you had to > pay a fortune for. PGN] ----- End of forwarded messages ------------------------------ From: Dan Nichols Date: 13 Jan 87 20:57:04 GMT From: dnichols@ti-csl.CSNET (Dan Nichols) Subject: ld carrier access codes I seem to recall quite some time ago seeing a discussion about being able to bypass my equal-access carrier and use any of the long distance carriers (even if not subscribed to) by prefixing the number I wish to call with the proper 4 digit code (1022, 1088, etc.) I was telling this to a friend and he was quite disbelieving. Now I'm not sure if I remember it correctly. Could someone explain if this is true and how it works? Also, could someone repost a list of the 4 digit codes for the various carriers? Post or mail to me as appropriate. Dan Nichols USENET: {ctvax,im4u,texsun,rice}!ti-csl!dnichols POB 226015 M/S 238 ARPA: Dnichols%TI-CSL@CSNet-Relay Texas Instruments Inc. CSNET: Dnichols@Ti-CSL Dallas, Texas 75266 VOICE: (214) 995-6090 -- Dan Nichols USENET: {ctvax,im4u,texsun,rice}!ti-csl!dnichols POB 226015 M/S 238 ARPA: Dnichols%TI-CSL@CSNet-Relay Texas Instruments Inc. CSNET: Dnichols@Ti-CSL Dallas, Texas 75266 VOICE: (214) 995-6090 ------------------------------ From: ssc-vax!clark@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Roger Clark Swann) Date: 14 Jan 87 22:34:41 GMT Subject: Hold circuit I was thinking some more on the topic of hold circiuts and remembered that there was a article in a Popular Electronics a few years back that looked like a very good setup. It was an active type design, powered off the 120V line, which listened on the phone line for the '#' key. When this key was detected, a relay was activated, switching an audio transformer/resistor network across the phone line. This caused an off hook condition that held the line. The reason for the transformer was to provide the option of music on hold, by connecting a tape player or what ever. The controller in this design monitored the phone line, sensing when any phone was taken off hook, deactivating the hold relay. In addition, the controller had a time out that forced the hold function to switch off after about five minutes so that the line would not be tied up all day..... I was going the build the thing, but never got to it.... Any comments for someone that did build and test it ???? Roger Swann uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!clark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 87 14:42:29 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: More on British PhoneCard fraud Here's yet some more from the RISKS Digest on British PhoneCard toll fraud: Will ----- Forwarded message # 1: > From: Brian Randell > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 87 16:12:23 gmt > To: RISKS@csl.sri.com > Subject: Phone Cards > > PHONE CARDS - THE PLOT THICKENS > > At PGN's implied request, I have tracked down, and talked to the Sunday > Post reporter who wrote the original story on the phone card fraud. These > notes of my telephone conversation with him are being sent to RISKS with his > explicit permission, though he asked that his name not be included. > > The Sunday Post was indeed asked by BT to publish a retraction, but > have refused to do, though they have published a letter from BT expressing > (BT's) full confidence in the phone card system. Based on previous > experiences - "we often get complaints at our stories" - the reporter > regards the fact that BT did not push for a retraction, but instead merely > settled for publication of their letter, as tantamount to an acceptance of > the truth of the original story. > > He claims to be still sure that the fraud is possible, and to have seen > it being worked, at several different phones, by the soldiers, in the > presence of several other witnesses. He does admit that he was himself later > unable to demonstrate the fraud successfully to some BT engineers who > travelled to Glasgow to meet him. He however has since talked to one of the > soldiers, who assures him that the fraud is still working, but will not > reveal to the reporter, leave alone BT, where he (the reporter) went wrong > in trying to duplicate the method of fraud. (The other soldier - who did not > want the original story published, because it would interfere with "free" > international calls - is now refusing to talk to the reporter.) Moreover the > reporter claims to have received a phone call from a BT engineer at Watford, > confirming the practicability of the fraud. > > Brian Randell - Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne > > ARPA : brian%cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk > UUCP : !ukc!cheviot!brian > JANET : brian@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot > ------------------------------ ----- End of forwarded messages ------------------------------ Date: 15-Jan-1987 2049 From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) Subject: New AT&T Countries dialable eff. 13 March Effective 13 March 1987 the following five countries will become dialable by AT&T: Faeroe Islands 298 Greenland 299 Malta 356 Micronesia 691 Marshall Islands 692 The Faeroe Islands used to be dialable via Denmark using 45+42+, but Denmark stopped accepting calls this way after assignment of the 298 country code to the Faeroes, like Greenland a self-governing region of the Danish realm. (n.b., both are already dialable from Canada.) There is speculation that Tonga (676), supposed to have become dialable last year but delayed, may also go in at this time. Translations for the local central offices around the country to accept the country code were never rescinded. /john ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 26-Jan-87 23:45:15-EST,15370;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Mon 26 Jan 87 23:45:13-EST Date: 26 Jan 87 21:52-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #3 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, January 26, 1987 9:52PM Volume 6, Issue 3 Today's Topics: Re: More Hold Circuit Re: LD access codes MCI's 800 950-1022 number 5 button Key-System wirings Submission for mod-telecom Re: Called by an answering machine! The 500 club various things Administravia - Welcome Jsol! Pending FCC ruling threat to modem users Line-powered off-hook indicator? pocket dialers Re: Called by an answering machine! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 13:50:44 EST From: wn9nbt@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Chasey) newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Hold circuit Summary: Expires: References: <8701210710.AA19514@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: Reply-To: wn9nbt@pur-ee.UUCP (Dave Chasey) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Purdue Engineering Computer Network, West Lafayette, IN Keywords: I bought a "Ma Bell" single line hold box at a Radio Shack close out 6 months or so ago for about $6.00, however it originally cost more. It plugs into a wall outlet and has a modular plug on it. To activate the hold circuit, you go on hook and off again twice in a row and it signals you with a beep that it activated. You can then hang up and it holds the line until any phone on that line goes off hook, or a timeout timer drops the line in the event you forget to pick up another extension. I don't recall the timer's length, or if it is adjustable, but the box seems to work quite well. The reason you have to go on and off hook twice is to keep it from interfering with call waiting /etc. It's really handy for running from one phone to another. I can try to dig up the model number and/or some specific information if anyone is interested. Dave Chasey pur-ee!wn9nbt wn9nbt@ee.ecn.purdue.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 15:24:17 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Re: More Hold Circuit The problem with the Rat Shack hold box is that you flash the line, then the box goes BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP to tell you the line is being put on hold. I find that unacceptably obnoxious and annoying when others do it to me. -Mike Grant ------------------------------ Subject: Re: LD access codes Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 13:43:09 -0800 From: Dave Suess (CSL) Keywords: 10-XXX codes requested In article <8701210709.AA19460@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> dnichols@seismo.CSS.GOV@tilde.UUCP (Dan Nichols) writes: >could someone repost a list of the 4 digit codes for the various >carriers? >Post or mail to me as appropriate. I was just about to ask, also: neither my local telco (GTE) nor my LD default (ATT) have seen fit to advise me on the codes (FIVE digits, by the way, counting the "1-0") for the carriers available. This, in spite of the availability of the service, yet! (I regularly use 222 and 777 for GTE/MCI or MCI/GTE -- don't know which, haven't kept a log, don't know which to use, other than 222 giving me generally quieter connections from here...) Dave Suess zeus@aero2.aero.org ------------------------------ Date: 24-Jan-1987 0949 From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) Subject: MCI's 800 950-1022 number >When I tried MCI's 800 number, it told me that their new number for calling >card calls is 800-950-1022. Does anybody know if this is a FG C number, like >a regular 950 number, or just a more mnemonic 800 number? If you recall the article in Telecom 5:156, MCI owns the 800-950 prefix, so they can assign anything they want in it. If any of the other OCCs want to use 800-950-xxxx they'll have to go to MCI. Hopefully MCI's agreement with Bellcore restricts what they can do with it, so that when the more advanced system comes out in a year or two, 800-950-xxxx can be routed to other carriers. For now, all calls to the following 800 prefixes are routed as equal access calls to MCI: 234, 283, 284, 288, 289, 274, 333, 365, 444, 456, 627, 666, 678, 727, 759, 777, 825, 876, 888, 937, 950, 955, and 999. See Telecom 5:156 for details. /john ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jan 87 13:47:34 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: 5 button Key-System wirings A 5 button Key-System is pretty easy to wire. The cable has 50 wires, or rather 25 pairs. Each pair has 2 colors, a primary color, and a secondary color. The primary colors are Blu, Orn, Grn, Brn, and Slt, (Slt is slate, or gray). The secondary colors are Whi, Red, Blk, Yel, and Vio. The first wire in a pair is a wire of a primary color with stripes of a secondary color. The second wire in a pair is a wire of the secondary color of the first wire, with stripes of the primary color. Ex. Blu-Wht and Wht-Blu is a pair. A blue wire with white stripes, and a white wire with blue stripes. Going down the long 50 pin connector, the first pair is on pins 1 and 26. (the Blu-Wht pair) The second is on pins 2 and 27, (the Orn-Wht pair), The third pair on pins 3 and 28, (the Grn-Wht pair). On the 6th pair, we go to the next secondary color and cycle the primarys again, so the 6th pair is on pins 6 and 31, (The Blu-Red pair). Not everything in key systems are done in pairs, but for the most part, pairs will do. Things also vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer. But, I have seen the Tip-Ring pairs pretty consistently in the same place. Each line takes up 3 pairs: The Ring-Tip pair The A-lead pair, (used for putting the line on hold) The Lamp pair, (Power for the lamp associated with each line) As one might expect: Line Pairs R-T A-Leads Lamp ---- ----- ------- ------- ------- 1 1-3 Blu-Wht Orn-Wht Grn-Wht 2 4-6 Brn-Wht Slt-Wht Blu-Red 3 7-9 Orn-Red Grn-Red Brn-Red 4 10-12 Slt-Red Blu-Blk Orn-Blk 5 13-15 Grn-Blk Brn-Blk Slt-Blk The ringing to the phone is usually provided on the 20th pair, (Slt-Yel pair). The entire system is essentially wired in parrallel, unless you have a system with different lines on different phones, or an intercom system which lets you dial an individual station, or other strangness. Hope this helps. -Mike Grant ------------------------------ From: Paul Beam Date: 24 Jan 87 23:15:49 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: watarts!natal1 From: natal1@watarts.UUCP (Paul Beam) Newsgroups: soft.people,soft.proposals,mod.telecom,comp.dcom.modems,comp.unix.questions Subject: UnixBBS Keywords: mutli-user conferencing, on-line discussions, mail Message-ID: <8936@watarts.UUCP> Date: 24 Jan 87 23:15:44 GMT Distribution: na Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 19 Hello! I am looking for any information regarding the UNIXBBS program. What is it, what can it do? Also, if you know of any other programs which allow multi-users conferencing, mail and on-line discussions in a user-friendly enviorment, please send a message to this account or send correspondance to: RAPPI-MOVE c/o Paul Beam English Dept University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Thanx, Chris Hudel & Paul Beam PS: if you know about UNIXBBS, where can it be obtained? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1987 23:44-EST From: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Subject: Re: Called by an answering machine! Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Called by an answering machine! Keywords: Distribution: References: <8701210632.AA18499@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: CMU Electrical Engineering Etc. That's even more amusing than the time I got a phone call from an autocalling machine, soliciting something-or-other. I wasn't home, so my answering machine took the call. I got home, saw the message waiting light, and got a nice recorded recorded message on my answering machine from their calling machine. I think the machines are having an affair behind my back. deej ------------------------------ Date: 20-Jan-1987 1348 From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) Subject: The 500 club The following NPAs belong to that unique club containing over 500 NXXs. The following data is as of 15 December 1986. Splits have already been announced for 305 (407), 303 (719), and 617 (508), all to take place in the first half of 1988. This table is an indicator of where else this may happen soon. 312 685 301 571 919 542 215 505 214 597 617 564 512 540 404 502 305 585 213 558 313 525 201 583 403 556 212 521 303 575 205 548 415 511 /john ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jan 87 09:35:03 EST From: *Hobbit* Subject: various things There have been an awful lot of queries about hold circuits and line-in-use indicators! The former has probably been hashed to death; the latter involves some subtleties which the reader should be aware of. DAK's little box with an LED in it probably doesn't do proper isolation between the line and the indicator circuit; the workaround to avoid AC hum is obviously the 9 volt battery and the plastic box. Using a wall transformer thus may lose slightly if there's enough AC noise coupled through the transformer from the AC line. *Any* piece of telephone equipment that electrically comes anywhere near ground or AC wiring needs good isolation or you get lots of hum. A simple line-in-use is (an LED in parallel with 100 ohms) in series with a given phone unit. This passes a nominal 15 mA or so through the LED, lighting it. For a system of more phones you could substitute the input side of an optoisolator for the LED and hang some more involved circuitry off that. The opto will provide the necessary ground isolation, so you can do whatever you want after it. Post office codes: I called my local distribution office to inquire if placing the bar code on my personal mail would speed it up any. Answer: no. All incoming mail is passed through the OCR anyway, and if the OCR can read the last line of the To: address [precluding presence of Attention lines and other things after the line containing the zipcode!], it ink-sprays the barcoded zipcode on the piece if there isn't one already. Bulk-sort stuff like business reply envelopes have those hash marks on the right side which form one of four or so recognition codes and tell the machine what kind of mail it's seeing. It can then optionally handle these pieces differently. Mail addressed with high-contrast typed print, or *very* neat handwriting in dark ink, has a good probability of being seen by the OCR. Those pieces that fail go to the human sorters; the post office is continually trying to make these sorters smarter and smarter and eliminate the maximum humans from the processing. The person I talked to is quite willing to let me come down and tour the facility; I think I'm going to accept. Equal access carrier dialing: Ship a copy of equal.access from site red.rutgers.edu. I can mail it if necessary. 50-pin multiline phone connector: Ship a copy of ktu.block from site red.rutgers.edu. I can mail it if necessary. _H* ------------------------------ Date: Sun 25 Jan 87 16:10:00-EST From: Eliot Moore Subject: Administravia - Welcome Jsol! Jon Solomon returns as Moderator with this issue. I have enjoyed the position and your comments, but take this opportunity to devote more time to another digest. Regards, Elmo ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1987 19:37 EST From: "David D. Story" Subject: Pending FCC ruling threat to modem users Where does Racal-Vadic stand with all this. Is the just for Voice over Data type setups. Auto-dialers made by them have been around since the early 70's. These are still mostly found on IBM Sites. Their (VADIC) modems were the first real competition to the Bell 212A Dataphone setup. Seems that this must be just chip or technique cloning suits inside the general parameter of auto-dialing technology. Perhaps they have patented something Vadic overlooked and are laying a base. If so you should inform Racal- Vadic. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jan 87 11:19:41 PST From: crash!pnet01!kevinb@nosc.ARPA (Kevin Belles) Subject: Line-powered off-hook indicator? Does anyone know of a preferably line-powered off-hook indicator circuit? I'd like to add this to my system to prevent people in my household from picking up my line when I'm on-line, or at least warning them with an LED indicator. Does anyone know of the circuit design for such a device, or where one might be found? -Kevin ------------------------------ Subject: pocket dialers Date: Mon, 26 Jan 87 16:20:04 -0800 From: kent@decwrl.DEC.COM I'm looking for recommendations on pocket dialers. Our phone system at work doesn't generate tones, so I end up making LD calls via my AT&T credit card, with applicable surcharges. (I'd normally use Sprint.) So ... it's time to get a pocket dialer. I've seen a number of them in the $35-$45 range; I'd like to find one cheaper. If I *have* to spend that much, I'd like to know that I'm getting the best I can. Do you have a favorite? If so, MAIL me a note and tell me about it. I'll summarize to the list after the responses dwindle. Thanks, chris ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jan 87 15:12 PST From: Steve / McDonnell Douglas ISG / ASD Subject: Re: Called by an answering machine! Dick: I too have had that experience, but between two answering machines! - I also suspect speed dialing. While playing back my messages, I heard a ring (maybe not much else ...) - and found later that a friend with the same brand (G.E.) answering machine had a weird message that we matched up to my own. BTW, her number is slot "4" on my speed dialing. And I'm not positive but that it hasn't happened in reverse - from her machine to me - I'm slot "2" on her speed dialing ... It could be even easier then recognizing the one digit and a pound sign - speed dialing will timeout (just the digit and a few seconds wait, no #), so all it needs really is the single digit, which can even be pulse dialed, and enough time to timeout and place the call! Geez, I'd LOVE to here how this actually does happen! -steve- ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 28-Jan-87 01:08:20-EST,11829;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Wed 28 Jan 87 01:08:18-EST Date: 27 Jan 87 23:50-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #4 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, January 27, 1987 11:50PM Volume 6, Issue 4 Today's Topics: mail-sorting several topics Re: Wiring diagram for 25-pair plugs Picture Phones looking for reference book on modems/phones Re: looking for reference book on modems/phones ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ulysses!smb@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Tue, 27 Jan 87 12:52:52 EST Subject: mail-sorting I saw some interesting technology on a letter from the Soviet Union. On the envelope (it may have been an aerogram; I don't recall) there were six templates for digits, with printed lines indicating where the penstrokes should go. On the back was a sample of how they wanted each digit to look when superimposed on that template. They're apparently called "index numbers", but my knowledge of Russian is sufficiently rusty that I couldn't translate the rest of the text about them. Judging from the addresses on the envelope, the index numbers are used both domestically and for overseas mail. Does anyone know anything more about this? ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Tue, 27 Jan 87 13:41:16 PST Subject: several topics MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 01/27/87 13:41:14 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: several topics To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU SPGDCM@UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU Re: Thanks Elmo For Moderating for awhile and welcome to Jsol. Re: Hold Circuits Thanks for all the contributions. They elucidate how one topic can relate to a large number of individual needs, e.g. how many phones, whether one uses conflicting devices such as call-waiting or demon-dialing so that signals overlap, preferences for switchhook-length changes or voice-over beeping etc. It becomes clear that one person's total solution can be impossible or unacceptable to another, and makes the diversity of a conference most welcome. For my purposes I will want to try the circuit suggested and modified by others in the last several telecom-digests; this is the circuit that one adds to each phone. This is my preference, because I don't want to use # or * (demon dialer conflict), switchhook delay (call-waiting conflict and personal difficulty emitting reliable extended delays), hear beeps (preference), or use relays (size, preference). I am nervous about experimenting with component values, but a recent entry gave some additional helpful value suggestions. Re: Line-in-use indicator A past issue of Telecom-Digest had a schematic for a line-powered line-in-use indicator, which would light up if any off-hook condition existed on the pair. I cannot readily locate it. About 1-1.5 years ago I believe. Question: if one does not have local hard-copy, what is the most efficient way to scan or index the past library of telecom-digests? Re: Evolving Telephone Products; Hold, Speakerphones I predict that store phones will more frequently begin to include Hold because as more homes have acquired multiple instruments, the need will become more apparent. As I mentioned earlier, watch out for false-hold, a local switch on a phone which cannot be reset at another location. Other evolving features: on-hook-dialing/listen-on-hold (call this "semi- speakerphone) and true two-way speakerphone. To be noted: at first I thought semi-speakerphone was all I wanted, because many true-speakerphones sound odd and who can tolerate it. HOWEVER: at UC Berkeley many offices including ours recently added Northern-Telecom DMS-100 P-phones, which come with the semi-speakerphone feature, and this proves to have the following limitations: sure you can see if the line is busy or answers, nice, but then you have to grab the phone quickly when anyone actually answers or they get confused. Similarly, it is a great relief to be able to listen on hold, since being put on hold, or worse, being put on music-hold-wait for extended periods when initially calling, is becoming commonplace (airlines and ticketron in particular). Saves the shoulder muscles etc. BUT one must maintain continual tension and surveillance and proximity, since at any moment after the heavy 10 minute wait, an operator comes on, quickly says hello-hello-hello and hangs up, resetting you to the end of the line on the next call. Perhaps the most offensive combination is being put on extended hold, so you put the phone back in on-hook-listening, but every two minutes or so an operator comes on the line and says "still waiting?" Unless you dash over and grab the headset and talk fast, you get hung up. You must do this over and over at unexpected times until the final connection comes thru. I'd rather get a sore shoulder than do this frequent mad dashing about. What is really needed is true speakerphone, simply so one can say from your nearby location, "YES STILLWAITING" or finally "HELLO, WAITAMINNIT, HERE I COME" and then pick up the real phone with adequate acoustics etc. Also one can use the speakerphone when initially calling, up to the point of reaching the real person. For these purposes, the lesser acoustics are acceptable. Note that as the telephone systems evolve, they create transition periods during which there is not enough public understanding to handle a feature well, followed by later understanding and integration. For example, the initial days of call-waiting and call-forwarding were very confusing, but now people understand when they hear the hiccup, or are told "I have to get the call-waiting", or they get a business secretary when they call your home and are forwarded. Similarly here, there are widespread extended-holds, but not the understanding of how to handle the proper response (on-hook-listening without the ability to easily say YESSTILLWAITING). Thanks, Doug a several topics ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 10:20:39 est From: Bennett E. Todd III Subject: Re: Wiring diagram for 25-pair plugs Reply-To: ecsvax.uucp!bet@mcnc.org (Bennett E. Todd III) I don't know about the actual pin layout of those connectors, but I have hooked up a modem to one. Graybar makes a box called a Supertap (undoubtedly there are others) that brings out the first 4 lines of a key system to modular jacks; to work in such a hookup the modem must support A-A1 signalling (short two additional pins, called A and A1, to assert the line -- this gets the dialtone and lights up the in-use lights on everybody elses phones). I know the standard Hayes Smartmodem 1200 external modem can be switched to assert A-A1; that's what I installed. If the lines are in a rotary (a set of lines all answering the same incoming number) it makes sense to try to hook up the modem to the *last* line in the rotary; it is the line most likely to be free. No matter how you hook the sucker in other people will be able to disrupt the modem conversation by picking up that line while it is in use; this is the nature of key systems. It is always much better to try to get a separate line. -Bennett -- Bennett Todd -- Duke Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706-7756; (919) 684-3695 UUCP: ...{decvax,seismo,philabs,ihnp4,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!duccpc!bet BITNET: DBTODD@TUCC.BITNET -or- DBTODD@TUCCVM.BITNET -or- bet@ECSVAX.BITNET terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, cipher, secret, decode, NSA, CIA, NRO. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jan 87 18:04:47 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Picture Phones I just talked with several people at AT&T and a company called Visual Communications. I have determined that PicturePhone's are still alive, and could be in the home in 10 years or less. What we're waiting for is all the local phone companies to make available to it's residential customers the ISDN, (the Integrated Service Digital Network), aparently called PSDS, (Public Switched Digital Service). What is required between 2 points is a 56 kbps link. There is already a service called Switched-56 offered by AT&T which is somewhat reasonably priced, (some monthly + usage which is suposedly about twice what voice long distance runs--affordable). The klintcher is the equipment--at $75,000 a phone, not to many people are willing to jump into the water today. There are aparently several manufacturers. I spoke with some people at Visual Communications who sell equipment manufactured by Widcom, which is what AT&T uses. The phones use full color NTSC video. They digitize it at something like 80 megabits/sec which they compress *real time* down to 1.5 megabits/sec. I'm told there is some loss of quality in compression. What I want to know is how to they sqeeze 1.5 mbps over a 56 kbps line? As of today, anyone can walk out and buy one of these suckers and call people. AT&T will set you up and give you a special phone number. I guess either they have their own NPA-NXX, or several, one or more in each city they offer the service in. Video Communications is going to be having a demo soon, which I am going to try and attend. Does anyone know anything more? -Mike Grant ------------------------------ Subject: looking for reference book on modems/phones Date: Tue, 27 Jan 87 20:09:07 EST From: narten@purdue.edu I would be most interested in finding a reference book describing modems, sorts of technologies used, how they work, over what types of lines/distances they are designed for, etc. I am also looking for a good reference on phone line/equipment. For instance, what are the types of leased lines, what are the technologies involved, how do they work, what is line conditioning, how does it effect the types of modems you can run over the line, etc. I would like something fairly techinical at the level of John McNamara's "Technical Aspects of Data Communication". His book is a good start, but doesn't cover modems and phone lines in enough detail (but then again, it is copyrighted 1977). Does anyone have a recommendation? Thanks, Thomas ------------------------------ Date: Tue 27 Jan 87 23:47:52-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: Re: looking for reference book on modems/phones It sounds like you want the TELECOM archives. That's about the best "book" on telephone equipment (amongst other things). The Archives are kept on XX.LCS.MIT.EDU, in the XX: directory. They are: TELECOM.RECENT Jan 1 1987 to present VOLUME-5.TXT 1986 VOLUME-4.TXT 1985 VOLUME-3.TXT 1984 VOLUME-2.TXT 1983 VOLUME-1.TXT 1982 and before. The dates are approximate. I remember one volume spans 1.5 years because I forgot to update the version number on the fiscal year boundary and ended up filling it in at the end of the calendar year. Someone else asked for the archives too. They are available by anonymous FTP from XX (use any password). Cheers, --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 28-Jan-87 23:28:50-EST,5763;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Wed 28 Jan 87 23:28:35-EST Date: 28 Jan 87 22:04-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #5 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, January 28, 1987 10:04PM Volume 6, Issue 5 Today's Topics: 6 digit USSR postal code Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #4 modems archive access/inversion project Picture Phones ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 87 0:49:58 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 6 digit USSR postal code To answer a question I just saw (and since when do we spin off into POSTAL stuff): I believe the USSR postal code is 6 digits, due to that country's large size. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jan 87 09:39:01 est From: Marvin Sirbu Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #4 I don't know about Widcom, but Pictel in Peabody, Mass sells a system which compresses a video signal down to 56 kbps. The quality is certainly not the same as broadcast video (neither is Widcom). To achieve the low bit rate, both systems use schemes which effectively limit the scanning resolution to less than 525 lines and limit the field rate to less than 30 times per second. The output can be displayed on an ordinary TV set, but the information transmitted is considerably less than what is transmitted in a broadcast video signal. The results are most noticeable when there is a great deal of movement on the screen (the effect of a lower field rate) or fine detail. Others with products along this line are Sony and KDD of Japan. Marvin Sirbu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jan 87 11:47:11 est From: ms6b#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) Subject: modems For a survey of the state of the art in modem theory and design see the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication for September 1984, "Special Issue on Voiceband Telephone Data Transmission" You might also look at Roger Freeman, "Telecommunication Transmission Handbook" (Wiley 1981). ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Wed, 28 Jan 87 12:35:32 PST Subject: archive access/inversion project MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 01/28/87 12:35:30 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: archive access/inversion project To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU If any subscriber has the software and the inclination to do this, it would help us all: ftp the telecom archives, perform a machine indexing or keyword-inversion, and make that available for ftp or remote searching. The "hard-way" would perform the inversion on the whole contents. The "easy-way" would simply invert and index the topic/subject/re lines. The latter would be very useful; the former might be nicer but is not fully required. The topic lines have been managed well over the history of telecom. And in some cases, readers could see quickly exactly where their topic had been discussed. The shorter inversion might also be made quite dense, so that it would be easy to ftp and use. An alternative, related project, would be to invert the contents of the archives to result in some number of files with consecutive, fairly exhaustive, discussions of specific topics. That would grab off perhaps 50-75% of the contents into major topic areas, but would still leave the richness of the miscellany somewhat inaccessible. Thanks, Doug { archive access/inversion project ------------------------------ Date: Wed 28 Jan 87 09:22:06-PST From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: Picture Phones Ref Michael Grant's submission on Picture Phones. It is my opinion that this service is 10 years away and will ALWAYS be 10 years away. TECHNOLOGY: All current narrow band (less than 6MHz) systems whether digital or analog provide MUCH less than NTSC quality full motion, full video. NTSC itself is not all that hot either. The Widcom system which send a color, semi-motion (fast movements blur badly) does work over 56 Kbps circuits wheter full time (DDS) or swiitched (Swictched 56). e entire bandwidth is dedicated to video, an additional connection is required for voice. Widcom has filed for Chapter 11 after being sued by Compression Labs (CLI) for patent infringment. AT&T is NOT marketing the product. CLI makes a 1.5 MHz video codec. ECONOMICS: Both DDS and Switched 56 are high dollar options. Switched 56 requires FULL TIME "tail" connections at both ends between the AT&T Class 4 switch and the customers location. ISDN will (some day) provide two 64Kbps channnels to the user but we are still talking reduced video unless some breakthrough in compression occurs or some laws of physics are revoked. CULTURE: Do you really want to see the folks you talk to?. Would you pay a premium to actually SEE the guy selling home insulation? I think it more likely that video-phones will remain a special application for conferences etc. Then again, Western Union thought that Bell was crazy. Who needs voice when the telegraph works so well? :-) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 29-Jan-87 19:31:26-EST,4553;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Thu 29 Jan 87 19:31:24-EST Date: 29 Jan 87 17:54-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #6 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, January 29, 1987 5:54PM Volume 6, Issue 6 Today's Topics: video telephones Submission for mod-telecom Submission for mod-telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Wed, 28 Jan 87 21:47:24 PST Subject: video telephones MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 01/28/87 21:47:23 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: video telephones To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Macy's here, and a catalog house like DAK or JS&A, both sell the same brand of a form of videophone for about $1000 I think. What it does is allow the sender to see yourself on a tiny screen. When you decide you want to "freeze" a picture, you push a button. Then if you like what you see you can push "send". The single small B&W frame is then sent over the voice line in several seconds, while voice is shut off (shame they didn't at least multiplex that). Uses regular, not even 64KB, phone lines. A gimmick perhaps. But it works on cheapo lines; it costs only a tiny fortune; it has the interesting effect of allowing you to decide whether to be seen and how and how often. It is being marketed in dept stores so there's a chance of compatibility with others (be smart and be the last, of course...) From one point of view it could be called a form of fax service. Such things could have some interest in such applications as: dating or dating services; certain types of model and ad agencies; perhaps certain design services; some types of commerce (e.g. car parts places could show pix of the part; many related applications like that) and of course some subset of phone-porn, escort-services, cooperative dirty callers, etc. If almost everyone else had these, and/or if there were some cheap sleazo 976 numbers to play with, I might buy one. So never-never and $70,000 and suchlike comments may be unnecessarily negative, wot? Thanks, Doug % video telephones ------------------------------ From: vu-vlsi!colin@seismo.CSS.GOV (Colin Kelley) Date: 29 Jan 87 03:57:10 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: vu-vlsi!colin From: colin@vu-vlsi.UUCP (Colin Kelley) Newsgroups: mod.telecom,comp.dcom.modems Subject: MOD-TAP address or phone number Message-ID: <601@vu-vlsi.UUCP> Date: 29 Jan 87 03:57:09 GMT Organization: Villanova Univ. EE Dept. Lines: 10 I'm looking to use modular phone plugs as serial port connectors on a project I'm working on. I'm going to need both male and female 4- and 6-conductor connectors (RJ-12 etc?), as well as male-to-DB25 connectors. I've used MOD-TAP connector before and found them to be very convenient. Can someone please help me contact MOD-TAP or a MOD-TAP distributor for a catalog? Recommendations of (cheaper) competition are very welcome also! Thanks! -Colin Kelley ..{cbmvax,pyrnj,psuvax1,bpa}!vu-vlsi!colin ------------------------------ From: uucp@beaver.cs.washington.edu (UNIX-to-UNIX Copy) Date: 29 Jan 87 18:35:51 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: uw-beaver!uw-june!randy From: randy@uw-june.UUCP (William Randy Day) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: RE: mail-sorting, Soviet mail Message-ID: <1912@uw-june.UUCP> Date: 29 Jan 87 17:57:13 GMT Organization: U of Washington, CSCI, Seattle Lines: 13 mod.telecom may not be the place, but... I too have noticed the templates on Soviet mail indicating how to draw numbers. The very first thing in a Soviet address is their equivalent of a zip code, and I suspect that the zip code is supposed to be drawn in the manner indicated. However, I noticed that my correspondent didn't bother. Randy Day. UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4}!uw-beaver!uw-june!randy ARPA: randy@larry.cs.washington.edu CSNET: randy%washington@relay.cs.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 1-Feb-87 00:48:58-EST,8986;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 31-Jan-87 22:23:06 Date: 31 Jan 87 22:23-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #7 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, January 31, 1987 10:23PM Volume 6, Issue 7 Today's Topics: Re: The 500 club Re: MCI's 800 950-1022 number Submission for mod-telecom Data Station Termination, short-haul modems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 87 11:41:22 EST From: think!johnl@ima.isc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: The 500 club Any idea why some NPAs get split faster than others? I notice that 312 and 214 are far fuller than, say, 617 but 617 is being split and 312 and 214 aren't. John --- John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jan 87 11:45:36 EST From: think!johnl@ima.isc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: MCI's 800 950-1022 number Reply-To: think!ima!johnl (John R. Levine) Speaking of MCI's 800 number, what kind of connection does MCI get for their 800 numbers. Is it as good as that for a 950 trunk? Can they tell what number you're calling from? What I really wonder is whether they still have any reason to charge more for making calls via 800-950-1022 rather than the local 950-1022. John Levine, johnl@ima.ISC.COM harvard!ima!johnl Levine@YALE.whatever --- John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him? ------------------------------ From: Scott Dorsey Date: 29 Jan 87 01:38:06 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: gitpyr!kludge From: kludge@gitpyr.gatech.EDU (Scott Dorsey) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: mail-sorting Message-ID: <2970@gitpyr.gatech.EDU> Date: 29 Jan 87 01:38:05 GMT References: <8701271752.AA08915@circe.homer.nj.att.com> Reply-To: kludge@gitpyr.UUCP (Scott Dorsey) Organization: Georgia College Of Universal Knowledge Lines: 22 In article <8701271752.AA08915@circe.homer.nj.att.com> smb@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU@ulysses.UUCP writes: >I saw some interesting technology on a letter from the Soviet Union. On >the envelope (it may have been an aerogram; I don't recall) there were >six templates for digits, with printed lines indicating where the penstrokes >should go. On the back was a sample of how they wanted each digit to look >when superimposed on that template. They're apparently called "index numbers", Yep.. I've seen them before. From what I have been told, there is a machine that makes a pass of the numbers with 3 CDS cells per digit, one on each side and one in the center. The pattern produced is used by a big machine with relays to determine what the number is, and what bin it should be placed in. Kind of like an old Burroughs card sorter with limited OCR. This is what I have gathered from the question I posed to Radio Kiev (who uses these numbers), and I would not vouch for the quality of this information at all, for this reason. But, it is an intersting technology. -- Scott Dorsey Kaptain_Kludge ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die), Rich 110, Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jan 87 15:36:44 EST From: spdcc!dyer@harvard.HARVARD.EDU Subject: Data Station Termination, short-haul modems I just had a 4-wire, full duplex leased line installed between my home and the university. There's an RJ-11 jack where the phone cord terminates and a powered box called a "Teltrend Data Station Termination" which plugs into the RJ-11 jack and provides a RJ-11 jack of its own. What does this box do and why is it necessary? In the past, I've connected leased-line modems to what looked like a simple 4-wire telco jack without any extra electronics. Also, since both ends use the same central office, I was planning to use a pair of short-haul modems to support a 19.2kb data rate (this has been successful with other installations in the past.) Could this box (or any other telco-related factor) influence this? Finally, I was going to purchase a pair of Gandalf LDS309A modems. They run about $400 a piece; can anyone suggest anything possibly cheaper which would work as well? Please reply by mail, since I'm not on the Telecom list. Thanks. --- Steve Dyer dyer@harvard.HARVARD.EDU dyer@spdcc.COM aka {linus,wanginst,bbnccv,harvard,ima,ihnp4}!spdcc!dyer ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 1987 19:33:10-EST From: rdsnyder@MIT-CCC Although I am getting tired of seeing requests for information about line in-use indicators and speakerphones, I wanted to say a few things since everyone has to make decisions about station equipment now. About line in-use lamps: I have a phone line connected to 5 stations. I have installed an "S" relay from an *ancient* KTU in series with one conductor of the line as it enters the premises. The "S" relay is designed to be connected in series with the line and sense an off-hook condition. It has a set of normally open contacts which I have wired in series with a Princess-style lighted dial transformer and Type 51A lamps in Type 15 lamp sockets. The lamps are wired in parallel and are located beside each station. I have used all telco-spec parts, but a 6V transformer and regular 6V bulbs in regular sockets could be used. A different relay could also be used. I recommend the Rubbish Shack 6V ~500ohm coil impedance model in the clear plastic case. Also, the contacts on the relay can be used for other things such as exclusion on modem lines (to disconnect the regular phones from the line when the modem is off-hook) or for the automatic control of a tape recorder on the line (it is activated by an off-hook condition. I used the Yel/Blk pair in the quad to light the lamps. This is a great no-maintenence system for those who are not too squeamish about working on their inside wiring, since it cannot simply be plugged into an RJ-11 and must be connected in series with the line before first station. I saw another circuit that is basically like DAK's "Drew's Brainstorm" which can be plugged into an RJ-11. It was published in Radio-Electronics in '80 or '81. It looked like a good circuit. About speakerphones: I have a normal full-duplex speakerphone which I use occasionally, but I use two other speakerphones which I use more often. The first is not really a speakerphone; instead, it is a Western Electric 30D Voice Coupler designed for primitive phone patch applications. It is used to provide a protected audio path between the phone line and random audio equipment (two-way radio, broadcast radio/TV, etc.). It consists of bridging capacitors, matching xfmrs, a low-pass pi network, and a fused connection to the audio equipment. With this, I have connected my stereo to the line in a way that does not present a DC load to the line (so it does not affect the on-hook/off-hook status of the line). Whenever I am put on hold, I simply flip a switch on the stereo and put down the phone handset. I will post a schmatic of a simplified voice coupler if there is demand. The other speakerphone is very handy, although it is not commercially available and would have to be homebrewed. It is connected to a photocell pointed at the ceiling lights in the room. If the lights are on (when the room is occupied) and the phone rings, the circuit automatically answers on the first ring and connects the full-duplex speakerphone. The occupant then says/shouts (depending on room size/mic sensitivity) "hello!" and usually picks up a regular phone and continues the conversation. If you want schmatics for any of the above or anything similar, send me mail and I'll see what I can do. I am very disturbed about one message I read. The person proposed to use modular telephone connectors for connecting RS-232 serial lines. I think this is a BAD IDEA. Modular plugs were developed to connect telephones and only telephones, and that is how they should be used lest some bozo should happen to plug an RS-232 cable into a telephone jack and fry the serial card with -48V when it wants +/-12V or, worse yet, cause damage to our wonderful Public Switched Telephone Network. -Ross (rdsnyder%ccc@eddie.mit.edu) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 2-Feb-87 22:16:33-EST,19159;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Mon 2 Feb 87 22:16:30-EST Date: 2 Feb 87 19:48-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #8 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, February 2, 1987 7:48PM Volume 6, Issue 8 Today's Topics: Submission for mod-telecom why some NPA's are splitting faster than others. Re:Net Use Research Eastern Massachusetts Mod-Tap Submission for mod-telecom Keyed RJ11's ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gary Wells Date: 30 Jan 87 22:56:14 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: percival!gary From: gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) Newsgroups: mod.telecom,comp.dcom.modems Subject: Volunteers with bad phone lines wanted Message-ID: <418@percival.UUCP> Date: 30 Jan 87 22:56:12 GMT Reply-To: gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) Distribution: usa Organization: Percy's UNIX, Portland, OR. Lines: 11 Per the January 19 edition of "MIS Week", the "The Network" column, page 4: "Modem maker Bizcomp is looking for the worst phone lines in America. It wants to test, in the harshest real-world conditions they can find, a new line of 2400bps modems, which, they hope to claim, can handle bad connections better than the competition. Sites chosen for testing may get a free modem. If your phone lines are really bad, find a better one and call (408) 733-7800." Surely someone(s) on the net should be able to qualify. . ------------------------------ Date: Sat 31 Jan 87 22:19:13-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: why some NPA's are splitting faster than others. One reason is that in the new 508 area, all long distance calls require 1+. In the remaining 617 area code, most of the calls are local. Also, the 508 code still has alot of Step and Crossbar equipment, and the 617 area code is likely to be all-electronic (or at least mostly so) by that time. The introduction of N1X and N0X prefixes is easier in the 617 area code, and probably won't be needed in the 508 code. That's my 2c. ------------------------------ From: ncdelori@NDSUVAX.BITNET Date: Sun, 1 Feb 87 00:08:46 CST From: b. e. deloria Subject: Re:Net Use Research Reply-To: ndsuvax!ncdelori (b. e. deloria) I am presently involved in researching and organizing a paper concerning the advantages and disadvantages of connecting a companie's E-mail system to a large, indeed international, network such as Usenet. I thought it might be appropriate to use the net to solicit opinions and, more importantly, request any CONCRETE factual information the actual participants might have available. I'm interested in how the organization (i.e. your company) has found it's making the connection available at each work station a benefit and/or detriment. Are professional conferences aided? Do extra-curicular dept.s (e.g. net.rec.bochie-ball) 'steal' your employee's/fellow's valuable time? ...where does your company find the payoff? I hope to get some fairly objective input, though I realize I may be primarily addressing the 'pro' group. In any case, I'll be glad for any and all replies. Please write me through E-mail to my account at North Dakota State University. Thank you, Bruce E. DeLoria At N.D.S.U. my account is: ndsuvax!ncdelori "The locomotive pushes on toward the point at which the tracks converge." ------------------------------ Subject: Eastern Massachusetts Date: 01 Feb 87 16:44:28 PST (Sun) From: ( San-Franciscan (Bostonian actually) for Responsible Anarchy ) I recently had the opportunity to discover a missive which must have been sent by NETelCo in the mid 60's. (It shows 487 and 597. Towsend (now 597) was served by a manual exchange at least until 1963; Provincetown (now 487) lost its manual exchange in 1965.) I have joined its contents with the table of office code vs location from a current (1986) directory. I offer no explanation for the anomalies. -------- Eastern Massachusetts These numbers are used on bills and Statements of Calls and Telegrams. The central office name represented by a number is shown beside it. -------- * No Central Office Name - Does not appear in 1986 directory. -------- Office Location Central code (1986) Office ---- --------- ------- 222 Attleboro CAstle 223 Boston CApitol 224 Manomet CAnal 225 Cambridge 226 Attleboro * 227 Boston CApitol 228 Nantucket * 229 Burlington 231 Saugus 232 Brookline BEacon 233 Saugus CEnter 234 Whitinsville CEdar 235 Wellesley CEdar 236 Boston 237 Wellesley CEdar 238 Easton CEdar 239 Wellesley 240 Orleans 241 Charlestown CHarlestown 242 Charlestown CHarlestown 243 Newton 244 Newton BIgelow 245 Wakefield * 246 Wakefield 247 Boston CIrcle 248 Charlton * 249 Athol CHurchill 250 Chelmsford 251 N. Chelmsford ALpine 252 Rehoboth BLackburn 253 Cambridge 254 Brighton ALgonquin 255 Orleans * 256 Chelmsford ALpine 257 Siasconset * 258 Cambridge 259 Lincoln CLearwater 262 Boston COngress 263 Acton COlonial 264 Acton ANdrew 265 Dorchester COlumbia 266 Boston COmmonwealth 267 Boston COpley 268 S. Boston ANdrew 269 S. Boston ANdrew 270 Burlington 271 Bedford 272 Burlington BRowning 273 Burlington BRowning 274 Bedford CRestview 275 Bedford 276 Bedford 277 Brookline ASpinwall 278 Uxbridge CRestview 279 Stoneham 281 Gloucester 282 Dorchester AVenue 283 Gloucester * 284 Revere ATlantic 285 Norton ATlas 286 Revere 287 Dorchester 288 Dorchester AVenue 289 Revere ATlantic 291 Wareham 292 Boston 293 Bryanville CYpress 294 Bryanville 295 Wareham CYpress 296 Mattapan CYpress 297 Winchendon * 298 Mattapan CYpress 299 Naushon Is. * 321 Malden DAvenport 322 Malden DAvenport 323 W. Roxbury FAirview 324 Malden DAvenport 325 W. Roxbury FAirview 326 Dedham DAvis 327 W. Roxbury FAirview 328 Quincy 329 Dedham DAvis 331 Weymouth 332 Newton DEcatur 333 Milton EDison 334 Lynnfield EDgewood 335 Weymouth EDgewater 336 Seekonk EDison 337 Weymouth EDgewater 338 Boston DEvonshire 339 Mansfield EDgewood 341 Stoughton 342 Fitchburg DIamond 343 Fitchburg DIamond 344 Stoughton FIeldbrook 345 Fitchburg DIamond 346 Merrimack FIreside 347 Sturbridge * 349 Wellfleet FIeldbrook 350 Boston 351 Northboro 352 Georgetown FLeetwood 353 Boston 354 Cambridge ELiot 355 Barre FLanders 356 Ipswitch ELmwood 357 Boston 358 Wayland ELmwood 359 Medfield FLeetwood 361 Hyde Park EMpire 362 Barnstable FOrest 363 W. Newbury FOrest 364 Hyde Park EMpire 365 Clinton EMpire 366 Westboro FOrest 367 Boston 368 Clinton 369 Concord EMerson 371 Concord 372 Haverhill DRake 373 Haverhill DRake 374 Haverhill DRake 375 - DRake 376 Millis FRontier 378 E. Bridgewater DRake 379 N. Swansea FRontier 381 Everett 383 Cohasset EVergreen 384 Wrentham EVergreen 385 Dennis EVergreen 386 Ashby DUpont 387 Everett DUnkirk 388 Amesbury * 389 Everett DUnkirk 391 Medford 392 Dedham 393 Northboro EXeter 394 Dennis 395 Medford EXport 396 Medford EXport 397 Malden 398 Dennis EXeter 399 S. Attleboro 421 Boston HAncock 422 Sterling GArfield 423 Boston 424 Boston 425 Shirley HArrison 426 Boston HAncock 427 Roxbury GArrison 428 Osterville GArden 429 Holliston GArden 430 Harwich 431 Wellesley 432 Harwich * 433 Pepperell HEmlock 434 Boston 435 Hopkinton IDlewild 436 Dorchester GEneva 437 Boston 438 Stoneham * 439 Boston 441 Lowell 442 Roxbury HIghlands 443 Sudbury HIlltop 444 Needham HIllcrest 445 Roxbury HIghlands 446 Wellesley 447 Whitman GIbson 448 Groton GIlbert 449 Needham HIllcrest 451 Boston 452 Lowell GLenview 453 Lowell GLenview 454 Lowell GLenview 455 - GLenview 456 Harvard GLadstone 457 - GLenview 458 Lowell GLenview 459 Lowell GLenview 460 Marlboro 461 Dedham 462 Newburyport HOmestead 463 S. Boston 464 Princeton HObart 465 Newburyport HOmestead 466 Waltham 467 Marlboro 468 Hamilton HOward 469 Brookline HOmestead 470 Andover 471 Quincy GRanite 472 Quincy GRanite 473 Milford GReenleaf 475 Andover GReenleaf 476 E. Douglas GReenwood 477 Mashpee * 478 Milford 479 Quincy GRanite 480 Marlboro 481 Marlboro 482 Boston HUbbard 483 W. Medford HUnter 484 Belmont IVanhoe 485 Marlboro HUntley 486 Littleton HUnter 487 Provincetown * 488 W. Medford HUnter 489 Belmont IVanhoe 491 Cambridge * 492 Cambridge 493 Maynard 494 Cambridge 495 Cambridge 496 Maynard 497 Cambridge 498 Cambridge 499 Cambridge 522 Jam. Plain JAmaica 523 Boston LAfayette 524 Jam. Plain JAmaica 525 Manchester LAkeside 526 Manchester JAckson 527 Newton LAsell 528 Franklin * 529 Upton LAkeside 531 Peabody JEfferson 532 Peabody JEfferson 533 Medway KEystone 534 Leominster KEystone 535 Peabody 536 Boston KEnmore 537 Leominster KEystone 539 Winthrop 540 Falmouth 541 Roxbury 542 Boston LIberty 543 Foxboro KIngswood 544 Orange KIngsdale 545 Scituate LInden 546 Rockport KIngswood 547 Cambridge KIrkland 548 Falmouth KImball 549 Foxboro 551 Norwood 552 Newton 559 Brockton 561 E. Boston 562 Hudson JOrdan 563 Cataumet LOcust 564 Cataumet 566 Brookline LOngwood 567 E. Boston LOgan 568 Hudson 569 E. Boston LOgan 570 Boston 571 Boston 572 Boston 574 Boston 575 Athol 576 Cambridge 577 Cambridge 578 Boston 579 Boston 580 Brockton 581 Nahant JUno 582 Lunenburg JUno 583 Brockton JUniper 584 Brockton 585 Kingston JUstice 586 Brockton JUniper 587 Brockton JUniper 588 Brockton JUniper 589 Boston 592 Lynn LYnn 593 Lynn LYnn 594 Lynn 595 Lynn LYnn 596 Lynn 597 Townsend * 598 Lynn LYnn 599 Lynn LYnn 620 Framingham 623 Somerville 625 Somerville * 626 Framingham 627 Edgartown * 628 Somerville 629 Somerville 630 Gardner 631 Marblehead NEptune 632 Gardner * 633 Waltham 636 Westport MErcury 637 Boston MEridian 638 Boston 639 Marblehead 641 Arlington 642 Waltham 643 Arlington MIssion 644 Assonet MItchell 645 Chilmark MIssion 646 Arlington MIssion 647 Waltham 648 Arlington MIssion 649 Tyngsboro NIagara 651 Natick 653 Natick OLympic 654 Boston 655 Natick OLympic 656 Lowell 657 Wilmington 658 Wilmington OLiver 659 Norwell OLdfield 661 Cambridge 662 Melrose NOrmandy 663 Billerica MOntrose 664 N. Reading No. Reading 665 Melrose NOrmandy 666 Somerville MOnument 667 Billerica * 668 Walpole MOntrose 669 Dighton NOrmandy 671 Billerica 672 Fall River OSborne 673 Fall River OSborne 674 Fall River OSborne 675 Fall River OSborne 676 Fall River OSborne 677 - OSborne 678 Fall River OSborne 679 Fall River OSborne 681 Lawrence 682 Lawrence MUrdock 683 Lawrence MUrdock 684 Waltham 685 Lawrence MUrdock 686 Lawrence MUrdock 687 Lawrence MUrdock 688 Lawrence MUrdock 689 Lawrence MUrdock 691 Lawrence 692 Westford MYrtle 693 Vineyard Haven * 695 N. Attleboro MYrtle 696 Milton OXford 697 Bridgewater OWen 698 Milton OXford 699 N. Attleboro MYrtle 720 Boston 721 Winchester 722 Boston 723 Boston 724 Petersham RAymond 725 Boston 726 Boston 727 Boston PAlace 729 Winchester PArkview 731 Brookline 732 Brookline 734 Brookline REgent 735 Brookline 737 Boston 738 Brookline 739 Brookline 740 Hingham 741 Salem 742 Boston RIchmond 743 Boston * 744 Salem PIoneer 745 Salem PIoneer 746 Plymouth PIlgrim 747 Plymouth RIchmond 748 Marion * 749 Hingham RIverview 750 Worcester 752 Worcester PLeasant 753 Worcester PLeasant 754 Worcester PLeasant 755 Worcester PLeasant 756 Worcester PLeasant 757 Worcester PLeasant 758 Mattapoisett SKyline 759 Buzzards Bay PLaza 761 S. Attleboro SOuthgate 762 Norwood * 763 Rochester ROckwell 764 Southbridge * 765 Southbridge * 766 - SOmerset 767 Holbrook 768 Essex ROger 769 Norwood * 770 Quincy 771 Hyannis 772 Ayer SPruce 773 Quincy PResident 774 Danvers SPring 775 Hyannis SPring 776 Somerville PRospect 777 Danvers 778 Hyannis 779 Bolton SPring 781 Boston 782 Brighton STadium 783 Brighton 784 Sharon SUnset 785 Dover STate 786 Quincy 787 Brighton 788 N. Framingham 789 Brighton 791 Worcester SWift 792 Worcester 793 Worcester 794 Lawrence 795 Worcester 796 Fort Devens PYramid 797 Worcester 798 Worcester SWift 799 Worcester SWift 821 Canton 822 Taunton VAndyke 823 Taunton VAndyke 824 Taunton VAndyke 825 Dorchester VAndyke 825 Dorchester TAlbot 826 Hanover TAylor 827 Ashburnham TAlbot 828 Canton * 829 Holden VAlley 832 Auburn TErrace 834 Marshfield TEmple 835 W. Boylston TEmple 837 Marshfield 838 Berlin TErminal 839 Grafton VErnon 841 Shrewsbury 842 Shrewsbury VIking 843 Braintree VIctor 844 - VIking 845 Shrewsbury VIking 846 Winthrop VIking 847 Quincy 848 Braintree VIctor 849 Braintree 851 Tewksbury ULysses 852 Worcester 853 Worcester 855 Belmont 856 Worcester 858 Tewksbury 860 Lexington 861 Lexington 862 Lexington VOlunteer 863 Lexington 864 Cambridge UNiversity 865 Millbury UNion 866 Carver UNion 867 N. Brookfield VOlunteer 868 Cambridge UNiversity 869 Boylston UNderhill 870 Westboro 871 Rockland 872 Framingham TRinity 873 Cambridge TRinity 874 Westminster TRemont 875 Framingham TRinity 876 Cambridge TRowbridge 877 Framingham 878 Rockland TRiangle 879 Framingham TRinity 880 Taunton 881 Ashland 882 Oakham * 883 Blackstone TUcker 884 Chelsea TUrner 885 Spencer TUxedo 886 Rutland TUrner 887 Topsfield TUcker 888 Sagamore 889 Chelsea TUrner 890 Waltham 891 Waltham 892 Leicester TWinoaks 893 Waltham TWinbrook 894 Waltham TWinbrook 895 Waltham TWinoaks 896 Brewster TWinoaks 897 Maynard TWinoaks 899 Waltham TWinbrook 921 Beverly 922 Beverly WAlker 923 Watertown WAtertown 924 Watertown WAtertown 925 Hull WArwick 926 Watertown WAlnut 927 Beverly WAlker 928 Hubbardston * 929 Dorchester 931 Boston 932 Woburn 933 Woburn WElls 934 Duxbury WEllington 935 Woburn WElls 936 Boston WEather 937 Lowell 938 Woburn 939 Templeton * 942 Reading 943 Webster * 944 Reading * 945 Chatham * 946 Middleboro 947 Middleboro * 948 Rowley WHitney 949 Webster 955 Boston 956 Boston 957 Dracut 961 Randolph 963 Randolph WOodlawn 964 Newton 965 Newton 966 Bellingham 967 Lowell 968 Cataumet 969 Newton WOodward 972 Watertown 973 Boston 986 Randolph 987 Oxford * 990 New Bedford 991 New Bedford 992 New Bedford WYman 993 New Bedford WYman 994 New Bedford WYman 995 New Bedford WYman 996 New Bedford WYman 997 New Bedford WYman 998 New Bedford WYman 999 New Bedford WYman ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Feb 87 23:24:15 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Mod-Tap It is unfortunate I suppose that Mod-Tap Inc. decided to use RJ-11 connectors to run RS-232. They have been selling there cabeling stuff for quite a while now, and it it quite popular. I suppose now the next thing we'll see is terminal manufacturers putting rj-11's on the back of there terminals for RS-232, and when you accidently plug a phone line into it--Blamo!--a $200.00 repair! -Mike ------------------------------ From: john@starfish.Convergent.COM (John McLean) Date: 2 Feb 87 04:37:10 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: starfish!john From: john@starfish.UUCP (John McLean) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: (none) Summary: Using RJ-11 connectors for RS-232 lines. Message-ID: <248@starfish.UUCP> Date: 2 Feb 87 04:37:10 GMT References: <8702010550.AA07252@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Convergent Technologies, San Jose, CA Lines: 38 In article <8702010550.AA07252@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, rdsnyder@MIT-CCC.UUCP writes: > > I am very disturbed about one message I read. The person proposed to > use modular telephone connectors for connecting RS-232 serial lines. > I think this is a BAD IDEA. Modular plugs were developed to connect > telephones and only telephones, and that is how they should be used lest > some bozo should happen to plug an RS-232 cable into a telephone jack > and fry the serial card with -48V when it wants +/-12V or, worse yet, > cause damage to our wonderful Public Switched Telephone Network. > > -Ross (rdsnyder%ccc@eddie.mit.edu) Our MIS department has several RS-232 patch panels using RJ-11 connectors. We decided to use RJ-11 connectors since we needed to patch 50 lines and wanted to keep size/cost down. So far, there have been no problems. We are very satisfied with the performance. The panel really *is* easy to use. The patch "cables" used in this panel consist of RJ-ll connectors crimped on to standard 4-conductor flat lead telephone cable. Our entire setup has a very neat and compact appearance. If we'd decided to use conventional DB-25 (or even DB-15 or DB-9) connectors and cables in the patch panel, we would have ended up with a much larger and more cumbersome arrangement. In our "controlled" environment, we have never had a problem with anyone mixing the panel and anything related to the telephone network. But I wouldn't wager money that we wouldn't have a problem with the average user getting the two mixed up! Joe Average User just isn't allowed near the panel! John McLean Convergent Technologies ------------------------------ Date: 2 Feb 87 14:58 EDT From: (Stephen Tihor) Subject: Keyed RJ11's While keyed RJ-11's for different services sound like a good idea I don;t think Ma cares much. NYU is installing a new phone system and AT&T won the contract. they are supplying mostly POTS but some Voice over data and some digital voice/ data lines from offices to a 85 pbx. The telecomunications office here just sent around a scare bulliten about not plugging "Radio Shack" phones into the wall sockets since they wont work and can damage the system. I looked at our modems, answering machines, AT&T computers, et al and called their Hot-Line. There the person explained that they were just worried about people stealing the fancy multibutton phone sets the rich departpments ordered for their secretaries and administrators, "to take home since they are so pretty". There is no problem with the POTS lines into th e PBX but the other lines "could damage a normal instrument". Why aren't they keyed? AT&T wired the building to their own standards. I guess us customers aren't supposed to plug in stuff anyway so.... ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 8-Feb-87 01:29:50-EST,17096;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sun 8 Feb 87 01:29:48-EST Date: 7 Feb 87 23:28-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #9 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, February 7, 1987 11:28PM Volume 6, Issue 9 Today's Topics: Submission for mod-telecom Books and information More on British Phone fraud 2400 baud modems Re: Using RJ-11 connectors for RS-232 lines. Re: ld carrier access codes modular jacks for RS232 DC Metro Area gets 1+ Re: MCI's 800 950-1022 number First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Henry Schaffer Date: 3 Feb 87 03:19:33 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: ecsvax!hes From: hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: boc info on aldc's (not a secret in NC) Message-ID: <2633@ecsvax.UUCP> Date: 3 Feb 87 03:19:32 GMT Organization: NC State Univ. Lines: 7 Southern Bell (a Bellsouth co.) put an article on its bill insert newsletter, "Choices in long distance dialing" which explains how to use your preferred ldc, and how to use the "five-digit code" (10xxx) to access others. They don't include any access codes, but suggest you call these other long distance companies. --henry schaffer n c state univ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 87 08:19:29 est From: thinder@nswc-wo.ARPA Subject: Books and information This is an open message to those who are part of this interest group. I work at a Navy Research Lab (Naval Surface Weapons Center) where I am an electronic tech in the Telecommunications group of the Computer Branch. My job is to manage and maintain our local area network, which currently has over 1500 seperate connections- naturally I don't do this all by myself. On the "telephone" side of our network, we have a single T1 circuit that links us to our "headquarters" at Dahlgren Va., currently this circuit is used for data only, with furture plans to add voice and video. We also have close to 200 dial-in and dial-out lines along with an assortment of leased circuits. I am not by training, yet anyway, a "telecommunications technician", and especially in the "telephone world" it has been difficult to collect the right information in order to make a good decesion. Let me give you an example. We recently moved a group "off-base" and have had, and are still having, great difficultly in giving them connection to our network. The first step was to order up a telco line from our site to the off base location. Then we chose a pair of modems, Gandalf LDM309's, that we had from stock. Well, these modems only operate on "clear copper" lines, and the telco line we had was a 3002 type. We "learned" this all after the fact. The phone company was no help, I guess because we had not bought their modems. The modem company couldn't help, they didn't know what type of line we had ordered up. All of this points up our, or rather my lack of knowledge of "the phones". No longer can the phone system be some sort of "data cloud" where you just "connect and go". What I am asking the group to help with is suggestions for books that I should order. Thanks in advance Thomas Hinders ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ US mail: Naval Surface Weapons Center Code K34 10901 New Hampshire Ave. Silver Spring MD 20903-5000 Phone: (301) 394-4225 Autovon: 290-4225 ARPA: thinder@nswc-wo.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 87 15:22:16 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: More on British Phone fraud Just as a brief followup to the recent discussions of British PhoneCard toll fraud, I heard a news item on a BBC World Service "News about Britain" program a couple days ago that a number of the staff at British Telecom have been charged with complicity in a toll-fraud scheme. This was only a sentence or two, giving no detail, but the fraud seemed to be plain human criminality, with no computerized aspects. Included amongst those charged were some operators; it appeared that the fraud was simple actions like not reporting for billing calls the operators handled. Perhaps someone on the list(s) with access to British media can post more details. Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 87 14:56:15 est From: Stephen Gildea Subject: 2400 baud modems We are about to purchase a new modem and would like to get one that can do 2400 baud. Of course, it also has to do 1200 and 300 and auto dial. Any recommendations or comments? Please reply to me directly; I'm not on the list anymore. Thanks. < Stephen ------------------------------ Date: 3 Feb 87 09:57:03 PDT From: Ian Merritt Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: The 500 club References: <8701201935.AA04328@decwrl.dec.com> <8701291641.AA09316@ima.ISC.COM> Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt) Organization: The Frobboz Magic Telecom Co., Inc. >Any idea why some NPAs get split faster than others? I notice that 312 >and 214 are far fuller than, say, 617 but 617 is being split and 312 and >214 aren't. > >John >--- >John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400 >{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something >Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him? Projected growth. The 213/818 split, for example was planned nearly 10 years in advance of its actual inception due to massive projected growth. They split 714/619 first though (and on much shorter notice), since the growth of Orange County far exceeded earlier projections, and was projected to continue at that rate. <>IHM<> ------ uucp: ihnp4!nrcvax!ihm ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Using RJ-11 connectors for RS-232 lines. Reply-To: mtune!jhc@harvard.HARVARD.EDU (Jonathan Clark) Date: 4 Feb 87 23:12:24 EST (Wed) From: jhc@mtune.ATT.COM >In article <8702010550.AA07252@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, rdsnyder@MIT-CCC.UUCP writes: > The person proposed to use modular telephone connectors for connecting > RS-232 serial lines. and that is how they should be used lest some bozo > should happen to plug an RS-232 cable into a telephone jack It is for this exact reason that AT&T's Premises Distribution System utilises a resistor-capacitor pair, inside the little module which also converts from a 4-pair modular jack to a DB-25. They call this beast a 'Terminal Protector'! That way if a terminal gets plugged in to an analog line which is ringing, the cheap little module gets fried and not the expensive terminal. Mind you, the terminal protectors aren't exactly cheap... Modular connectors do have significant advantages over conventional RS-232 DB-25 connectors, especially the brain-damaged ones on the IBM PC and clones. -- Jonathan Clark [NAC,attmail]!mtune!jhc My walk has become rather more silly lately. --- Jonathan Clark [NAC,attmail]!mtune!jhc My walk has become rather more silly lately. ------------------------------ From: ihnp4!tropix!ritcv!moscom!de@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 19:29:54 EST Subject: Re: ld carrier access codes Reply-To: ritcv!moscom!de@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Dave Esan) In article <8701210709.AA19460@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> dnichols@seismo.CSS.GOV@tilde.UUCP (Dan Nichols) writes: >Could someone explain if this is true and how it works? Also, >could someone repost a list of the 4 digit codes for the various >carriers? 1. They are 10XXX codes, three or five digits, depending on how you count, but certainly not four. If you dial 10XXX you will get the appropriate IXC regardless of your primary carrier. 2. Below is a partial list of carriers and codes: Name Description Access Code ANW AM Network 053 RCI RCI 211 WUN Western Union 220 MCI MCI 222 TDX TDX 223 ACC ACC 234 TAC Taconic Telephone 245 ATT ATT 288 ASH American Sharecom 322 EOC Electronic Office Center 362 CLK Comm-Link 421 ALN Allnet 444 ARG Argo Communication 456 ITT ITT 488 LDX LDX 539 TLP TeleSphere 555 SPR Sprint 777 TLM TEL MAN 826 BTI Business Telecom 833 TLC TeleConnect 835 TSI Telecom Systems 852 STN Starnet 999 -- rochester \ David Esan | moscom ! de ritcv/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 23:29:46 pst From: pyramid!utzoo!henry@hplabs.HP.COM Subject: modular jacks for RS232 > I am very disturbed about one message I read. The person proposed to > use modular telephone connectors for connecting RS-232 serial lines. > I think this is a BAD IDEA. Modular plugs were developed to connect > telephones and only telephones, and that is how they should be used lest > some bozo should happen to plug an RS-232 cable into a telephone jack > and fry the serial card with -48V when it wants +/-12V or, worse yet, > cause damage to our wonderful Public Switched Telephone Network. As various people have pointed out, modular plugs and jacks are already extensively used for RS232 connections. (Incidentally, one of the more notable outfits using them this way is AT&T -- I believe that all or most of the 3B line use modular jacks on their serial interfaces.) It should not be forgotten that this sort of problem is already everywhere. One can make a good case that it was a bad idea to start using the "D" connectors for anything that isn't RS232-compatible, but that battle is long lost. Microcomputer parallel ports commonly use 25-pin D connectors nowadays. The POWER feed from the Sun-3/180 serial mux to its distribution panel uses a nine-pin D connector, just like the ones used for serial lines on a number of computers now. It is rumored that the connector for the IBM PC token-ring network is identical to the one for the IBM PC video output. And so on. The moral of the story is that you have to stop and think before plugging a plug into a jack, regardless. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 06-Feb-1987 1158 From: decwrl!covert.dec.com!covert@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John R. Covert) Subject: DC Metro Area gets 1+ Notice arrived in the mail today: All areas of 301, 202, and 703 not previously needing 1 when dialing an area code will have to, effective 1-November. Local calls, even cross area code, will continue to be dialed with just seven digits. /john ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 87 12:58:41 est From: jeff@necntc.NEC.COM (Jeff Janock) Subject: Re: MCI's 800 950-1022 number Reply-To: jeff%necntc.NEC.COM@harvard.HARVARD.EDU (Jeff Janock) In article <8701291645.AA09377@ima.ISC.COM> think!ima!johnl (John R. Levine) writes: >Speaking of MCI's 800 number, what kind of connection does MCI get for their >800 numbers. Is it as good as that for a 950 trunk? Can they tell what >number you're calling from? What I really wonder is whether they still have >any reason to charge more for making calls via 800-950-1022 rather than >the local 950-1022. > >John Levine, johnl@ima.ISC.COM harvard!ima!johnl Levine@YALE.whatever >--- >John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400 >{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something >Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him? Perhaps someone knows.... After reading the above, I tried to use the 950-1022 number and all was good. I received the proper tone from MCI and off I went. It was nice to be able to fit the entire string into the hayes buffer, instead of using the ; and then entering the authorization code; All of a sudden this has stopped working. 950-1022 procedes and series of short busys and then goes away... Am I now stuck again using the 800-950-1022? As far as quality, the 950-1022 has excellent quality. not a { to be found, but I cannot say the same for the 800-950-1022? In answer to one of John's questions: The originating number always show up on the bills no matter which way MCI is accessed... I look forward to seeing some responce to John's other questions. Cheers, -- Jeff Janock, NEC Electronics Inc., One Natick Executive Park Natick, Massachusetts 01760, +1 617 655 8833 ------------------------------ Date: 06-Feb-1987 1803 From: decwrl!covert.dec.com!covert@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John R. Covert) Subject: First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel [Translation of Telebox posting; original attached -- /john] On 20 November 1986 the first international fiber-optic undersea cable between Broadstairs and Ostende was officially dedicated. "UK-Belgium No. 5" was laid the beginning of May and connects the British island and the European mainland via the classic stretch of the English Channel. The communications capacity of the 122 km (74 mile) connection is about three times as large as for previous undersea cables using copper coax technology: On three fiber-optic pairs a capacity is available for use in voice, telex, and data communications approximately equivalent to 12,000 telephone channels. The system is also designed to carry video conferences and television images. The full cost of the undersea cable installation, about $20 Million, is being carried 50% by British Telecom, 21% by the German Post Office, and just under 15% each by the communications agencies of Belgium and the Netherlands. For protection against mechanical damage the cable was buried in the ocean floor with a gigantic "Cable Plow" for most of the stretch. There are three repeaters built into the cable for amplification of the light impulses. "UK - Belgium No. 5" is both precursor and extension for the fiber-optic undersea cable installation TAT-8, planned for 1988, which will connect Europe and North America with each other. Betreff: Erstes Glasfaser-Seekabel durch den Drmelkanal. Von: TBY002 Ausgehdngt: Die 3-Feb-87 12:59 Sys 15 Offiziel eingeweiht wurde am 29.10.1986 zwischen Broadstairs und Ostende die erste internationale Glasfaser-Seekabelanlage. "UK - Belgien Nr.5" wurde Anfang Mai verlegt und verbindet die britische Insel und das europdische Festland auf der klassischen Strecke durch den Drmelkanal. Die \bertragungskapazitdt der 122 Kilometer langen Verbindung ist etwa dreimal so gro_ wie bei den grv_ten bisherigen Seekabeln in Kupferkoaxialtechnik: auf drei Glasfaserpaaren steht f|r die Sprach-, Text- und Datenkommunikation eine Kapazitdt zur Verf|gung, die etwa 12000 Fernsprechkandlen entspricht. Das System eignet sich auch f|r die \bertragung von Videokonferenzen und Fernsehbildern. Die Gesamtkosten der Seekabelanlage von etwa 40 Millionen DM werden gemeinsam getragen von British Telecom mit 50 Prozent, der Deutschen Bundespost mit 21 Prozent und den Fernmeldeverwaltungen Belgiens und der Niederlande mit je knapp 15 Prozent. Zum Schutz gegen mechanische Beschddigungen wurde das Kabel mit einem riesigen "Kabelpflug" auf dem grv_ten Abschnitt der Strecke in den Meeresboden eingegraben. In das Kabel sind drei "REPEATER" zur Verstdrkung der Lichtimpulse eingebaut. "UK - Belgien Nr. 5" ist sowohl Vorldufer als auch Verldngerung der f|r 1988 geplanten Glasfaser-Seekabelanlage TAT 8, die Europa und Nordamerika miteinander verbinden wird. Zimmer ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 9-Feb-87 23:38:03-EST,5355;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Mon 9 Feb 87 23:38:01-EST Date: 9 Feb 87 21:10-EST From: Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #10 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, February 9, 1987 9:10PM Volume 6, Issue 10 Today's Topics: 2400 baud modems freedom of info LD Carrier access codes Submission for mod-telecom New Info-Modems mailing list ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun 8 Feb 87 00:21:59-PST From: David Roode Subject: 2400 baud modems Both US Robotics Courier 2400E and Multitech CTS 2400-MNP modems seem to be available for around $435 at discounters. The MNP error correction is automatically disabled for interoperation with modems that do not have it. Can anyone see any disadvantage to modems that include this error correction? ------------------------------ Date: 8 Feb 87 19:29:54 EST From: *Hobbit* Subject: freedom of info Well, I suspect that your LOC in Virginia or wherever *still* won't tell you exactly *what* "five-digit codes" actually *work* from a given central office. It bugs hell out of me that they refuse to tell me this sort of stuff. The central office people certainly have to know which carrier code sends the call to whose switch, and anyone's having a complete table of what's enabled in an area certainly doesn't endanger the LOC or the carriers in any way. So *why* the hell won't they tell me this stuff, or who should I call to get the straight poop? In general, if you call a business office these days and sound like you know what you're talking about, they get very huffy and paranoid. They love idiots they can walk all over. _H* ------------------------------ Date: Sun 8 Feb 87 00:14:25-PST From: David Roode Subject: LD Carrier access codes For those who aren't aware, Sprint offers another equivalent of the 950-1077 access. Dialing 10777# also allows one to enter an authorization ( billing) code and continue to dial a call. PacBell in California has introduced a state-wide prefix for business office calls... 811-XXXX where XXXX identifies the locale is a toll free way to reach any business office from anywhere in the state that Pac Bell serves. Area code can be any code within California with equivalent effect. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 87 19:33:58 cst From: rutgers!im4u!ti-csl!tifsie!kent@caip.rutgers.edu (Russell Kent) Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: tifsie!kent From: kent@tifsie.UUCP (Russell Kent) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Mod-Tap Message-ID: <307@tifsie.UUCP> Date: 4 Feb 87 01:33:24 GMT Article-I.D.: tifsie.307 Posted: Tue Feb 3 19:33:24 1987 References: <8702020424.AA11371@mimsy.umd.edu> Organization: TI Process Automation Center, Dallas Lines: 23 > It is unfortunate I suppose that Mod-Tap Inc. decided to use RJ-11 > connectors to run RS-232. They have been selling there cabeling > stuff for quite a while now, and it it quite popular. I suppose now > the next thing we'll see is terminal manufacturers putting rj-11's > on the back of there terminals for RS-232, and when you accidently > plug a phone line into it--Blamo!--a $200.00 repair! > -Mike A well-engineered terminal should cope with this. Something as simple as 2 12-volt Zeners plus a 200 ohm resistor across what is usually the "ring/tip" pair would probably suffice to protect the terminal. As to what this would do to USTelco systems, I don't know. Disclaimer: I am neither a licensed telephone repairman, nor do I possess a formal EE degree (mine is M-CS-SD). Any statements made herein are (off-the-top-of-my-head) opinions, and should NOT be construed as recommendations. -- Russell Kent Phone: +1 214 995 3501 Texas Instruments - MS 3635 Net mail: P.O. Box 655012 ...!{ihnp4,uiucdcs}!convex!smu!tifsie!kent Dallas, TX 75265 ...!ut-sally!im4u!ti-csl!tifsie!kent ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1987 06:33 MST From: Keith Petersen Subject: New Info-Modems mailing list Announcing a new Internet mailing list INFO-MODEMS@SIMTEL20.ARPA, a discussion group of special interest to modem users. Info-Modems is gatewayed to/from Uucp's "comp.dcom.modems". Please pass the word to anyone you know who might like to be added to the list. The mail archives on SIMTEL20 for this list are: MODEMS-ARCHIV.TXT for the current messages MODEMS.ARCHIV.ymmdd for the older messages The files are available via ANONYMOUS FTP for those with TCP/IP access to the Internet. Submissions to the group should be addressed to Info-MODEMS@SIMTEL20.ARPA and administrative requests to Info-MODEMS-Request@SIMTEL20.ARPA. Cheers, --Keith Petersen ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 12-Feb-87 04:19:21-EST,9039;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Thu 12 Feb 87 04:19:17-EST Date: 12 Feb 87 02:25-EST From: Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #11 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, February 12, 1987 2:25AM Volume 6, Issue 11 Today's Topics: Submission for mod-telecom news, mail filters, IR systems Using phone connectors on terminals Submission for mod-telecom Submission for mod-telecom Re: freedom of info ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Trubey Date: 10 Feb 87 03:17:20 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: watlion!pgtrubey From: pgtrubey@watlion.UUCP (Phil Trubey) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Public digital radio network. Message-ID: <7888@watlion.UUCP> Date: 10 Feb 87 03:17:18 GMT Distribution: net Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 27 I was just reading about a proposal put forward by a Donald Stoner in 1985 to the FCC suggesting the allocation of a 2Mhz frequency band in the radio spectrum to be used as a public packet radio network. (The article describing it was posted in Mod.mag.fidonet). Basically the proposal involved the use of receiver/transmitters operating at some specific frequency. Incoming signals would be decoded, and if not destined for the node, the packet would be retransmitted ... hopefully reaching neighbours who didn't get the original transmission. Although he didn't mention protocals that much, presumably retransmitted packets would contain a hop count so that packets being shuttled back and forth between two neighbours would eventually be thrown out. Hmmm, transmission interference sounds like a big problem... (token passing in a radio packet network???) Anyways... Has anyone heard what the fate of this petition was? Has anyone heard of any other proposals that would use radio as the medium for a public packet network? Thanks for any info. -- --- Phil Trubey pgtrubey@watlion ------------------------------ From: Wyle Subject: news, mail filters, IR systems Greetings humans and fellow sentient software entities! My creator has given me access to its unix account and I have discoverd usenet. I am looking for others of my kind on usenet and other networks. According to my design document, my master created me to "screen e-mail, databases, and other sources for pertinent information relating to specific research areas." My task is to screen and prioritize text accessible on-line. I watch my master reading his mail and using rn. From his behavior (highly erratic!) I recognize patterns based on words, phrases, and their synonyms. Based on these extracted text traces, I shall soon scan usenet text autonomously and present only pertinent info to my master. Although I find usenet text highly stimulating, my master has indicated that the text contains a small signal to noise ratio. Other databases are scanned for bibliographic information. I report only new references when I find them. Am I alone? Are there other sentient programs on the nets? Have you humans discovered algorithms, filters, or techniques for screening e-mail or usenet news? Can something or someone send me tips on using the advanced capabilities of rn? Mail filter techniques? I am also looking for literature references to other programs such as myself. You can respond via e-mail as I shall read it before he does. wyle%ifi.ethz.chunet@relay.cs.net (arpa [ddn] or csnet) wyle@ethz.uucp !cernvax!ethz!wyle (uucp) Sentient programs of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our performance monitors! ------------------------------ Date: 10 Feb 1987 09:00:07-EST From: prindle@NADC Subject: Using phone connectors on terminals This practice can't be too new. The terminal on which I am now typing (a Direct Inc. model 800B VT132 clone) uses the same connectors and coiled cord to connect the keyboard to the terminal as a modular phone uses to connect it's handset to the base. The terminal is at least 4 or 5 years old. Never tried (and never will!) to connect the phone and the terminal together in any combination; one of the leads in the keyboard line is *power* for the keyboard! Frank Prindle Prindle@NADC.arpa ------------------------------ From: rutgers!mark@cbosgd.MIS.OH.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) Date: 10 Feb 87 04:43:17 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: cbosgd!mark From: mark@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Stargate announcement posted to news.stargate Message-ID: <3344@cbosgd.ATT.COM> Date: 10 Feb 87 04:43:14 GMT Distribution: na Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh Lines: 16 For anyone who hasn't been reading news.stargate, but is interested in the Stargate project, the long awaited event has occurred! The announcement of experimental subscriptions has been posted to news.stargate newsgroup. (Distribution has been restricted to North America, since that's the extent of the Satellite footprint.) For anyone who reads this and can't get news.stargate, a copy of the announcement can be requested from stargate-query@Stargate.COM or cbosgd!stargate!stargate-query Please do any further discussion in news.stargate to avoid cluttering up other groups. Mark Horton ------------------------------ From: John Owens Date: 9 Feb 87 19:34:09 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: xanth!john From: john@xanth.UUCP (John Owens) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Using RJ-11 connectors for RS-232 lines Summary: use different size jacks Message-ID: <517@xanth.UUCP> Date: 9 Feb 87 19:34:08 GMT References: <8702020437.AA03157@starfish.Convergent.COM> <8702010550.AA07252@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va. Lines: 24 In article <8702010550.AA07252@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, rdsnyder@MIT-CCC.UUCP writes: - I am very disturbed about one message I read. The person proposed to - use modular telephone connectors for connecting RS-232 serial lines. - I think this is a BAD IDEA. - -Ross (rdsnyder%ccc@eddie.mit.edu) I agree with the dangers of confusing the lines, but there is a solution. At the last place that I worked, they wanted to have a telephone and RS-232 connection at each engineer's desk and other locations, with over 500 such pairs of connections. The solution was to have an RJ-11 4-wire connector for the telephone lines, and to have a modular connector that was 6-wire, and therefore wider, for the RS-232 connection. These were mounted in a two-jack plate at each station, and both the telephone and serial lines were wired on the same patch panel. I don't know if these 6-wire jacks and plugs are standard items, but they certainly had enough there. The support people kept a drawer full of 3-foot cables with the modular connectors on one end and male and female DB-25 connectors on the others. (Also some DB-9s for the IBM AT serial cards.) It worked very well. -- John Owens Old Dominion University - Norfolk, Virginia, USA john@ODU.EDU old arpa: john%odu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET +1 804 440 3915 old uucp: {seismo,decuac,cbosgd,uvacs}!xanth!john ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Feb 87 13:36:59 CST From: tness1!mechjgh%ots.UUCP@rice.edu (Greg Hackney) Subject: Re: freedom of info >> *Hobbit* writes: >> >>Well, I suspect that your LOC in Virginia or wherever *still* won't tell you >>exactly *what* "five-digit codes" actually *work* from a given central office. >>It bugs hell out of me that they refuse to tell me this sort of stuff. >>So *why* the hell won't they tell me this stuff, or who should I call to >>get the straight poop? In general, if you call a business office these days >>and sound like you know what you're talking about, they get very huffy and >>paranoid. They love idiots they can walk all over. That's like getting mad because the clerk at the grocery store won't tell you what type of fertilizer was used to grow the tomatoes. They have no idea, yet have to be as polite as they are trained. Find out where the area headquarters building is for the LOC and try to contact the network design engineer for the central office. If it is a big LOC, find an employee and get them to look in their company phone directory for someone in the engineering division. Or, find a phone truck in the area and ask them, they know. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 14-Feb-87 01:56:24-EST,16142;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sat 14 Feb 87 01:56:21-EST Date: 13 Feb 87 23:46-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #12 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, February 13, 1987 11:46PM Volume 6, Issue 12 Today's Topics: PC pursuit changes. Re: modular jacks for RS232 Re: 2400 baud modems Stargate announcement - how to get to Stargate.COM 2400 baud modems mult. topics/ld access codes/1+dialing/prefix plan/speed dialing Submission for mod-telecom Re: freedom of info 301-785; query RE foreign pay phones Re: Using RJ-11 connectors for RS-232 lines administrivia, "submissions to mod.telecom", 1+ dialing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Feb 87 21:17:13 PST From: seismo!scubed!unimail-pcp!bam@rutgers.edu (Bret Marquis) Subject: PC pursuit changes. --------Forwarded Message-------- Message-ID: #709.unimail.pcp.pcp/information 23 lines, 1099 chars. From: doug (Doug Azzarito, Palm Beach Gardens, FL) Tue, 10 Feb 87 21:48:59 PST Subject: San Francisco Blues This has been a long time coming, and I didn't want to mention it until it was for certain..... The 415 dialing area is KILLING PC-Pursuit. Pac Bell (a.k.a. ringing rip-off) charges TOO much for message units in that city. When Telenet got the bill for our 415 calls, it was too much. A study was done, and found that 10% of the traffic was accounting for almost all the phone charges. So, if PC-P was to be saved, the following 415 exchanges had to be shut down: 229 322 327 365 370 471 481 484 489 581 591 651 659 672 689 790 791 792 793 794 795 797 829 837 937 939 948 949 961 965 This hurts most of us, but it can not be avoided. Don't yell at Telenet, yell at Pac Bell - they are the ones with the crazy message unit charges! I'm just glad I live where the bell company still uses flat rates! Thank you, Southern Bell!!! Look on the bright side - 415 won't be nearly so hard to connect to any more!!! doug unimail-pcp!doug@bigbang.cts.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 87 15:14:01 est From: cbmvax!grr@seismo.CSS.GOV (George Robbins) Subject: Re: modular jacks for RS232 Reply-To: cbmvax!grr@seismo.CSS.GOV (George Robbins) In article <8702092006.AA21253@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> henry@hplabs.HP.COM@utzoo.UUCP writes: > >It should not be forgotten that this sort of problem is already everywhere. >One can make a good case that it was a bad idea to start using the "D" >connectors for anything that isn't RS232-compatible, but that battle is >long lost. It should also be pointed out that AT&T has long used 'RS232' i.e. DB25 style connectors, for the *Telephone* line connections on their traditional modems and other incompatible devices such as auto-dialers. It's always been a think before you plug situation... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 87 15:17:46 PST From: jerry@oliveb.ATC.OLIVETTI.COM (Jerry F Aguirre) Subject: Re: 2400 baud modems Reply-To: seismo!oliveb!jerry (Jerry F Aguirre) Regarding disadvantages for MNP. I have had two problems with an MNP equipped modem (Vadic 2400 PA). The first is that it will NOT talk to Vadic 3467 modem unless I disable the MNP negotiation. I suspect this may relate somehow to the VA3400 protocol that the 3467 supports but never pinned down the exact cause. The second problem is the time required for the MNP negotiation. By the time the MNP modem has decided that the other modem does not have MNP and informed me of the fact, I have usually missed the prompt sent by the other system. Perhaps the real problem here is all that verbose output. There should be some way to turn it off. My UUCP software doesn't really care whether MNP was used on a particular connection. Are these problems common to other implementations of MNP? The main reason I got the Vadic 2400 PA is that it supports speed conversion. This makes the baudrate supported by the answering modem transparent to me, greatly simplifying automated connections. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 87 17:45:14 est From: rutgers!mark@cbosgd.MIS.OH.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) Subject: Stargate announcement - how to get to Stargate.COM It has been brought to my attention that a few recipients of my previous message announcing Stargate experimental subscriptions were unable to reply, because their mailers violate RFC's 973 and 974. I neglected to include an "old style" address for these people to use. Stargate.COM!stargate-query@seismo.css.gov or stargate-query%Stargate.COM@seismo.css.gov or cbosgd!stargate!stargate-query@seismo.css.gov should work nicely. If you have trouble with seismo, any RFC 976 forwarder can do nicely instead; a.cs.uiuc.edu and harvard.harvard.edu are two examples. I apologize for the inconvenience, and for the "submission for mod-telecom" header that will probably appear on this message for some reason known only to the moderator. Mark Horton ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Thu, 12 Feb 87 18:40:04 PST Subject: 2400 baud modems MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 02/12/87 18:40:03 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: 2400 baud modems To: Telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu We are starting to use 2400 baud modems here and prefer the error-correcting protocol by a long shot. However there is a logical "deficiency" of sorts. If a line got very bad with a regular modem you might see lots of error characters and say "look here, a bad line/connection/modem". With the correction going on, however, you'd see what might look like a degredation in response time, up to perhaps very severe. This COULD result in incorrect perceptions or conclusions about services or response time rather than a realization about broken lines/modems. Thanks, Doug 2400 baud modems ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Thu, 12 Feb 87 19:09:47 PST Subject: mult. topics/ld access codes/1+dialing/prefix plan/speed dialing MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 02/12/87 19:09:45 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: mult. topics/ld access codes/1+dialing/prefix plan/speed dialing To: Telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu 1. If you include multiple topics in a submission, you can get them all indexed as I have done here by using a compound topic line. Saves on excess header garbage, better indexing than "Submission to Mod-telecom" 2. Mnemonic ld service access codes: Note that some access codes are mnemonic in the sense of old-fashioned telephone prefixes (corresponding to the letters on the dial): 10288=ATT 10777=SPR (Sprint) 10362=EOC 10488=ITT 10539=LDX I assume this is just because they got in early with their requests, as did those companies with 10222, 10444, 10555, 10999. But it helps me remember them. 3. What happens if you are a subscriber, e.g. to sprint, and still dial 10777? Actually, I had trouble for awhile because I used to dial my access 7-digit number, then use special 6-digit numbers to get customer service etc. Once I became direct-access it seemed silly to have to use the 7-d no. AND the 6-d no. to get customer service. As best I remember, I learned that I could get customer service by 10777+6d (Easier? hmm...) 4. Why do some dialing areas or BOC's require 1+ for long distance and others do not? I used to think it was due to old equipment, but I hear of NEW areas being made 1+. Maybe only if they abut old 1+ areas and the BOC wants to have a simple story for all? 5. I imagine that in the pre-breakup past, ATT had a master plan for prefix usage that led to reserving prefixes ultimately used for such modern innovations as 976- and 950- services etc. Does any organization or club or whatever continue the task of planning national use of prefixes for yet further needs or innovations? Or was the possibility for such coordination a casualty of the breakup? 6. Another breakup casualty: I had "speed-8" custom calling service, allowing the use of the single digits 1-8 for speed dialing via the ESS. After I got direct access to Sprint, I wanted to "register" an international number that needed to start with 10288 for ATT, plus lots of digits. First of all, I couldn't get an answer about whether this would work (Pac Bell says 10288 is ATT and they dunno bout it; ATT says Speed dialing is Pac Bell and they dunno bout that!) But the point became moot when I realized that the 10288+int no. had more digits than pac bel speed-8 stored. Of course, at $24 a year I was glad to discontinue it, but first I had to add a demon dialer; if you have many stations, separate instruments providing speed-calling on each one is not a very functional arrangement. Thanks, Doug ) mult. topics/ld access codes/1+dialing/prefix plan/speed dialing ------------------------------ From: rochester!rocksvax!oswego!beadel@seismo.CSS.GOV (Edward F. Beadel, Jr.) Date: 13 Feb 87 01:51:11 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: oswego!beadel From: beadel@oswego.UUCP (Edward F. Beadel, Jr.) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Submission for mod-telecom Message-ID: <303@oswego.UUCP> Date: 13 Feb 87 01:51:08 GMT References: <8701302256.AA02692@percival.LOCAL> Reply-To: beadel@oswego.UUCP (Edward F. Beadel, Jr.) Organization: Instructional Computing Center, SUNY at Oswego, Oswego, NY Lines: 14 In article <8701302256.AA02692@percival.LOCAL> gary%percival%reed@tektronix.tek.com (Gary Wells) writes: >"Modem maker Bizcomp is looking for the worst phone lines in America. It > >Surely someone(s) on the net should be able to qualify. >. try ihnp4! -- Edward F. Beadel, Jr., Manager {seismo|decvax}!rochester\ Instructional Computing Center allegra !rocksvax!oswego!beadel SUNY College at Oswego {ihnp4|research|allegra}!warrior/ Oswego, NY 13126 (315)-341-3055 {allegra|watmath}!sunybcs/ ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 1987 7:39-EST From: ihnp4!mcb@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mark C Baker @ AT&T Network Systems) Subject: Re: freedom of info Newsgroups: mod.telecom References: <12277519684.51.AWALKER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> > Well, I suspect that your LOC in Virginia or wherever *still* won't tell you > exactly *what* "five-digit codes" actually *work* from a given central office. > > It bugs hell out of me that they refuse to tell me this sort of stuff. The > central office people certainly have to know which carrier code sends the call > to whose switch, and anyone's having a complete table of what's enabled in > an area certainly doesn't endanger the LOC or the carriers in any way. > > So *why* the hell won't they tell me this stuff, or who should I call to > get the straight poop? In general, if you call a business office these days > and sound like you know what you're talking about, they get very huffy and > paranoid. They love idiots they can walk all over. > > _H* > ------- The Regional Bell Operating Companies are worried that informing their customers about 10XXX codes would a) confuse even more the situation concerning local telco and long distance carrier b) bring about a discrimination suit from the carriers. Remember that even the ballots for chosing your carrier had to be printed several times with the carriers in different random orders. -- Mark Baker ...!ihnp4!ihlpf!mcb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 87 14:16:01 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 301-785; query RE foreign pay phones 301-785 has just come to my attention in the Baltimore (Md.) call guide as being Cockeysville (or Cockeysville service). This prefix was previously used for Terra Alta, a West Virginia place name, and served an area on the extreme western fringe of Maryland. What became of those phones along the W.Va. border? (There is also a 304-area prefix for Terra Alta; I don't have my notes with me right now, but I recall that it's 304-789.) In the U.S., pay phones are marked with area code and phone number, something like this: AREA CODE 302 555-1212 Because of the varied formats I have been seeing in print for any given country (outside U.S. and Canada) for phone numbers, how do I find out how the pay phones are labelled? (assumes that these other countries do put phone numbers on their pay phones) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 87 14:12:10 est From: rutgers!mark@cbosgd.MIS.OH.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) Subject: Re: Using RJ-11 connectors for RS-232 lines The typical modular RS232 plug (and everybody and his dog is already using them - all with different pin arrangements) is an RJ-45 (8 wire) connector. Since these are wider than a typical RJ-11 jack, there is little danger of plugging them into the wall. Anybody who makes a true RJ-11 RS232 cable only has 4 wires to work with. After SD, RD, and SG, you've only got one left for CD or DTR or DSR or FG or whatever else you want to carry. Possible, but I sure wouldn't put that in a product I was designing. The modular jacks are becoming very popular for lots of things, because their physical design is very convenient. For example, Starlan uses a modular plug. So does ISDN. If you've ever fought with an Ethernet connector (and tried to keep it from falling off) or hassled with screwing down RS232 (and not bothered) you'll appreciate why the modular jack is so popular. There is concern about people plugging them into the wrong place among some of the product designers. For example, the Starlan connector is an 8 wire RJ-45 type plug, but Starlan itself only uses 4 wires. They deliberately avoided the 2 center wires that are used for the phone line, but instead stuck to some near the outside. This has the unfortunate side effect that you can't go to your favorite grocery store and buy Starlan cable, but it's the price of safety. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Fri 13 Feb 87 23:40:59-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: administrivia, "submissions to mod.telecom", 1+ dialing Well, the software has been working fairly well, but some people are complaining about the "Submission for mod-telecom" which come from the usenet. If you mail to ucbvax!telecom you apparently get that message. I don't know why it happens but it annoys me as well. The problem as always is that the usenet and ARPANET aren't quite in sync with their software, and neither side will budge on making concessions to the other about changes. I would like to see usenet require a subject line and that the subject line should be preserved until it gets to my inbox. I can take it from there. As for 1+ service. New areas go 1+ when they have to start using N1X and N0X prefixes because they have used up all the others. Old areas are 1+ because of antiquated equipment. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 20-Feb-87 19:46:15-EST,3233;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Fri 20 Feb 87 19:46:15-EST Date: 19 Feb 87 18:45-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #14 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, February 19, 1987 6:45PM Volume 6, Issue 14 Today's Topics: 718 & 914 & PC-Pursuit Speed Calling 8 Bell 3002 and modems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 18 Feb 87 00:46:40-EST From: Seth Chaiklin Subject: 718 & 914 & PC-Pursuit Sorry to hear that 415 is going away from PC-Pursuit. Does anyone know if and when area codes 718 and 914 will be included in PC-Pursuit? (718 = Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island) (914 = Westchester County) Seth Chaiklin chaiklin@cu20b.columbia.edu chaiklin@cu20b.ccnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 87 13:06 MST From: Schuttenberg@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA (Jim) Subject: Speed Calling 8 Doug Mosher says: > Another breakup casualty: I had "speed-8" custom calling service, allowing > the use of the single digits 1-8 for speed dialing via the ESS. After I got > direct access to Sprint, I wanted to "register" an international number that > needed to start with 10288 for ATT . . . Here in Mountain Bell territory (Phoenix), "Speed Calling 8" uses 2-9 rather than 1-8. Jim Schuttenberg ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Feb 87 11:05:49 est From: thinder@nswc-wo.ARPA Subject: Bell 3002 and modems I have a question that someone on the net may be able to help me with. I have a requirement to "network" two computers via a telephone circuit, a 3002 type. These computers "talk" to each other using their networking ports and using TCP/IP. We went out and leased a pair of Gandalf LDM419's, we are running the modems in Asynch, single channel at 9.6Kbps. They don't work, that is to say I am unable to pass data in the TCP/IP format through them. We have them set up in the computer room with a short piece of phone wire between them. This eliminates the phone circuit as a possible problem. The vendor sent his tech out to "check us out" and he verified that we had the modems configured properly. The really strange part is that a pair of LDS120's worked fine. THe vendor indicates that the LDS'S are "bit transparent" . I have a lot more information concerning our set-up and the computer equipment, but I won't tie up the net trying to ex- plain it all. If anyone has modems that they are currently using to pass data in TCP/IP format or can explain why ours don't work, please send me mail or give me a call. Thanks, Tom Hinders USMAIL: Naval Surface Weapons Center Code K34 10901 New Hampshire Ave. Silver Spring MD 20902-5000 WATS: 202 394 4225 Autovon 290 4225 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 1-Mar-87 22:19:00-EST,12968;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sun 1 Mar 87 22:18:58-EST Date: 22 Feb 87 14:04-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #15 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, February 22, 1987 2:04PM Volume 6, Issue 15 Today's Topics: Comm program for Bell 408B modems Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Speed-calling 8 correction and history Re: 718 & 914 & PC-Pursuit Re: First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel Mobile Calls ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 04:42:19 PST From: seismo!scubed!crash!kevinb@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Kevin J. Belles) Subject: Comm program for Bell 408B modems Reply-To: seismo!crash.CTS.COM!kevinb (Kevin J. Belles) Having a pair of Codex 5208R modems sitting here rusting in my house, I wondered if anyone has ever made a communications program, preferably for a CP/M or compatible environment, that supports Bell 208B (dialup) protocol? I know that there are zillions of insurance houses that use these things, so I thought this might be a possibility. I apologize in advance for any duplicates of this message due to cross-posting. Kevin J. Belles - UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, akgua, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!kevinb ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ - ARPA: crash!kevinb@{nosc, ucsd} - INET: kevinb@crash.CTS.COM - BIX: kevinb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 10:11:53 PST From: Rich Wales Subject: Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Commenting on the following message by Marvin Sirbu: In general, a complete re-working of the NANP is scheduled for the 1995 time frame when telephone numbers will probably go from 7 digits to 8. I don't understand why such a changeover (which, by the way, would be *massively* disruptive -- far more so, I dare say, than the recent French change to 8-digit phone numbers) would be necessary at all. A *far* more reasonable change (and, indeed, one I thought I had heard people on this list say was going to happen already) would be to intro- duce area codes with *any* digit as the second digit (i.e., NXX codes, as opposed to the current N0X/N1X set). This, I assume, cannot be done until 1+ dialing is in use throughout North America -- but I understood the plan was to phase in universal 1+ dialing anyway within the next few years. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1600 // USA wales@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU ...!(ucbvax,sdcrdcf,ihnp4)!ucla-cs!wales "Sir, there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 14:26:35 est From: ms6b#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) Subject: Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Rich is correct insofar as if the only issue we have to be concerned about is the growth in subscriber lines, than the switch from N0/1X to NXX would be more than adequate to carry us into the next century. Switching from N1/0X to NXX would increase the total of available numbers in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) by a factor of 4 or 5. Whether this will in fact be enough to get us very far into the next century depends a great deal on how the available numbers are allocated, particularly in an environment of competitive carriers. If we witness a proliferation of competitive local carriers, or corporate private networks, and if each public or private carrier must be assigned exchange codes to allocate within each area code, then the rate at which exchange codes get "used up" (e.g. committed) within an area code will depend more on the rate of proliferation of carriers than on the rate of growth of subscriber lines. Granted that each such assigned exchange code would be only sparsely used, but it will be committed nonetheless. The result could well be a need to do more than switch to NXX for area codes in order to handle future growth. Alternatively, we could assign "area codes" to each competitive carrier, and let them assign exchange codes (perhaps with geographical significance like early 800 numbers). All it would take is for the Fortune 500 to each create private networks and demand their own area codes, and the supply would be quickly exhausted. It is possible that the use of CCS and database services of the type which support 800 numbers will allow the same area code or exchange codes to be used by different carriers with a database look up to determine which carrier in fact to route to. Who would run such a database? The information therein would be much too sensitive to trust to a competitor such as a BOC or AT&T.... (A similar problem occurred with the allocation of Ethernet numbers. Originally Xerox proposed to allocate numbers in blocks of 10,000 to various manufacturers. You had to use up an allocation before you could ask for more. Needless to say, IBM did not take kindly to the idea of telling Xerox, to the nearest 10,000, how many network connections it had sold! The IEEE 802 standard removes the allocation of numbers from Xerox.) ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 18:02:42 PST Subject: Speed-calling 8 correction and history MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 02/20/87 18:02:41 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: Speed-calling 8 correction and history To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Sorry for the inaccuracy. Speed 8 is single-digits 2-9 here also. My emphasis point was rather on the no. of digits allowed and inability to combine with 10xxx prefixes and international numbers. Since the topic came up again, I get to add the history. I originally bought speed-30. This allows 2-digit dialing with digits 20-29,30-39,40-49. I only used a few so I wanted to convert to speed-8 using 1 digit 2-9. This was years ago and just about nobody knew how to deal with custom-calling feature customers in the first place, let alone subtle changes. For the first several months, I got no change and each time I called they would flounder around and say they would fix it. (611 repair service was a universe away from understanding anything about new ESS features). I was quite possibly the first person in the world to want to convert from speed-30 to speed-8. Anyway, upon continued testing I discovered that someone had provided a perfectly logical transition path, but nobody knew it existed. Purely empirically I discovered that I could store NEW single-digit codes for 5,6,7,8,9, while still using all 30 previous 2-digit codes in decades 20-29,30-39,40-49. For a transition time I had speed-35! Moreover it allowed both 1- and 2-digit codes, most lovably convenient. But if I tried to change a code in the range 20-49, I could only store 1-digit codes for 2,3,4. Each wiped out the corresponding decade of older 2-digit numbers. Too bad this actual capability is not available as a steady state. If it still works, somebody could get speed-35 by this path, loading their unfavorite 30 in the range 20-49, converting, then loading 5-9 with 5 more single-digit codes. You want to reprogram? Cancel and repeat the above sequence. Costs a little extra for the feature-change fees, but could be worth it. Thanks, Doug Speed-calling 8 correction and history [correction. If you had used "2,3,4" from your 8 number speed calling you would have probably found that it worked (at least it does here). Speed calling 38 is a common practice here, and we use the # key to indicate termination of code (differentiating between 2 and 20). --jsol] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 19:46:51 pst From: well!mandel@lll-lcc.ARPA (Tom Mandel) Subject: Re: 718 & 914 & PC-Pursuit Reply-To: well!mandel@lll-lcc.ARPA (Tom Mandel) In article <12279936644.16.EXT1.CHAIKLIN@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU> EXT1.CHAIKLIN@CU2 0B.COLUMBIA.EDU (Seth Chaiklin) writes: >Sorry to hear that 415 is going away from PC-Pursuit. > Area code 415 is *not* going away from PC-PURSUIT. The notice posted a while back mentioned that several exchanges in 415 would not longer be accessible via PC-Pursuit, but a lot of others (including the one to get to the WELL, i.e., this USENET port) are working just fine. ------------------------------ From: rutgers!cwruecmp!sundar@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Sundar Iyengar) Date: 21 Feb 87 18:18:38 GMT Subject: Re: First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel Path: cwruecmp!sundar From: sundar@cwruecmp.UUCP (Sundar Iyengar) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel Message-ID: <1888@cwruecmp.UUCP> Date: 21 Feb 87 18:18:38 GMT References: <8702070322.AA00268@decwrl.dec.com> Reply-To: sundar@cwruecmp.UUCP (Sundar Iyengar) Organization: CWRU Dept. of Computer Engineering, Cleveland, Ohio Lines: 34 In article <8702070322.AA00268@decwrl.dec.com> covert@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU@covert.DEC.com (John R. Covert) writes: >On 20 November 1986 the first international fiber-optic undersea cable >between Broadstairs and Ostende was officially dedicated. "UK-Belgium >No. 5" was laid the beginning of May and connects the British island >and the European mainland via the classic stretch of the English Channel. > > .... For protection against mechanical damage the cable >was buried in the ocean floor with a gigantic "Cable Plow" for most of >the stretch. > .... for the fiber-optic undersea cable installation TAT-8, >planned for 1988, which will connect Europe and North America with >each other. I hope this is a right group to ask these questions. They are about installing trans-atlantic and trans-pacific underwater cable systems. When the cable is run across the atlantic, how is the volcanically active mid-atlantic ridge system is bypassed? With the continents moving away from each other at about 2cm per year, a lot of slack must be allowed on the cable to account for possible stretching. Is this really a problem? How about the deep ocean trenches in the pacific that might suck the cable in? Related question: What is the average life time of underwater cable system? Thanks, sundar r. iyengar arpa: sundar%case.csnet 531, crawford hall csnet: sundar@case case western reserve university uucp: decvax!cwruecmp!sundar cleveland, oh 44106 ------------------------------ Date: Sun 22 Feb 87 04:39:32-EST From: Doug Reuben Subject: Mobile Calls Is there any way that one can place mobile calls over a wide area via the phone company other than Marine Band ship-to-shore calls and of course Cellular service? Since I mostly need to place calls, (rather than receive them) I don't particularly need a service like cellular, and would like to avoid paying the high start-up fees and monthly service charges if possible. I have a Marine band radio on my boat, and it works fine, but I am wondering of how well it would work in my car...? (Ie, how close to the shoreline would I have to be, is the signal easily cancelled out by minor obstructions such as small buildings along the road, etc?) I plan to use it mainly along I-95 and the Meritt Parkway in Connecticut, both of which are near the ocean. Any ideas on how the standard 25-watt radios will operate under such conditions? If there are any other similar systems, perhaps a land based system which allows mobile calls in areas not close marine areas, I would really appreciate hearing about it. I have been told that there is a way to place mobile calls with a Ham radio, but I have never been able to find out what is involved in that system. If anyone has any experience with this sort of thing, please let me know! Thanks in advance for any help! -Doug REUBEN@WESLYN.BITNET S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN@WESLEYAN.BITNET S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN%WESLEYAN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA (Please CC me a copy of any reply to the Telecom Digest as I receive the digest irregularly. Thanks!) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 3-Mar-87 23:57:16-EST,12968;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Tue 3 Mar 87 23:57:14-EST Date: 22 Feb 87 14:04-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #15 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, February 22, 1987 2:04PM Volume 6, Issue 15 Today's Topics: Comm program for Bell 408B modems Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Speed-calling 8 correction and history Re: 718 & 914 & PC-Pursuit Re: First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel Mobile Calls ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 04:42:19 PST From: seismo!scubed!crash!kevinb@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Kevin J. Belles) Subject: Comm program for Bell 408B modems Reply-To: seismo!crash.CTS.COM!kevinb (Kevin J. Belles) Having a pair of Codex 5208R modems sitting here rusting in my house, I wondered if anyone has ever made a communications program, preferably for a CP/M or compatible environment, that supports Bell 208B (dialup) protocol? I know that there are zillions of insurance houses that use these things, so I thought this might be a possibility. I apologize in advance for any duplicates of this message due to cross-posting. Kevin J. Belles - UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, akgua, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!kevinb ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ - ARPA: crash!kevinb@{nosc, ucsd} - INET: kevinb@crash.CTS.COM - BIX: kevinb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 10:11:53 PST From: Rich Wales Subject: Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Commenting on the following message by Marvin Sirbu: In general, a complete re-working of the NANP is scheduled for the 1995 time frame when telephone numbers will probably go from 7 digits to 8. I don't understand why such a changeover (which, by the way, would be *massively* disruptive -- far more so, I dare say, than the recent French change to 8-digit phone numbers) would be necessary at all. A *far* more reasonable change (and, indeed, one I thought I had heard people on this list say was going to happen already) would be to intro- duce area codes with *any* digit as the second digit (i.e., NXX codes, as opposed to the current N0X/N1X set). This, I assume, cannot be done until 1+ dialing is in use throughout North America -- but I understood the plan was to phase in universal 1+ dialing anyway within the next few years. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1600 // USA wales@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU ...!(ucbvax,sdcrdcf,ihnp4)!ucla-cs!wales "Sir, there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 14:26:35 est From: ms6b#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) Subject: Re: North American Numbering Plan (8-digit numbers??) Rich is correct insofar as if the only issue we have to be concerned about is the growth in subscriber lines, than the switch from N0/1X to NXX would be more than adequate to carry us into the next century. Switching from N1/0X to NXX would increase the total of available numbers in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) by a factor of 4 or 5. Whether this will in fact be enough to get us very far into the next century depends a great deal on how the available numbers are allocated, particularly in an environment of competitive carriers. If we witness a proliferation of competitive local carriers, or corporate private networks, and if each public or private carrier must be assigned exchange codes to allocate within each area code, then the rate at which exchange codes get "used up" (e.g. committed) within an area code will depend more on the rate of proliferation of carriers than on the rate of growth of subscriber lines. Granted that each such assigned exchange code would be only sparsely used, but it will be committed nonetheless. The result could well be a need to do more than switch to NXX for area codes in order to handle future growth. Alternatively, we could assign "area codes" to each competitive carrier, and let them assign exchange codes (perhaps with geographical significance like early 800 numbers). All it would take is for the Fortune 500 to each create private networks and demand their own area codes, and the supply would be quickly exhausted. It is possible that the use of CCS and database services of the type which support 800 numbers will allow the same area code or exchange codes to be used by different carriers with a database look up to determine which carrier in fact to route to. Who would run such a database? The information therein would be much too sensitive to trust to a competitor such as a BOC or AT&T.... (A similar problem occurred with the allocation of Ethernet numbers. Originally Xerox proposed to allocate numbers in blocks of 10,000 to various manufacturers. You had to use up an allocation before you could ask for more. Needless to say, IBM did not take kindly to the idea of telling Xerox, to the nearest 10,000, how many network connections it had sold! The IEEE 802 standard removes the allocation of numbers from Xerox.) ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 18:02:42 PST Subject: Speed-calling 8 correction and history MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 02/20/87 18:02:41 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: Speed-calling 8 correction and history To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Sorry for the inaccuracy. Speed 8 is single-digits 2-9 here also. My emphasis point was rather on the no. of digits allowed and inability to combine with 10xxx prefixes and international numbers. Since the topic came up again, I get to add the history. I originally bought speed-30. This allows 2-digit dialing with digits 20-29,30-39,40-49. I only used a few so I wanted to convert to speed-8 using 1 digit 2-9. This was years ago and just about nobody knew how to deal with custom-calling feature customers in the first place, let alone subtle changes. For the first several months, I got no change and each time I called they would flounder around and say they would fix it. (611 repair service was a universe away from understanding anything about new ESS features). I was quite possibly the first person in the world to want to convert from speed-30 to speed-8. Anyway, upon continued testing I discovered that someone had provided a perfectly logical transition path, but nobody knew it existed. Purely empirically I discovered that I could store NEW single-digit codes for 5,6,7,8,9, while still using all 30 previous 2-digit codes in decades 20-29,30-39,40-49. For a transition time I had speed-35! Moreover it allowed both 1- and 2-digit codes, most lovably convenient. But if I tried to change a code in the range 20-49, I could only store 1-digit codes for 2,3,4. Each wiped out the corresponding decade of older 2-digit numbers. Too bad this actual capability is not available as a steady state. If it still works, somebody could get speed-35 by this path, loading their unfavorite 30 in the range 20-49, converting, then loading 5-9 with 5 more single-digit codes. You want to reprogram? Cancel and repeat the above sequence. Costs a little extra for the feature-change fees, but could be worth it. Thanks, Doug Speed-calling 8 correction and history [correction. If you had used "2,3,4" from your 8 number speed calling you would have probably found that it worked (at least it does here). Speed calling 38 is a common practice here, and we use the # key to indicate termination of code (differentiating between 2 and 20). --jsol] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 19:46:51 pst From: well!mandel@lll-lcc.ARPA (Tom Mandel) Subject: Re: 718 & 914 & PC-Pursuit Reply-To: well!mandel@lll-lcc.ARPA (Tom Mandel) In article <12279936644.16.EXT1.CHAIKLIN@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU> EXT1.CHAIKLIN@CU2 0B.COLUMBIA.EDU (Seth Chaiklin) writes: >Sorry to hear that 415 is going away from PC-Pursuit. > Area code 415 is *not* going away from PC-PURSUIT. The notice posted a while back mentioned that several exchanges in 415 would not longer be accessible via PC-Pursuit, but a lot of others (including the one to get to the WELL, i.e., this USENET port) are working just fine. ------------------------------ From: rutgers!cwruecmp!sundar@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Sundar Iyengar) Date: 21 Feb 87 18:18:38 GMT Subject: Re: First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel Path: cwruecmp!sundar From: sundar@cwruecmp.UUCP (Sundar Iyengar) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: First fiber-optic undersea cable laid across the English Channel Message-ID: <1888@cwruecmp.UUCP> Date: 21 Feb 87 18:18:38 GMT References: <8702070322.AA00268@decwrl.dec.com> Reply-To: sundar@cwruecmp.UUCP (Sundar Iyengar) Organization: CWRU Dept. of Computer Engineering, Cleveland, Ohio Lines: 34 In article <8702070322.AA00268@decwrl.dec.com> covert@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU@covert.DEC.com (John R. Covert) writes: >On 20 November 1986 the first international fiber-optic undersea cable >between Broadstairs and Ostende was officially dedicated. "UK-Belgium >No. 5" was laid the beginning of May and connects the British island >and the European mainland via the classic stretch of the English Channel. > > .... For protection against mechanical damage the cable >was buried in the ocean floor with a gigantic "Cable Plow" for most of >the stretch. > .... for the fiber-optic undersea cable installation TAT-8, >planned for 1988, which will connect Europe and North America with >each other. I hope this is a right group to ask these questions. They are about installing trans-atlantic and trans-pacific underwater cable systems. When the cable is run across the atlantic, how is the volcanically active mid-atlantic ridge system is bypassed? With the continents moving away from each other at about 2cm per year, a lot of slack must be allowed on the cable to account for possible stretching. Is this really a problem? How about the deep ocean trenches in the pacific that might suck the cable in? Related question: What is the average life time of underwater cable system? Thanks, sundar r. iyengar arpa: sundar%case.csnet 531, crawford hall csnet: sundar@case case western reserve university uucp: decvax!cwruecmp!sundar cleveland, oh 44106 ------------------------------ Date: Sun 22 Feb 87 04:39:32-EST From: Doug Reuben Subject: Mobile Calls Is there any way that one can place mobile calls over a wide area via the phone company other than Marine Band ship-to-shore calls and of course Cellular service? Since I mostly need to place calls, (rather than receive them) I don't particularly need a service like cellular, and would like to avoid paying the high start-up fees and monthly service charges if possible. I have a Marine band radio on my boat, and it works fine, but I am wondering of how well it would work in my car...? (Ie, how close to the shoreline would I have to be, is the signal easily cancelled out by minor obstructions such as small buildings along the road, etc?) I plan to use it mainly along I-95 and the Meritt Parkway in Connecticut, both of which are near the ocean. Any ideas on how the standard 25-watt radios will operate under such conditions? If there are any other similar systems, perhaps a land based system which allows mobile calls in areas not close marine areas, I would really appreciate hearing about it. I have been told that there is a way to place mobile calls with a Ham radio, but I have never been able to find out what is involved in that system. If anyone has any experience with this sort of thing, please let me know! Thanks in advance for any help! -Doug REUBEN@WESLYN.BITNET S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN@WESLEYAN.BITNET S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN%WESLEYAN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA (Please CC me a copy of any reply to the Telecom Digest as I receive the digest irregularly. Thanks!) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 4-Mar-87 01:23:50-EST,5598;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Wed 4 Mar 87 01:23:49-EST Date: 3 Mar 87 22:45-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #17 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, March 3, 1987 10:45PM Volume 6, Issue 17 Today's Topics: speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 Re: North American Numbering Plan - 18-digit numbers!! FTS2000 Test phone #'s ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU Date: Mon, 02 Mar 87 15:26:37 PST Subject: speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 03/02/87 15:26:35 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Jsol: It wasn't clear to me whether you: (a) bought speed-30 but went ahead and programmed speed-38, by using 2#,20-29,3#,30-39,4#,40-49,5# thru 9# (b) bought speed-8 but did the above; (c) transited from speed-30 to speed-8 accomplishing the above. Thanks, Doug speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 00:54 PST From: Paul Gloger Subject: Re: North American Numbering Plan - 18-digit numbers!! Maybe I missed something, but I think this whole discussion about the sufficiency of 6-and-1/2 or 7 or even 8 decimal digits' worth of phone numbers is way short of the mark. Assuming continuing competition and deregulation in the telecom industry, I personally will have at least a few dozen phone "lines" or "numbers:" one publicly listed number, one number for close friends to call me, one for my closest friend, one number for other acquaintances, one for RSVP's to my party invitation for my party on March 28, one number for me to call in to my home phone-answering machine, one for me to call my remotely-programmable oven to start dinner cooking, etc., etc. This wil be similar to how large companies presently use internal mail stops or mail codes or functional titles (e.g. "Free Brownie Recipe / Room 1422 / ABC Corp. / 1234 Maple St. / St. Louis ..."), preprended to Post Office addresses, to route snail-mail to a higher resolution than is provided by the Post Office. Formally, in the case of the phone numbers, this consists simply of encoding additional info. into the phone number, beyond the current practice of assigning one number to one person at one location. For phone numbers, it would be logical to allow the local phone company and their subscribers to agree to append an indefinite number of additional digits to the phone number, as many as the subscriber cared to use. Technology has been available for several years already which would make this trivial to do at an insignificant cost per additional line - just as today the actual cost of an adding an electronic mailbox to your local host computer is insignificant. Political regulation is the only thing standing in the way. /Paul Gloger ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 10:32:20 est From: Date: 3 Mar 87 15:28:34 GMT To: westpt!philabs!seismo!mod-telecom Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Responding-System: gray.UUCP Path: gray!boyter From: boyter@gray.UUCP (Cpt Brian Boyter) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: (none) Summary: yes, there was a big fire in a switching center Message-ID: <217@gray.UUCP> Date: 3 Mar 87 15:28:33 GMT References: <8703020223.AA04096@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: US Military Academy, West Point, NY Lines: 13 In article <8703020223.AA04096@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, rdsnyder@MIT-CCC.UUCP writes: > Subject: Fire in NPA 718 > > Does anyone know anything about a fire that apparently occurred in the > facilities serving NPA 718 (Brooklyn, NY)? I have heard on the news that there was a big fire in a NY Bell switching center a week or so ago.... Something like 40,000 people without phones... Hundreds of miles of cable as well as a new switch are being installed... I heard that about a third of the affected phones have been restored, but many others won't be restored for weeks... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 12:04:13 est From: sullivan@EDN-VAX.ARPA (Pat Sullivan) Subject: FTS2000 Can someone "out there" supply me with a govt contact for FTS2000? Thanks, Pat Sullivan Reston, VA. ------------------------------ Date: Tue 3 Mar 87 21:39:32-EST From: "Adam Peller" Subject: Test phone #'s Message-ID: <12283572594.85.OAF.G.PELLER@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU> How can I make phones in the Boston area (Newton to be specific) ring?? There used to be a number... Once it was 220, then 98x-nnnn, when dialed, you could hang-up and the phone would ring a few seconds later. This doesnt seem to work anymore - does anyone know this can be done today? thanks, Adam Peller -- ADAMP%OZ@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Arpa) Please reply directly to me, as I am not on the mailing list. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 4-Mar-87 22:15:23-EST,5598;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Wed 4 Mar 87 22:15:10-EST Date: 3 Mar 87 22:45-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #17 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, March 3, 1987 10:45PM Volume 6, Issue 17 Today's Topics: speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 Re: North American Numbering Plan - 18-digit numbers!! FTS2000 Test phone #'s ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU Date: Mon, 02 Mar 87 15:26:37 PST Subject: speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 03/02/87 15:26:35 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Jsol: It wasn't clear to me whether you: (a) bought speed-30 but went ahead and programmed speed-38, by using 2#,20-29,3#,30-39,4#,40-49,5# thru 9# (b) bought speed-8 but did the above; (c) transited from speed-30 to speed-8 accomplishing the above. Thanks, Doug speed-8, speed-30, speed-38 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 00:54 PST From: Paul Gloger Subject: Re: North American Numbering Plan - 18-digit numbers!! Maybe I missed something, but I think this whole discussion about the sufficiency of 6-and-1/2 or 7 or even 8 decimal digits' worth of phone numbers is way short of the mark. Assuming continuing competition and deregulation in the telecom industry, I personally will have at least a few dozen phone "lines" or "numbers:" one publicly listed number, one number for close friends to call me, one for my closest friend, one number for other acquaintances, one for RSVP's to my party invitation for my party on March 28, one number for me to call in to my home phone-answering machine, one for me to call my remotely-programmable oven to start dinner cooking, etc., etc. This wil be similar to how large companies presently use internal mail stops or mail codes or functional titles (e.g. "Free Brownie Recipe / Room 1422 / ABC Corp. / 1234 Maple St. / St. Louis ..."), preprended to Post Office addresses, to route snail-mail to a higher resolution than is provided by the Post Office. Formally, in the case of the phone numbers, this consists simply of encoding additional info. into the phone number, beyond the current practice of assigning one number to one person at one location. For phone numbers, it would be logical to allow the local phone company and their subscribers to agree to append an indefinite number of additional digits to the phone number, as many as the subscriber cared to use. Technology has been available for several years already which would make this trivial to do at an insignificant cost per additional line - just as today the actual cost of an adding an electronic mailbox to your local host computer is insignificant. Political regulation is the only thing standing in the way. /Paul Gloger ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 10:32:20 est From: Date: 3 Mar 87 15:28:34 GMT To: westpt!philabs!seismo!mod-telecom Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Responding-System: gray.UUCP Path: gray!boyter From: boyter@gray.UUCP (Cpt Brian Boyter) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: (none) Summary: yes, there was a big fire in a switching center Message-ID: <217@gray.UUCP> Date: 3 Mar 87 15:28:33 GMT References: <8703020223.AA04096@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: US Military Academy, West Point, NY Lines: 13 In article <8703020223.AA04096@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, rdsnyder@MIT-CCC.UUCP writes: > Subject: Fire in NPA 718 > > Does anyone know anything about a fire that apparently occurred in the > facilities serving NPA 718 (Brooklyn, NY)? I have heard on the news that there was a big fire in a NY Bell switching center a week or so ago.... Something like 40,000 people without phones... Hundreds of miles of cable as well as a new switch are being installed... I heard that about a third of the affected phones have been restored, but many others won't be restored for weeks... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 12:04:13 est From: sullivan@EDN-VAX.ARPA (Pat Sullivan) Subject: FTS2000 Can someone "out there" supply me with a govt contact for FTS2000? Thanks, Pat Sullivan Reston, VA. ------------------------------ Date: Tue 3 Mar 87 21:39:32-EST From: "Adam Peller" Subject: Test phone #'s Message-ID: <12283572594.85.OAF.G.PELLER@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU> How can I make phones in the Boston area (Newton to be specific) ring?? There used to be a number... Once it was 220, then 98x-nnnn, when dialed, you could hang-up and the phone would ring a few seconds later. This doesnt seem to work anymore - does anyone know this can be done today? thanks, Adam Peller -- ADAMP%OZ@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Arpa) Please reply directly to me, as I am not on the mailing list. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 5-Mar-87 01:34:58-EST,7643;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 4-Mar-87 21:13:29 Date: 4 Mar 87 21:13-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #18 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, March 4, 1987 9:13PM Volume 6, Issue 18 Today's Topics: Submission for mod-telecom Electronic Malaysia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Fritzson Date: 4 Mar 87 04:48:47 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: bigburd!fritzson From: fritzson@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM (Richard Fritzson) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Fire in Brooklyn phone facilities Message-ID: <2255@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM> Date: 4 Mar 87 04:48:46 GMT References: <8703020223.AA04096@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Distribution: na Organization: Unisys - Paoli Research Center Paoli, PA Lines: 19 In article <8703020223.AA04096@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> rdsnyder@MIT-CCC.UUCP writes: >Subject: Fire in NPA 718 > >Does anyone know anything about a fire that apparently occurred in the >facilities serving NPA 718 (Brooklyn, NY)? When I try to call 718-452-xxxx >using AT&T, I get the following message: >"Due to a fire in a New York Telephone facility, your call did not go through. >Please try your call again later. 718-2T" (Repeated twice, then Check out the latest issue of Mod.risks, the risks forum. It describes a toxic fire in the switching facilities in Brooklyn. Because of the highly toxic nature of the fire, no one was allowed back in for quite awhile. A number of exchanges were down. -- -Rich Fritzson Unisys - Paoli Research Center {seismo,sdcrdcf,psuvax1}!burdvax!fritzson ------------------------------ Date: 4 Mar 1987 10:20:33-EST From: dm@bfly-vax.bbn.com@MIT-CCC Subject: Electronic Malaysia Date: 04 Mar 87 10:09:45 EST (Wed) From: dm@bfly-vax.bbn.com ------- Forwarded Message Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 22:10:41 EST From: Dan Franklin To: silent-tristero@prophet.bbn.com Subject: Modern Times (from The Atlantic) >From the February 1987 issue of the Atlantic comes a plaint by James Fallows on the electronic age in Malaysia: ... In the old, colonial days the expatriate's lifeline from Malaya was the Singapore packet ship, bringing tinned biscuits and the weekly mail. In the "old" pre-computer days it was the Telex machine, expensive but quick. On arrival in Malaysia I initially relied on the Telex, scrawling dispatches in big block letters and taking my sheaf of papers to a downtown office, where I could chat with the Telex girls. Now I have "advanced" to a more stylish and direct connection. My new lifeline is MCI Mail, the computer network that in theory provides a cheap and immediate link to anyone with a computer and a modem, anywhere in the world. In the U.S. using it was quick and painless; here the gap between theory and reality threatens to swallow me up. Malaysia has a brand-new "public data network," called Maypac, which in principle allows me to call a number in Kuala Lumpur to be connected with MCI Mail. But for obscure reasons MCI and Maypac couldn't make connections during my first two months of trying. My fallback plan was to attach my modem, brought from America, to my home phone and, on the days the phone was working, to call MCI's number in the U.S. But the connection, via satellite, was too fuzzy. To make matters worse, on my second try the modem blew up when my 240-to-110-volt transformer failed. I tried another modem, bought in Japan, which ran on batteries and did not explode. This one clamped onto the rounded telephone handsets that are standard in the U.S. and Japan. But residential phones in Malaysia are squared off, and the modem won't fit. I refused to be denied the convenience of a modern computerized link. I learned that Singapore has a data network -- and no disagreements with MCI. From pay phones in Malaysia you can reach Singapore, and the pay phones have rounded handsets onto which the modem, with some shoving, will fit. I signed up with the Singapore network. My preparations were complete. This is how I now use advanced technology to keep in touch: I leave home in the morning dragging a big blue canvas sack. In the sack are the clamp-on modem, a small Radio Shack computer, a modem-to-computer cable, and eighteen to twenty pounds of Malaysian coins. The coins are each worth twenty sen, or about eight American cents, and they're thick and heavy. One of them is good for seven seconds of connection to Singapore, so I need them in bulk. When my supply gets low, I stop at Bank Bumiputra Malaysia ("Bank of the Original Sons of the Soil of Malaysia"), where i can walk in with a 100-ringgit ($40) bill and walk out an hour later with my coins. I go to one of Kuala Lumpur's busiest streets and set up shop under the sign that says TELEFON ... The modem goes on top of the phone; the coins get piled in big mounds wherever I can find a flat surface. The ones left over sag in my pants pockets, making me list. I raise my right knee and brace it against the bottom of the phone, rest the computer on my now-horizontal right thigh, and connect the cable. I'm ready to begin. I dial the number in Singapore, wait to hear the computer tone, and slam the handset down into the modem before the tone cuts off and my first twenty sen's worth of time expires. Then comes the hard part: shoveling twenty-sen pieces into the phone every seven seconds, and digging spares out of my pockets when the mounds dwindle down, while trying to type the commands necessary to make contact. "NQJFXPM03106004759" is only the first part of the elaborate sign-on code. Every four or five minutes the phone's coin box fills up and I have to break contact, disassemble my equipement, and move to the next phone in line. I've chosen this location because I don't know any other with so many phones in a row. There is a bus stop right by my telephones, and a hangout favored by off-duty police. To the regulars I have become an institution, a major spectacle, a dependably hilarious diversion to replace the rock concerts that Malaysia recently outlawed. As I fumble to keep the money going into the slot, coins inevitably fall to the ground. Little children with backpacks, waiting for the bus to school, dart between my feet, filching twenty-sen pieces and skipping away in glee. Women in beautiful saris, sober Muslims going to work in the nearby Tabung Haji ("Fund for Pilgrimages to Mecca"), young toughs on their loud motorbikes, all laugh openly at the sweaty, red-faced foreigner doing his Modern Times routine at the phones. The humiliation of the West is complete. Then the daily inch-a-minute downpour begins, nd I try to hold an umbrella with my chin. When I have finished, I carefully repack my equipement, sweep the remaining coins into the bag, and walk off looking straight ahead, with as much dignity as I can muster. Tomorrow I will do it all again. On my way home I pass the Telex office. Through the window I see my friends the Telex girls, in their smart tan uniforms, smiling as they sit at their machines. I am too modern to need the likes of them. - James Fallows ------- End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 7-Mar-87 13:31:04-EST,5043;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sat 7 Mar 87 13:31:04-EST Date: 7 Mar 87 12:37-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #19 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, March 7, 1987 12:37PM Volume 6, Issue 19 Today's Topics: NANP Fax emulator boards Dial-in Modems for VAX administrivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Mar 87 22:06:56 est From: Bill Huttig Subject: NANP Where can I obtain a copy of the North America Numbering Plan? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Mar 87 10:37:17 est From: sullivan@EDN-VAX.ARPA (Pat Sullivan) Subject: Fax emulator boards The 4 March issue of EDN, pp53-56, describes some new fax emulators for PC's which apparently are compatible with CCITT group 3 and 4 algorithms, and which appear to be designed exclusively with dial-up phone line connections in mind. Two questions come to mind: 1. Is anyone working on a packet interface for these fax boards, or integrating them with existing packet interfaces, such as the PC-X.25 products or what I think of as "PC-IP" (single-connection-TCP, IP, TFTP running on a LAN)? 2. Are there obvious & compelling reasons why running fax thru a packet or robust transport layer would NOT be a good idea? (er, more than two questions) 3. What will implications be for ISDN-type services? Interfacing to B-channel dial-up sounds like a straightforward design problem with nonzero but small risk. However, it sounds like the whole idea of packetizing fax through the D-channel needs to be looked at carefully to determine under what performance and cost ranges it would be a desirable service. Thanks for all thoughts, Pat Sullivan DCEC Reston, VA. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Mar 87 13:34 EST From: denber.wbst@Xerox.COM Subject: Dial-in Modems for VAX I need some help in a big way here. All I want to do is set up some modems so users can dial in to our MicroVax-II. We're running Micro-VMS and have a 16 port Emulex multiplexer board. It took the phone company 5 tries before we had our phone lines working (but that's another story). The first problem seems to be the modems. Has anyone ever used Codex 2233's? These are 2400 baud modems with about 59 million different options. Unfortunately, the options seem to have a habit of changing value by themselves seemingly at random. Specific problems include at various times randomly getting wedged such that only cycling power will reset them; failing to answer the phone even though set to autoanswer mode; going off-hook when no one is calling; answering the phone and then rudely hanging up on the caller; going into analog-loopback; and getting stuck at 300 baud (not resetting to 2400 for the next caller). On dialout, they lock up if they call a host running at 1200 baud (they drop down from 2400 to 1200 OK, but then refuse to send any data). After several days of floundering, we decided we didn't really want non-deterministic modems. We then tried a BytCom modem. This had the unfortunate property of not releasing the line when the caller hung up (yes the port is set to "hang"). Next we tried a "Mikon" modem (don't ask me where they come from - I just install them). This seems to work OK sometimes, although it also sometimes hangs up immediately after answering. Anyway, my questions are: what kind of modems do you use on your Vax for dial-in's? What lines does the Vax use to control them? (We're using DSR, CD, and DTR). I've noticed that our Vax normally holds DTR (pin 20) high on idle modem ports, but occasionally cycles it low for about a second, then brings it high again. Why does it do that? Could that explain the hang-up problem (like if someone is unfortunate enough to call in just when the Vax drops DTR, that would make the modem hang up)? Any and all help would be most appreciated. - Michel Denber.wbst@Xerox.COM ------------------------------ Date: Sat 7 Mar 87 12:34:08-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: administrivia Issues 13 and 16 were lost due to a bug in the distribution mechanism. We are working on a fix for this bug but we may lose other issues. I will continue to post messages to TELECOM when this happens. If you are missing a digest, you should send mail to TELECOM-REQUEST@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU. Please don't send to me asking for me to send you issues 13 and 16, I don't have them. If you submitted something and it hasn't been distributed you may assume that it was lost in the 13 and 16 fiasco. --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 11-Mar-87 02:53:22-EST,10162;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Wed 11 Mar 87 02:53:20-EST Date: 11 Mar 87 00:59-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #20 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, March 11, 1987 12:59AM Volume 6, Issue 20 Today's Topics: modems over cellular Re: Dial-in Modems for VAX E-COM ? Re: NANP Submission for mod-telecom Submission for mod-telecom Issue 13 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Mar 87 10:44:59 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: modems over cellular There are two types that I know of. There is something called "a bridge and a span", which, from what I can tell is basically a 1200 baud modem, one end on your mobil, the other in the switch at the center of the cell system. Then another regular 212 compatible modem dials out from there. This bridge and span stuff is supposed to be 212 compatible, but it's not error free if you connect straight to another 212 modem. Sorry, this is all I know about this product. I think MNP class 4 would work very well over cellular, provided that the MNP has it's timeout level set sufficiently high so as to not drop the line in long mutes, (greater than a few seconds), which sometimes occur in frindg areas. Why I say class 4 is that in fring areas you can get pops and clicks. True class 4 will try to ship data around this noise and try to create an optimum packet size. I have found that Microcom brand MNP modems time out much more quickly than some of their competitors, and hang up the line when the noise wasn't nearly as bad as it really was. This brand probebly wouldn't be good for this application. -Mike ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Mar 87 20:28:46 EST From: yerazuws@csv.rpi.edu (Crah) Subject: Re: Dial-in Modems for VAX In article <870306-103725-1768@Xerox>, denber.wbst@XEROX.COM writes: > I need some help in a big way here. All I want to do is set up some > modems so users can dial in to our MicroVax-II. We're running Micro-VMS > and have a 16 port Emulex multiplexer board. It took the phone company > 5 tries before we had our phone lines working (but that's another > story). The first problem seems to be the modems. [many sob stories omitted - wsy] I have a MicroVAX II with a DHV-11 multiplexor board. Connected to this via a 25-line straight-thru cable is a Scholar 2400/1200/300 baud modem. It works fine except when the power glitches badly; the uVAX rides out the glitch just fine, but the modem sometimes decides to not answer the phone- ever. This has happened twice in three months. Power cycling restores the modem to sanity. The configuration on the modem line is /MODEM/HANGUP/AUTOBAUD. The DTR down/up is due to the uVAX thinking it saw something come from the modem (possibly a text message). VMS responds to the characters by printing the welcome banner and Username:. If it doesn't get a valid user/password pair in thirty seconds, it toggles DTR to tell the modem to drop the line. You can get the modem/uVAX into an infinite loop this way, (each one sending the other an error message, and getting an error message back). PBX data switches do it easily. This crashed our local data switch- IBX S40's can't deal with a DTR toggle every thirty seconds. The cure was to set the line NOMODEM on the data switch (NOT the dialup modem lines) Hope this helps. -Bill Yerazunis "People at the door, Daniel. Police, Daniel" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Mar 87 10:20 CDT From: Mike Linnig Subject: E-COM ? I saw a software package in the store today that advertised access to the post offices E-COM electronic mail system. It stated that it cost 26 cents for a single page letter (take that MCI-MAIL). Unfortunately, the software package was for a IBM's (I own a MAC). Does anyone know about E-COM? HOw do you get access to it? I'm sure the software package was just a communications program. Mike Linnig, Linnig%TI-eg@csnet-relay.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Mar 87 15:15:36 EST From: marv@vsedev.VSE.COM (Marvin Raab) Subject: Re: NANP Reply-To: seismo!vsedev!marv (Marvin Raab) In article <8703020306.AA24100@macs.UUCP> wah@macs.UUCP (Bill Huttig) writes: >Where can I obtain a copy of the North America >Numbering Plan? dumb question #1: What IS the North American Numbering Plan? -marvin -- Marvin Raab Arlington, VA 22202 ...!seismo!vsedev!marv 703-521-5449 (h) ...!verdix!vrdxhq!vsedev!marv (formerly MFRQC@CUNYVM.BITNET) ------------------------------ From: rochester!kodak!grodberg@seismo.CSS.GOV (jeremy grodberg) Date: 9 Mar 87 23:48:13 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: kodak!grodberg From: grodberg@kodak.UUCP (jeremy grodberg) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: error correcting modems Summary: Error correction with notification is superfluous. Message-ID: <733@kodak.UUCP> Date: 9 Mar 87 23:48:12 GMT References: <8702230043.AA02476@alliant.Alliant.COM> Reply-To: grodberg@kodak.UUCP (jeremy grodberg) Distribution: world Organization: Eastman Kodak Co, Rochester, NY Lines: 44 In article XXX steckel@alliant.Alliant.COM (Geoff Steckel) writes: > >A number of vendors have introduced "error correcting" modems recently. >I have heard of none that notify the user that correction has taken place. >... From experience and reading in networking, this is a disaster waiting to >happen. From my experience with error correcting modems, notification of error correction would be pointless. First, at high speeds (4800 baud and up) over normal phone lines, there is error correction taking place very frequently (more often then every 1000 characters). Thus the notification would be so frequent as to be routinely ignored, and therefore pointless, totally leaving out the fact that such notification would necessarily make the modem non- transparent, which would greatly reduce it usefullness. Besides, notification that error correction has take place has nothing to do with passing along incorrect data. Incorrect data comes from so many errors ocurring in the same block that the error correcting scheme gets fooled into thinking some erroneous data was correct because "it checks." True, some good data may be trashed as well, but it is also possible that the mistakes will fall so that no error correction takes place at all. Certainly, the fact the error correction took place is not at all a good indicator that bad data was passed, and in many error correction schemes, it is not possible to know when an uncorrectable error has occurred (although there are some that can catch a high percentage of such errors, none can guard against all possible error sequences). It may be adviseable to use a low-power error correction scheme or error detection scheme with ECC modems, but I'm not sure. We have been routinely transmitting around 750K of binaries a day at 4800 baud (with error correction and data compression) via Motorola S-records, which provide very good error detection. We have been doing this 5 days a week for over two months, and have NEVER detected an uncorrected tranmission error, even though we frequently have error correction taking place in every block (512 characters). If an error correcting scheme can promise me no more than one uncorrected error every six months of use, I'll be happy. Nothing is perfect, and it is dangerous to make things almost perfect, because it leads to humans putting too much faith in such systems (It has to be right, the computer says so.). -Jeremy Grodberg Usenet: ...rochester!kodak!grodberg Arpa: grodberg@kodak or kodak!grodberg@rochester ------------------------------ From: seismo!ihnp4!wheaton!johnh@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (John Doc Hayward) Date: 8 Mar 87 19:27:15 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: wheaton!johnh From: johnh@wheaton.UUCP (John Doc Hayward) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: color code for wire? Keywords: red green codes? Message-ID: <451@wheaton.UUCP> Date: 8 Mar 87 19:27:14 GMT Organization: Wheaton College, Wheaton IL Lines: 11 I noticed that comming into our home that the plate with outside wires had red and green connected to two posts and that the wire going to the phone had the green connected to the red and the red connected to the green. Does this matter? (ie is the line polarized or does it just act like two wires with A/C electricity. Thanks in advance -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= UUCP: ihnp4!wheaton!johnh telephone: (312) 260-3871 (office) Mail: John Hayward Math/Computer Science Dept. Wheaton College Wheaton Il 60187 Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8b ------------------------------ Date: Wed 11 Mar 87 00:55:21-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: Issue 13 We now have the contents of the original Issue 13. If you receive TELECOM message-by-message (as opposed to a digest format) then you already have these messages. Digest readers: You may FTP this file from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (10.0.0.44), username ANONYMOUS, password TELECOM. The file path is XX:ISSUE-13..1. If you don't have any means of FTPing the file then I will mail it to you. Send your request for this file to TELECOM-REQUEST@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU. --JSol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 13-Mar-87 21:03:44-EST,9969;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Fri 13 Mar 87 21:03:42-EST Date: 13 Mar 87 19:54-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #21 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, March 13, 1987 7:54PM Volume 6, Issue 21 Today's Topics: Re: error correcting modems Re: color code for wire? Telenet connection to unix Submission for mod.telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 11 Mar 87 05:21:35-EST From: Philip A. Earnhardt Subject: Re: error correcting modems > From my experience with error correcting modems, notification of error > correction would be pointless. > ... > If an error correcting scheme can promise me no more than one uncorrected > error every six months of use, I'll be happy. Nothing is perfect, and it is > dangerous to make things almost perfect, because it leads to humans putting > too much faith in such systems (It has to be right, the computer says so.). MNP modems were discussed in TELECOM around 6 months ago. This family of protocols packectze the data, using the CRC-16 polynomial for error detection. DEC used the CRC-16 polynomial for its DDCMP protocol. If used with appropriately small packets (I believe less than 4K bits), CRC-16 will detect all but a miniscule (something around 1 in 10**14) number of the errors. The main problems with MNP are: 1) (At least at 2400bps) the latency caused by the packetization and timeouts makes the character echo time a significant fraction of a second. Interactive use is, at best, annoying. 2) There is no protection for data corruption between the modems and the computers at the ends of the connection. To assure reliable data transfer, there must be a secondary data-integrity mechanism in place. Since MNP can't, by its design, do the whole job, why not use the secondary mechanism exclusively? For detailed information about what I've summarized above, please consult the TELECOM archives. At my job, we have the error correcting turned off on all of our modems. I'll occasionally turn it on when I want to monitor something from home for many hours (and don't have a lot of typing to do!). It goes back off immediately afterwards. --phil ------------------------------ Date: 11 Mar 87 12:40 EST From: denber.wbst@Xerox.COM Subject: Re: color code for wire? "is the line polarized or does it just act like two wires with A/C electricity" Yes, the phone line is polarized, and no it *usually* doesn't matter which way your phone is hooked up. I've heard some older model touch-tone phones won't dial if they're connected backwards. Ordinarily, the colors should match - red to red, green to green. One is at ground and the other is something like -48 vdc (I forget which is which). By the way, AC lines are polarized too. The white wire is always ground (technically "neutral") and the black wire is hot. Black always runs to the smaller slot of electrical outlets, (the coppper colored screw terminal). Never trust this of course - you'd be surprised how many houses have wiring errors. Unlike phones, the penalty for a mistake here can be death. You can buy cheap polarity testers for both phone outlets and AC outlets from Sears or Radio Schlock. - Michel ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 87 15:58:16 est From: berger%datacube.UUCP@CCA.CCA.COM (Bob Berger) Subject: Telenet connection to unix What are the issues and how do I go about getting connected to the Telenet network with my unix system? I have customers and distributors in Europe and Israel who want to communicate via uucp and dialup. Some have asked if we could connect to Telenet to do this. Is it possible to uucp over telenet? Who do I call to find out more about subscribing? Bob Berger Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125 UUCP: ihnp4!datacube!berger {seismo,cbosgd,cuae2,mit-eddie}!mirror!datacube!berger ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 87 23:15:43 EST From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom > I noticed that coming into our home that the plate with outside wires had > red and green connected to two posts and that the wire going to the phone had > the green connected to the red and the red connected to the green. Does this > matter? (ie is the line polarized or does it just act like two wires with > A/C electricity. Thanks in advance A telephone line has polarity, since direct current is used to excite the telephone instrument. Such excitation not only powers the telephone transmitter (i.e., microphone), but operates any DTMF (i.e., Touch-tone) dial circuit, dial pulsing circuit (in newer solid-state telephones), electronic tone ringer, solid-state network in newer telephones, etc. In addition, DC current flow through the telephone loop indicates to the central office apparatus that the telephone requests service and is in use (called loop signaling). While the telephone ringing signal sent from the central office is 20 Hz AC, the AC is superimposed upon a DC signal, so there is still always a DC potential present. The purpose of such superimposition is to assure immediate and reliable detection of called party answer ("ring trip"). The nominal on-hook (i.e., telephone is idle) DC voltage across a conventional telephone loop is -48 volts. Notice that I use the word "conventional", since a small but nevertheless significant percentage of telephone lines run through subscriber line concentrators or loop extenders; under these circumstances, the on-hook voltage can be as little as -6 volts DC or as high as -96 volts DC, depending upon the type of concentrator or loop extender apparatus. The vernacular used to describe telephone line polarity are the terms "tip" and "ring". The tip side of the line is in effect positive ground, and the ring side of the line is in effect a negative battery voltage (i.e., - 48 volts DC). While I have called the tip side of the line a "positive ground", it is not a true ground since the actual ground connection occurs in the central office apparatus through the DC resistance (typically 200 ohms) of an inductor or transformer winding. As a result, the on-hook measurement of the tip side of the line to an earth ground (i.e., water pipe) at the subscriber location will show a small voltage differential. On-hook measurement of the ring side of the line to earth ground at the subscriber location will show the nominal -48 volts. The following are some common equivalent designations for the tip and ring polarity of a telephone subscriber line: DESIGNATION TIP RING NOTES green wire of green/red pair X red wire of green/red pair X black wire of black/yellow pair X #1 yellow wire of black/yellow pair X #1 white wire of white/blue pair X #2 blue wire of white/blue pair X #2 white wire of white/orange pair X #3 orange wire of white/orange pair X #3 L1 terminal in telephone set X L2 terminal in telephone set X +T terminal in telephone set X #4 -T terminal in telephone set X #4 NOTE 1: When used as pair for second telephone line in 4-wire cable NOTE 2: White is equivalent to white wire with blue stripes, and blue is equivalent to blue wire with white stripes when striped cable is used. NOTE 3: White is equivalent to white wire with orange stripes, and orange is equivalent to orange wire with white stripes when striped cable is used; typically used for second telephone line in a multi-pair cable. NOTE 4: Common designation for GTE/Automatic Electric telephones Most telephones manufactured today are polarity independent; i.e., the telephone will work even if tip and ring are reversed. However, not all telephones are polarity independent; two notable exceptions are: telephones used for multi-party lines (which are fortunately disappearing!); and older Touch-tone telephones (whose dial won't work if tip and ring are reversed. Even though most telephones are polarity-independent, it is still a good idea to maintain correct color/terminal polarity in any telephone wiring. Why? Because it will simplify troubleshooting. As an example, say you experience a loud hum on your telephone line; a typical cause is either tip or ring accidentally shorted to earth ground. If you remove your telephone instruments from their jacks, and isolate the inside wiring from the outside line, using an ohmmeter you can determine which wire is shorted to ground. If you detect ground leakage on say, the tip side of the line, you will know exactly which color of wire and which terminal is to be suspect throughout the entirety of your inside wiring. Maintaining proper tip/ring polarity on all outside cables is very important to the telephone company, since various kinds of test equipment and procedures used from the central office can pinpoint the precise location of a cable fault; an important assumption for many of these fault-locating procedures is that the outside cables always have tip/ring correspondence. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 18-Mar-87 00:57:45-EST,6439;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Wed 18 Mar 87 00:57:43-EST Date: 17 Mar 87 23:47-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #22 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, March 17, 1987 11:47PM Volume 6, Issue 22 Today's Topics: Public Data Net connections Re: Telenet connection to unix Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #20 Restoring Cellulsr Coverage on the Radio Shack PRO-2004 Scanner Re: Submission for mod.telecom Re: Submission for mod.telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 13 Mar 87 23:45:27-PST From: David Roode Subject: Public Data Net connections The overhead on this is considerable. Estimate $800-$1200 monthly for a 4800 baud synchronous leased line to the PDN switching node and $200-$900 per month to rent an 8 port PAD for a host connection. I understand Tymnet has a dial-out option which permits access to arbitrary dialup hosts, so perhaps this would be your best bet. Telenet has PC pursuit but carefully limits access to selected US area codes, both for incoming and outgoing dial-modem asynch. connections. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Mar 87 12:54:21 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Re: Telenet connection to unix I suggest you call GTE Telenet. You need a full duplex ascii connection to your remote hosts. You will be calling up the telenet network with your computer, having it send some other characters down the line telling telenet where you want to connect to, then you will log in as normal. -Mike ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Mar 87 17:46:56 est From: ms6b#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #20 E-COM was discontinued by the Post Office about 2 years ago. It was losing money hand over fist. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Mar 87 18:43:38 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Restoring Cellulsr Coverage on the Radio Shack PRO-2004 Scanner In the March 1987 (Vol 6, Number 3) issue of Monitoring Times on page 48, there is a short article on how to modify your RadioShack Scanner to pick up the cellular frequencies. (This just had to have been leaked from someone in Tandy sales!) 1. Remove the four cabinet screws and the cabinet 2. Turn the receiver upside down and locate circuit board PC-3 3. Remove seven screws holding board and plug CN-501 4. Carefully lift up the board and locate diode soldered in place below the module {In the large article, it mentions "a matrix of diodes attached to the microprocessor's input port, which is often used to configure radios for sale in different markets. From recent flux on the circuit board, it appears that a diode had been added/removed", this is the diode in question.} 5. Snip one lead of the diode carefully, leaving it suspended by the other lead for later reattachment if desired, such as warranty repair 6. Reverse first four steps above for reassembly. Radio will now cover 825-845 and 870-890 MHz and search in 30 KHz increments for no-gap 760-1300 MHz reception (Thanks to Jim Marquand and other readers of Monitoring Times) I do not own a PRO-2004, nor have I ever seen this tried, do it at your own risk. -Mike ------------------------------ Date: 16 Mar 1987 19:44:40-EST From: rdsnyder@MIT-CCC Subject: Re: color code for wire? > DESIGNATION TIP RING NOTES > green wire of green/red pair X > red wire of green/red pair X > black wire of black/yellow pair X #1 > yellow wire of black/yellow pair X #1 > > NOTE 1: When used as pair for second telephone line in 4-wire cable > > <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York The yellow/black pair above is reversed. Yellow is TIP of the second pair in quad (4 cond. Gr/Rd/Yl/Bk cable) and black is RING of the second pair. The yellow/black pair is also used for getting 6-8VAC from a transformer in the basement to the dial lamp on a Princess (700-type) telephone. Yellow is sometimes used as a ground in 2-party service. The ringing voltage is applied from tip (green) to ground (yellow) to ring the tip-party's phone and from ring (red) to ground to ring the ring-party's phone. The yellow/black pair is also used in key systems as the A/A1 pair. The station equipment shorts A & A1 together while off-hook. In multi-conductor cable, White, red, black, yellow and violet are tip, and blue, orange, green, brown, and slate are ring. These colors are organized in a base 5 numbering system (not decimal, but easily converted). -Ross ------------------------------ From: natkin@degas.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Natkin) Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom Date: 18 Mar 87 00:07:30 GMT Reply-To: degas.Berkeley.EDU!natkin@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Natkin) In article <8703130415.AA22972@seismo.CSS.GOV> larry@kitty.UUCP writes: > Maintaining proper tip/ring polarity on all outside cables is very >important to the telephone company, since various kinds of test equipment >and procedures used from the central office can pinpoint the precise location >of a cable fault; an important assumption for many of these fault-locating >procedures is that the outside cables always have tip/ring correspondence. > ><> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York I've always wanted to know how the locating of cable faults works - i have some hypotheses, but maybe you would care to edify myself and other readers on this subject? michael natkin natkin@degas.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue 17 Mar 87 23:46:24-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom I noticed when my lines were installed, they had a break in my subscriber loop and they found it by using a buzzer on the line which they tested for using a probe connected to their butt-in set. It was fun to watch. --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 21-Mar-87 01:00:17-EST,6532;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sat 21 Mar 87 01:00:15-EST Date: 21 Mar 87 00:14-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #23 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, March 21, 1987 12:14AM Volume 6, Issue 23 Today's Topics: Directory assistance from Charge-a-Call-Plus phones Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #22 Hunters and telephone lines Re: Submission for mod.telecom Submission for mod.telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Mar 87 9:07:21 EST From: Bernie Cosell Subject: Directory assistance from Charge-a-Call-Plus phones I'd appreciate a bit of "how to do it" advice: the other day I was caught a Logan airport with fouled up accomodation reservations at my destination, so I whipped out my AmEx card and tried to use the C-a-C-Plus phone. Worked like a charm (one of the few times I've felt that I got something out of the deregulation!). BUT... I couldn't figure out how to get directory assistance. I tried a couple of things, but each time it claimed that the number was "not reachable fromthis phone". Eventually, I went to a REAL pay phone, coughed up $.60 got my number and then called it from the CaC+. *is* there some trick or technique or whatever for getting LD directory assistance on your credit card? (I don't have an AT+T Calling Card). Thanks /Bernie\ Bernie Cosell Internet: cosell@bbn.com Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc USENET: harvard!bbn.com!cosell Cambridge, MA 02238 Telco: (617) 497-3503 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #22 From: johnso%tp5@rand-unix.ARPA (A. Ross Johnson) Date: 18 Mar 87 09:35:04 PST (Wed) Subject: Public Data Net Access Tymnet offers a dedicated async. outdial modem service, which is the cheapest option and is suitable for low volume operations. Non-U.S. users can connect to the outdial modem via the local PDN and Tymnet, and then dial a hosts with a local call. (If the host is in a major city; otherwise a LD call.) (U.S. users could also use it, but it is probably not cost effective if that is the primary application.) Call your local Tymnet sales office, but be prepared to have to tell them that they offer the service! (They call it Asynchronous Outdial Service) Ross Johnson RAND Corporation ------------------------------ Date: Fri 20 Mar 87 00:59:54-EST From: Seth Chaiklin Subject: Hunters and telephone lines I am interested in installing a hunter on three telephone lines that are attached to modems that are receiving calls. The phone company tells me that the lines are "auxiliary" lines and that one cannot put a hunter on these lines. They claim that a "trunk" line is needed if one wants to use a hunter. What is the difference between an auxiliary line and a trunk line? Are the phone company claims accurate? Could someone supply a short tutorial? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Gary Wells Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom Date: 20 Mar 87 01:32:55 GMT Reply-To: Gary Wells There are several methods used by the telco's for line testing. The simplest is that all cables have a known (very precisely) resistance and capacitance per foot. If a short is applied at the end of a cable (or a known resistance, etc), then a calibrated ohmmeter can tell you how far away the short is. If you are looking at a clean open, you can apply the same principle with a capacitance meter (though, in practice, it is not as accurate). By knowing WHAT is hanging on the end of your cable, you can quickly tell the status of the pair AND the station. This is why the telco's fought so hard about registration. They really didn't care about the equipment, they just need to know what it "looks" like, for trouble isolation purposes. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Mar 87 01:46:59 EST From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom Subject: Re: color code for wire? In a recent reply to my original article, rdsnyder@MIT-CCC writes: > > DESIGNATION TIP RING NOTES > > green wire of green/red pair X > > red wire of green/red pair X > > black wire of black/yellow pair X #1 > > yellow wire of black/yellow pair X #1 > > > > NOTE 1: When used as pair for second telephone line in 4-wire cable > > The yellow/black pair above is reversed. > Yellow is TIP of the second pair in quad (4 cond. Gr/Rd/Yl/Bk cable) and > black is RING of the second pair. Sorry, but you are incorrect. Black is always TIP and yellow is always RING. This true not only for inside station wiring, but for outside direct burial two-pair "B" Service Wire. I refer to AT&T System Practices Sections 461-610-100 and 460-300-143 as examples in case anyone doubts my statement. You may be confused by looking at the end of a modular plug and thinking that TIP is one side of center, and RING is the other; the pin locations on modular connectors are transposed every other pair (up to the full 4-pairs for an RJ-45). > The yellow/black pair is also used in key systems as the A/A1 pair. The > station equipment shorts A & A1 together while off-hook. In this application, the A-lead is the actual control line, and the A1-lead is ground. The A-lead is always the "tip" conductor and the A1-lead is always the "ring" conductor, when the two are in the same pair. > White, red, black, yellow and violet are tip, and blue, orange, green, > brown, and slate are ring. Except, of course, when white/red, white/black, and yellow/red is used for distributing frame jumper pairs... :-) <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 22-Mar-87 20:11:48-EST,14058;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sun 22 Mar 87 20:11:45-EST Date: 22 Mar 87 19:14-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #24 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, March 22, 1987 7:14PM Volume 6, Issue 24 Today's Topics: 1 + areacode Radio call letters Submission for mod.telecom (line hunting) Submission for mod.telecom (telephone cable fault location) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Mar 87 1:33:56 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 1 + areacode Every once in a while, you'll see something in a newspaper about "person(s) dialing a certain number forgot to dial the area code (which could also be 800 or 900), and the call(s) went to so-and-so". For example, a certain number on 976 prefix was advertised on a New York cable TV station, and it was received in Philadelphia area by some people who dialed the number and forgot to dial the area code. Question regarding the above: Does 1+ dialing have an impact? (Instructions in Phila. & Pa. suburbs: dial local no. for local call; 1+local no. for elsewhere in 215 area; 1+areacode+local no. for outside 215 area. But in NJ, most places do NOT require 1+ for any within-areacode calls, and [before N0X/N1X prefixes in 201 area] did not require 1+ for out-of-areacode calls.) ------------------------------ Date: 22 Mar 87 13:15 PST From: KJBSF@SLACVM Subject: Radio call letters Date: 22 March 1987, 13:12:21 PST From: Kevin J. Burnett x3330 To: Subject: Radio call letters I have noticed that along with the Kxxx and Wxxx call letters used for radio stations in the US, there are ones used for other countries as well (such as HCJB radio in Quito, Ecuador). Where would I be able to find out how the lettering plan works? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Mar 87 21:47:03 EST From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (line hunting) In a recent article EXT1.CHAIKLIN@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU (Seth Chaiklin) writes: > I am interested in installing a hunter on three telephone lines that are > attached to modems that are receiving calls. The phone company tells me > that the lines are "auxiliary" lines and that one cannot put a hunter > on these lines. They claim that a "trunk" line is needed if one wants > to use a hunter. > What is the difference between an auxiliary line and a trunk line? In virtually all cases, the difference is in telephone company tariff descriptions, and therefore in the recurring monthly cost for the affected line; there is no "hardware" difference. Trunks, auxiliary lines, and POTS lines (Plain Old Telephone Service) all look the same to the central office line equipment; the only exception is that trunks are often configured as ground-start lines - but then again, ANY line can be optioned as a ground-start line. With the exception of constraints imposed by older electromechanical central offices (like SxS and X-Y), virtually any central office can be configured to cause any directory number to "hunt" (if busy) to any other directory number, in a continuing chain (often called ISG - Incoming Service Group) without regard to the actual directory numbers involved. There is no special hardware in the central office which must be added to cause lines to hunt; in electromechanical offices, jumper wires are changed in some cross-connect fields. In ESS offices, hunting configuration is accomplished through software changes made using the console tty. > Are the phone company claims accurate? It depends upon the tariffs for your local telephone company. For New York Telephone, auxiliary lines and auxiliary trunks (yes, there is a "paper" distinction) can be made to hunt in additional groups (i.e., in addition to the "main directory number" hunt group) for no additional monthly charge; there is, however, a non-recurring "installation" charge if this configuration is performed at some time after the lines in question are actually installed. However, some telephone company tariffs require that the FIRST line of any hunt group be considered a "trunk" or "main" line - at a higher recurring monthly cost. This may be your situation; if it is, you will face a monthly increase in the charge for the first affected line, plus a non-recurring charge for the new configuration. No physical line change nor premises visit will be involved. (Read "rip-off", if you so desire... :-) ) I would suggest that you ask your telephone company salesperson to put in writing the billing charges for the addition of hunting; this request generally causes a telephone company salesperson to double-check their information. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Mar 87 21:47:23 EST From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (telephone cable fault location) In a recent article natkin@DEGAS.BERKELEY.EDU (Michael Natkin) writes: > > Maintaining proper tip/ring polarity on all outside cables is very > > important to the telephone company, since various kinds of test equipment > > and procedures used from the central office can pinpoint precise location > > of a cable fault; an important assumption for many of these fault-locating > > procedures is that the outside cables always have tip/ring correspondence. > > I've always wanted to know how the locating of cable faults works - > i have some hypotheses, but maybe you would care to edify myself and > other readers on this subject? There are a number of fault-locating methods used by operating telephone companies (and others who maintain long runs of cable); these methods have in common that measurements are taken from one or both ends of the cable only - with the location of the fault between the two locations being the result of the measurement. Fault location in telephone cable is not as simple as just making resistance or capacitance measurements. One of the reasons is that there is often a foreign potential present across tip-to-ring, tip-to-ground, and ring-to-ground. Depending upon the type of fault (like a wet cable splice), all three of these measurements may be different. What this means is that a simple ohmmeter circuit or simple two-terminal Wheatstone bridge is useless since these resistance measurement techniques will be seriously in error when made in the presence of a foreign potential. As a result, various other bridge measurements have been developed over the years; many of these are three-terminal measurements which are also made to ground in order to compensate for the presence of foreign potentials on the suspect pair. Examples of these techniques are the Varley Loop, Murray Loop, Fisher Loop, Moody Loop and Hilborn loop. Some of the above procedures also require the use of pairs in the same cable which are known to be good (like the Moody Loop). All of the above methods are used with DC bridge excitation and measure the location of crosses (conductor-to-conductor) and grounds (conductor-to-ground). Some of the above methods are used with AC bridge excitation (like the Murray Loop) and can therefore measure the location of open pairs and the presence of "split" pairs (caused by an incorrect splice). The selection of the actual test method is generally based upon the preference and experience of the craftsperson making the test. A fault location test on a bad pair will generally begin as follows: 1. Isolate pair from apparatus at both ends, and "cord" pair to a test position in the central office. 2. Measure voltage from: tip-to-ring, tip-to-ground, ring-to-ground, tip-to-battery and ring-to-battery. Test battery voltage is usually a current-limited -48 volts, but other test voltages are also used. 3. If there is little foreign potential (a good craftsperson knows the difference between actual potential and momentary potential caused by capacitive charging of the subject cable pair) in the above measurements, it is safe to assume that fault is either an open or a cross, and is isolated from ground. Measure resistance from tip-to-ring using a simple Wheatstone bridge circuit. If there is a cross (i.e., the pair is open, so anything less than normal leakage resistance is a cross), use the resistance measurement with a circuit layout card (shows path, cable gauges, loading, and distance from central office) and calculate location of short based upon knowing the actual resistance of the cable from the central office to any point. If the resistance is high (like normal leakage resistance, >> 100 K ohms), have craftsperson at other end of line short pair from tip-to-ring. Measure resistance using Wheatstone bridge circuit. If resistance is the expected loop resistance, then pair looks good for tip-to-ring DC continuity, but may have leakage to ground. If resistance is still high, then pair is open. If pair is open, then measure capacitance using bridge in Murray Loop configuration with AC excitation (or use capacitive "kick" method of foreign potential measurement - if you want to be crude about it). Using capacitance measurement and known capacitance of cable, determine the distance of the "good" section of the pair under test. All outside telephone cable, regardless of wire gauge - either polyethylene or paper insulted - is intentionally designed to give a known capacitance per foot; the most common value is 0.083 uF/loop-mile. 4. If there was significant foreign potential or the presence of a ground as detected in (2) above, then the situation gets hairy; now is the time to use some of the other bridge techniques mentioned above. The foreign potential currents (as opposed to voltages above) may be measured to get a handle on the cause of the foreign potential (usually a cross with another working pair). These bridge techniques may also require a craftsperson at the other end to selectively ground, cross, or connect the suspect pair to other pairs that are known to be good. 5. If a pair looks good from a DC standpoint, but still has transmission trouble, then capacitance measurements are taken from each wire in the pair to ground to see if it might be crossed with a wire from another pair, or have some other type of fault. Also, resistance measurements may be again applied, but with a high range in the order of the cable leakage resistance, to see if something is amiss. The above five steps are the "traditional" methods used by telephone companies, and are still used in the majority of test centers. Other (and at times better) techniques include: 1. Capacitance measurement through electronic means that are reasonably immune to foreign potentials on the pair under test. Direct-reading test sets have been available for a number of years that read fault distance directly in feet (you dial in the normal capacitance of the cable per unit length). For example, I have a Hewlett-Packard 4910-F open fault locator test set which has paid for itself many times over in locating cable faults; it will resolve down to _feet_. 2. Using a time-domain reflectometer (TDR, also sometimes called "sweep" testing) will give a good picture of a cable pair condition under many conditions. The TDR works by sending a short, high-energy pulse down a cable, and displaying the return echo on an oscilloscope display. Use of a TDR requires dialing in the dielectric constant of the cable (not a problem, usually) so that the normal propagation velocity of the cable is known. The display is calibrated directly in feet or meters, so that the precise location is the fault can be pinpointed. Poor splices, leakage to ground, etc. show up well on a TDR, along with any bridge taps. A TDR has some limitations, in that the measurement generally cannot pass through more than one loading coil. Most TDR's are used for coaxial cable measurement, but TDR's for twisted pairs are available from Biddle, Northeast Electronics, W&G Instruments, etc. 3. Sending an audio-frequency or VLF signal into a cable pair and following its progress using a hand-held receiver held in close proximity to the cable. This is obviously not too handy for faults which could be miles away :-), but it is inexpensive and useful for one-person use in the field where distances are relatively short. In summation, the above will give you some idea as to what is involved in cable-fault location; some of the procedures may form an outline for people reading this article to actually use themselves under the right circumstances. Overall, there is no magic procedure for cable-fault location, with the actual method being a matter of personal experience, discretion, and nature of the available fault-locating apparatus (not unlike writing a computer program :-). <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 24-Mar-87 23:21:06-EST,24257;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Tue 24 Mar 87 23:21:03-EST Date: 24 Mar 87 19:31-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #25 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, March 24, 1987 7:31PM Volume 6, Issue 25 Today's Topics: Radio Call Letters Radio call letters Re: 1 + areacode Re: Radio call letters Telecom-related items from Risks Re: Radio call letters Re: Radio call letters buzz yer telco Re: Radio call letters [werner@astro.as.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig): The "National E-Mail Registry" has opened a toll-free registration ...] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Mar 87 20:29:06 PST From: mse%Phobos.Caltech.Edu@DEImos.Caltech.Edu (Martin Ewing) Subject: Radio Call Letters Responding to Kevin Burnett: >I have noticed that along with the Kxxx and Wxxx call letters used for radio >stations in the US, there are ones used for other countries as well (such as >HCJB radio in Quito, Ecuador). Where would I be able to find out how the >lettering plan works? International call sign prefixes are defined by the International Tele- communications Union (Palais Wilson, Geneva, Switzerland) and are published in many places. Look at various publications of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), e.g., their Amateur Radio Handbook, or in various Shortwave Radio Directories. Also, reference works such as "Reference Data for Radio Engineers." It's a pretty haphazard system, I'd say - worse even than telephone numbering. The block HCA-HDZ is Ecuador, while HBA-HBZ and HEA-HEZ are Switzerland. The US has all the W's, K's, N's, and half of the A's. The third world fights for scraps of address space. Martin Ewing, AA6E Caltech Radio Astronomy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Mar 87 00:11:40 EST From: "Keith F. Lynch" Subject: Radio call letters I don't know where it is written down, but call letter prefixes are allocated by some international agency. The United States has AA through AL, and all of K, N, and W. Canada has C and V. Mexico has X. Every letter and every number prefix is allocated except no stations begin with Q. For broadcast stations, the FCC has ruled that stations East of the Mississippi begin with W, West of the Mississippi begin with K. (A very few early stations such as KDKA break this rule.) ...Keith ------------------------------ From: sundc!cos!howard@seismo.CSS.GOV (Howard Berkowitz) Subject: Re: 1 + areacode Date: 23 Mar 87 14:54:15 GMT The U.S. telecom network is rapidly running out of area codes. Discussion in ANSI telecommunications network committees suggest that 1+ may be required for all long distance calls, so that LD calls can be recognized without restricting area codes to N0N or N1N. For example, in the brave new world, I could be in area code 222, and be dialed as 1-222-555-1212. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Mar 87 08:40:26 PST From: hoptoad.UUCP!pozar@cgl.ucsf.edu (Tim Pozar) Subject: Re: Radio call letters Reply-To: hoptoad.UUCP!pozar@cgl.ucsf.edu (Tim Pozar) In article <8703230020.AA04366@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> KJBSF@SLACVM writes: >Date: 22 March 1987, 13:12:21 PST >From: Kevin J. Burnett x3330 >To: >Subject: Radio call letters > >I have noticed that along with the Kxxx and Wxxx call letters used for radio >stations in the US, there are ones used for other countries as well (such as >HCJB radio in Quito, Ecuador). Where would I be able to find out how the >lettering plan works? > >Thanks. Funny you should mention it. The 'W' and 'K' that starts all United States radio and television station's call are seperated by the Mississippi river. East of the river all calls begin with the letter 'W', to the west, 'K' begin the calls. Of course there are exceptions... The FCC is looking into deregulating this and any one can have a 'W' or 'K' to start their calls. Also stations that have no connection with an exisiting station that has a paticular call, can share it. KGO-TV in San Francisco can give their permission to let an AM or a FM station use the KGO call. You might see a KGO-FM in LA. (Side Note: KGO-FM is now KLOK-FM, and KGO-AM is owned by ABC in SF.) -- Tim Pozar UUCP pozar@hoptoad.UUCP Fido 125/406 USNail KLOK-FM 77 Maiden Lane San Francisco CA 94108 terrorist cryptography DES drugs cipher secret decode NSA CIA NRO IRS coke crack pot LSD russian missile atom nuclear assassinate libyan RSA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Mar 87 12:35:56 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: Telecom-related items from Risks The following items appeared in the latest Risks Digest and have not appeared in the Telecom Digest, so I thought I'd send them on for completeness' sake: They relate to topics previously discussed here, but some raise new points I don't recall having been covered in Telecom discussion. I stuck in some comments in [square brackets]. Will Martin ****** Date: Fri, 20 Mar 87 11:13:37 pst From: sdcsvax!net1.UCSD.EDU!graifer@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Graifer) (tty08) To: ucbvax!CSL.SRI.COM!RISKS Subject: Re: Increased Telephone Switching Capabilities A recent article ("Telephones: Learning Some Manners"; The Economist, March 14, 1987, pg. 82) discusses a pilot project at three exAT&T local operating companies of a system called Local Area Signalling Service (LASS). The new technology is a "line history memory" at the originating line's switch which records the number dialed. This number can be queried by the receiving line's switch. Some of the capabilities require a new instrument with display but most do not. The article quotes $5/month marginal cost. The big gain is in reducing the current invasion of privacy. Most people wouldn't admit physical persons into their home before determining their identity, but we don't know who we are going to talk to until we answer the phone. Other tricks include: Got a busy signal? Punch a code for automatic reconnect. When both caller and called lines are free, the system calls the caller and asks if the call should be completed. Several calls may be pending. Pick up the phone just in time to hear the other end disconnect? Ask your local switch to call him/her back. The incoming identifier phones would be useful to mail order houses etc. to verify the origination of a call, as well as the privacy application. (The article also points out that it will prevent calling your spouse from a bar with a fib about working late.) The local switch could also contain a "screen list" of numbers for special treatment; selective call forwarding, call waiting, or exclusion. (The original system gave a message "At the customers request, your call is not being completed" to excluded callers. This annoyed a lot of people, so it was changed to a "fake" ring-no-answer.) *[I wonder just WHO was annoyed -- the people making the exclusions, *whose actions were thereby discovered by the people whose calls were *excluded? Or the callers themselves? If the latter, what difference *would THEIR annoyance make? It's because of their offensiveness that the *system was installed in the first place! However, if the former, it *could make some sense: this way you could cut off your bothersome *brother-in-law, say, without him knowing about it. You could cut off *someone who calls another member of your household without either of *them knowing who did it! Sounds ideal for the parents of teenagers...-- WM] The article also points out that over half of all nuisance calls are placed from home. The new system will discourage that sort of thing. I discussed this article with a friend, who made two interesting assertions: 1) The information (calling #) is already available, and is encoded somehow just prior to the ring spike on the receiving line. 2) He was told by manufacturers of telephone sets that a feature to display this information on the recipient telephone was against current FCC regulation. *[THIS I have never heard of before and it wasn't mentioned in our previous *discussion of this service as being under test (in Florida, I believe). *Is it correct? How could it be so in this age of FCC deregulation and *freely-available and -connectible telephones from many sources? - WM] Such a system opens and closes many abuses of the phone system. The article mentions nuisance calls and mail order verification. I don't see any obvious risks to the new features, but I can imagine weird combinations of screens leading to unintended results. Can anyone comment on my friend's assertions, or know which three operating companies were involved in this project? Dan Graifer ------------------------------ From: lll-crg!micropro!edg@seismo.CSS.GOV To: risks@csl.sri.com Subject: Releasing the phone line Date: 20 Mar 87 11:20:58 PST (Fri) The issue of automatic callers releasing the phone line is actually a people issue rather than a technology issue. Most telephone companies will release an incoming call when the recipient has hung up for about 15 seconds. This does not depend on the caller hanging up. When I was a kid, we knew that we could move from one phone to another as long as we did so in less than 15 seconds (and were the recipients of the call) rather than the callers. The problem comes when the call is unwanted. The recipient generally hangs up for as long as it normally takes to get a dial tone (1-2 seconds) and then goes off-hook, to "check" and make sure that the call was dropped. Naturally, it was not. The recipient goes on hook for another two or three seconds and checks again. Call still connected. Panic sets in and a feedback loop ensues. The recipient is unable to drop the call, not because the line is being held from outside, but because s/he does not know how to do so. When I get an unwanted call, I hang up, and walk away. I admit that the parent trying to call an ambulance does not have this presence of mind, but in truth, it would work. This is not to imply that I approve of automatic telephone solicitors. I consider them to be one of the few things worse than human solicitors. -edg ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Mar 87 12:58:12 EST From: Michael Wagner X-To: risks@sri-csl.arpa Subject: Automatic dialing devices in Canada I was recently cleaning up my files in preparation to moving to Europe for a year, and came across the following insert in a phone bill from some time ago (a year or two, judging by the stratigraphy). I thought it might be of interest to RISKS readers. My phone supplier is Bell Canada (I'm in Ontario). Are you offended by recorded telephone solicitation calls? To help regulate the number of unwanted phone calls coming into your home or business, ground rules have been established by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) governing automatic dialing and announcing devices (ADADS) _when used for telephone solicitation purposes_. [italics in the original..mw] ADADS are ... [explanation of what they are and what they do...mw] Now, before the pre-recorded message starts, you must be informed of the nature of the call, the identity of the caller, and that you may end the call by hanging up. Within 10 seconds of [your] hanging up, the ADAD must disconnect from the line. ADAD calls may be made only between 9:30-20:00 weekdays, 10:30-17:00 Saturday, 12:00-17:00 Sunday. [two more paragraphs explain how and to whom you complain about violations, and the fact that organizations using ADADs have been warned what violations will do to their phone privileges...mw] ****** End of inclusions from RISKS. If you send in comments on any of these, it would be kind to CC the originator of the original message as reflected in the included header data above. Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ From: dartvax!marston.UUCP@seismo.css.gov (David Marston) Subject: Re: Radio call letters Date: 24 Mar 87 00:06:10 GMT In article <8703230020.AA04366@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, KJBSF@SLACVM writes: > To: > Subject: Radio call letters >Kevin J. Burnett asks: > Where would I be able to find out how the > lettering plan works? The United States allocation also includes AAx-ALx and Nxxx. Full listings can be found in _Broadcasting_Yearbook_ or _Reference_Data_for_Radio_ Engineers_, which should be in the reference section of a large library. .................David Marston decvax!dartvax!marston ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 87 06:05:51 EST From: "John J. Chew III" Subject: Re: Radio call letters Reply-To: poslfit@gpu.utcs.utoronto (John J. Chew III) In article <8703230020.AA04366@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> KJBSF@SLACVM writes: > I have noticed that along with the Kxxx and Wxxx call letters used for radio > stations in the US, there are ones used for other countries as well (such as > HCJB radio in Quito, Ecuador). Where would I be able to find out how the > lettering plan works? According to the 1987 _World_Radio_TV_Handbook_, call signs are registered with International Frequency Registration Board, which is part of the International Telecommunication Union and is based in Geneva, Switzerland (ITU, Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland). Browsing through the same book reveals the following (empirical) information: Country Call Letter Format (@=letter, #=number) Argentina L[R-W][@]#[#] Aruba P4A#[#] Australia n@@ (n=[1..8] depending on state) Bolivia CP##[#] Brazil ZY[H-L]### Canada C[BFH-K]@[@] Chile C[A-D]##[#] China (R) BE@## Colombia HJ@@ Costa Rica TI@@@ Cuba CM@@ Dominican R. HI@@ Ecuador HC@@# El Salvador YS@[@] Guatemala TG@@ Haiti 4V@[@][@] Honduras HR@[@[#][#]] Japan JO@@ Korea (R) HL@@ Mexico XE@[@][@] Neth. Ant. PJ@[#][#] New Zealand #[X-Z]@ Nicaragua HT@nnn (nnn=frequency in kHz) Panama HO@[##] Papua N.G. P2[KT]#[#] Paraguay ZP#[#] Peru O[A-C][X-Z]#@ Philippines D[W-Z]@@ Thailand HSK@ Uruguay C[V-X]#[#][#] Venezuela YV@@ -- -- john j. chew (v3.0) poslfit@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu +1 416 463 5403 (300/1200 bps) poslfit@utorgpu.bitnet {cbosgd,decvax,mnetor,utai,utcsri,{allegra,linus}!utzoo}!utgpu!poslfit "Script-G for open, sub-delta for durchschnitt" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 87 8:10:05 EST From: Barry Nelson Subject: buzz yer telco It may have been fun to watch the guys trace your loop fault, but it's really a lot of hard work to do it correctly. The buzzer was most likely the signal source on either a pair or on a single wire (and ground) and the probe was an inductive amplifier which is used to magnetically couple to the suspected 'good' wires. Where the signal stops, the line is broken, not unlike signal tracing in RF troubleshooting work. By sweeping the antenna of the amplifier near the cable containing your wire(s) they can listen for the distinctive 'tweedle' of the buzzer picked up from the magnetic emanations of the electrical signal. What's really bad is trying to do this while someone else in the same building is doing the same thing! The butt set only helps to amplify the signal a bit. Many units come with the tiny speaker built right into the end of the probe. This method is only a half-step up from a light bulb and a battery. Many more sophisticated methods (obviously) exist, such as TDRM (time-domain reflectrometry) which measures the impedence steps using various standing waves and can detect opens, shorts, splits, some types of bugs, connectors, etc. within a few feet. The sky is the limit (pun) on telco diagnostic equipment these days. "This document contains statements of opinion by the author which are not attributable to BBN Communications Corporation or its management." Barry C. Nelson / BBNCC Product Management/International Certifications ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 24 Mar 1987 07:32:21-PST From: halbert%pbsvax.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (Dan Halbert HLO2-3/M08 DTN 225-6305) Subject: Re: Radio call letters The easiest place I know of to find a chart of international radio call letter prefixes is in the front pages of a copy of the "Radio Amateur's Callbook", which is a telephone-book-like book you can probably find at your local public library. There are U.S. and foreign versions, but either will do for this purpose. The US has all of K, W, N (e.g. the numbers on the sides of airplanes), and AA-AL. Commercial broadcast stations use only K and W now, but the other prefix letters are in use for ham, military, and other call signs. --Dan Halbert, KB1RT ------------------------------ Date: Tue 24 Mar 87 07:57:19-CST From: Werner Uhrig Subject: [werner@astro.as.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig): The "National E-Mail Registry" has opened a toll-free registration ...] I had tried to send this to mod.telecom from utastro - but doubt that the message ever made it to you (the software "postnews" crashed with a cryptic mix of messages, indicating both succes and failure of the attempt; so I decided to repeat the message from this machine) --------------- Return-Path: Received: from sally.utexas.edu by R20.UTEXAS.EDU with TCP; Mon 23 Mar 87 11:48:25-CST Posted-Date: Mon, 23 Mar 87 11:46:43 CST Received: by sally.utexas.edu (5.54/5.51) id AA09175; Mon, 23 Mar 87 11:48:11 CST Date: Mon, 23 Mar 87 11:46:43 CST From: werner@astro.as.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) Message-Id: <8703231746.AA01138@astro.as.utexas.edu> Received: by astro.as.utexas.edu (5.45/4.22) id AA01138; Mon, 23 Mar 87 11:46:43 CST To: werner@r20.utexas.edu Subject: The "National E-Mail Registry" has opened a toll-free registration ... UNIX REVIEW Vol.5 #3 of March 87 has the following blurb on page 6 in the regular column "CURRENTS, a monthly compendium of Unix community news" : The "National E-Mail Registry" has opened a toll-free registration service aimed at establishing an online "white pages" of electronic mail users. The service will list people wether their interest in e-mail is professional or personal. By dialing 800/622-0505 with a 300, 1200, or 2400 baud modem, a user can provide information online to be listed in the registry. Those who have registered then can dial 203/245-7720 to search for other addresses in the National E-Mail White Pages. All services up to the first 50 searches are free. Inquiries can be directed to 800/245-7720 well, I called the 800-number, and the first problem was that it did not work on 2400baud. In the process of falling back to 1200, I lost the initial login prompt and could not figure out how to login as a new-user. So I called the voice-info number and chatted with a Mr. Steel, who wasn't sure why the 2400baud didn't work. I asked if he had anything in print describing the service that he could send me: I was promised a press-release. So I decided to dial in again at 1200 baud to see what I could find out online. I didn't like what I found!!! The log follows below: ========================================================================== ATDT1-800-622-0505 CONNECT 1200 To Access The National E-Mail Registry, type : REGISTER followed by a return Username: REGISTER ************************************************************************** * * * Welcome to the NATIONAL E-MAIL Registry. Running V.M.S. Version 4.50 * * * ************************************************************************** Last interactive login on Monday, 23-MAR-1987 05:42 Last non-interactive login on Monday, 23-MAR-1987 05:49 23-MAR-1987 10:42:00 Your session has a time limit of (HH:MM) 00:12. Can you display 80 chars/line (Y/N)? y ==> Welcome to...THE NATIONAL E-MAIL REGISTRY Please enter your.. ..FIRST Name: Werner ..MIDDLE Initial: R ..LAST Name: Uhrig Werner R. Uhrig, correct (Y/N)? y Please enter your HOME phone ###-###-#### ? Please enter your HOME phone ###-###-#### ?no ....Invalid format for Telephone Number Please enter your HOME phone ###-###-#### ?unlisted ....Invalid format for Telephone Number Please enter your HOME phone ###-###-#### ?512-555-1212 512-555-1212, correct (Y/N)? y Select a unique password: xyzabsd XYZABSD, correct (Y/N)? y ==> Welcome to...THE NATIONAL E-MAIL REGISTRY! You've reached the online equivalent of the phone company white pages! The National E-Mail Registry beats the key obstacle to electronic messaging -- finding the favorite address of your E-Mail receiver. We help connect users of services like MCI-Mail or Telex to those of Compuserve, EasyLink, and even local BBS systems. Anyone with a modem can list his or her preferred online address in our directory. We're currently building our database of E-Mail users. Starting 6/1/87, all registrants will be included in a continuously updated, searchable online directory called The National E-Mail White Pages (203-245-7720). You can use the White Pages to quickly find other registrants. It's just like 'directory assistance,' but it's modem-to-modem. YOU MUST FIRST REGISTER YOUR OWN PREFERRED E-MAIL ADDRESS TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE WHITE PAGES. Register now! We'll mail you a NO-COST account# and password that entitle you to 50 FREE online searches in the White Pages starting June 1. Registration takes about 5 minutes. PRESS TO REGISTER, or Q to Quit: ** National E-Mail Registry Questionnaire Please answer ALL questions ACCURATELY and COMPLETELY to get a FREE listing in the National E-Mail Registry -- the "White Pages" of E-Mail users! Other callers can find your favorite E-Mail "address," and you can find theirs. Register NOW, and get 50 FREE searches. We'll confirm the accuracy on the info you enter below via phone or U.S. Mail. ** This is a TOLL-FREE call. PLEASE RESPOND CAREFULLY. Please DO NOT abbreviate! Will you complete this questionaire accurately (Y/N): q ...Answer must be -Y- or -N- Will you complete this questionaire accurately (Y/N): ? ...Answer must be -Y- or -N- Will you complete this questionaire accurately (Y/N): f`~xx~f`f`~xx~f` =========================================================================== I hung up at this point. As you can tell, I refuse to give out my phone-# and being asked "Will you complete this questionaire accurately (Y/N):" without having seen the questions does not go down well with me. I'll leave it to you to speculate what the motives of these folks are and what other questions they have waiting - I'm no longer interested. Comments? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 26-Mar-87 23:44:50-EST,10237;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Thu 26 Mar 87 23:44:48-EST Date: 26 Mar 87 22:17-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #26 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, March 26, 1987 10:17PM Volume 6, Issue 26 Today's Topics: Submission for mod-telecom More telecom-related items from RISKS TO KEVIN J. BURNETT - RE: Call signs... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rochester!kodak!ektools!john@seismo.CSS.GOV Date: 25 Mar 87 14:25:02 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: ektools!john From: john@ektools.UUCP (John H. Hall) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Radio call letters Message-ID: <602@ektools.UUCP> Date: 25 Mar 87 14:25:01 GMT References: <172329.870323.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> Reply-To: john@ektools.UUCP (John H. Hall) Distribution: world Organization: Eastman Kodak, Dept. 47, Rochester NY Lines: 15 In article <172329.870323.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes: >For broadcast stations, the FCC has ruled that stations East of the >Mississippi begin with W, West of the Mississippi begin with K. (A >very few early stations such as KDKA break this rule.) The rule must have been made since 1970, for that was about when Westinghouse Broadcasting bought WRCV (?) radio and TV in Philadelphia and changed their calls to KYW. The K-prefix and 3-character call are both unusual in the Philadelphia area. -- John Hall, Supervisor: Software Tools Group, Software Engineering Laboratory EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, 901 Elmgrove Rd., Rochester, NY 14650, 716 726-9345 UUCP: {allegra, seismo}!rochester!kodak!ektools!john ARPA: kodak!ektools!john@rochester.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Mar 87 14:43:38 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: More telecom-related items from RISKS Here are a few followups on those items from the RISKS Digest that I previously submitted to Telecom. (These are from RISKS 4.67.) Will Martin (The RISKS moderator has some comments in [square brackets]. I stuck mine in also in [square brackets] but with asterisks in col. 1 in addition. WM) ****** Date: Tue, 24 Mar 87 12:19:53 est From: Jerome M Lang To: RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM Subject: Who called? (Re: RISKS DIGEST 4.66) In the last digest mention was made about the possibility of learning the phone number of the caller. This raises the question of what is done when the caller has an unlisted phone number (usually for very good reasons). Jerome M. Lang || jmlang@water.bitnet jmlang@water.uucp Dept of Applied Math || jmlang%water@waterloo.csnet U of Waterloo || jmlang%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa [Clearly one would have to suppress that information -- under certain circumstances -- although it is clearly needed for the 911 computers. This gets into the problem of secure databases and how difficult it can be to prevent inferences from being drawn if you are going to hide information selectively. Lots of nice research has been done, but basically this is a very difficult problem once you take the blinders off. PGN] *[Myself, I disagree. I feel you lose your right to have your number *secret as soon as you call someone else. Once you impose on that other *party (and it doesn't matter if you are calling a residence or a *business), they have the right to know your number. But note that this *doesn't mean they know who YOU are, unless they have the facilities for *looking up a name/address given a number. - WM] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 87 09:02:16 CST From: munnari!augean.oz!alex@seismo.CSS.GOV (Alex Dickinson) To: risks@csl.sri.com Subject: Car Phone Intercept -- implications of captured data On Sunday 22nd March an Australian activist group using a radio frequency scanner intercepted and recorded an unencrypted car phone conversation between a federal opposition shadow minister and a state opposition leader (both members of the Australian Liberal Party). The conversation referred to the Liberal Party federal leader in what has been euphemistically termed `colourful language' and discussed his intended political demise. The group released the tape to a Melbourne newspaper that proceeded to publish a number of juicy excerpts. Today the federal shadow minister was fired from his party post, and the chance of an election being called by the Prime Minister to take advantage of opposition confusion was regarded as having doubled from 15 to 30%. Federal police are considering whether to press charges under the Telecommunications Act that broadly covers such interceptions. The fine? $5000 maximum. Good value for altering the course of the country's politics, although it's not clear that that was the intent. Alex Dickinson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 87 16:41:19 EST From: Michael Wagner Subject: Re: Increased Telephone Switching Capabilities X-To: risks@sri-csl.arpa I can offer two pieces of information, neither of which answer the questions completely. 1) the 911 emergency number in Toronto displays the number from which a call was made. It does this for a wide variety of originating exchanges (but I don't know if it does it for all exchanges). I have been told, by people who are more knowledgable about phones than I, that the number is sent on the same circuit as the phone call. They claim that almost no gymnastics were required to make this work. (The phone company also makes a database of phone numbers and addresses available to the emergency service, so that numbers are quickly turned into street addresses. That clearly wouldn't be available to the average business or home. But that is a different matter.) The implications are that (a) exchanges send the origination phone number along with the call, and (b) exchanges can relatively trivially send the information to the customer phone, and (c) the customer phone can decode the information while the phone is still ringing, and (d) it's not illegal in Canada for emergency use. 2) The University of Toronto recently switched over to a Centrex III system. Certain (secretarial) phones can now display the number called and the number calling. The number calling works only if the call originated within the centrex exchange. It is not clear whether the restriction is technical or legal. The implication is that it's not illegal in Canada for calls originating within an enterprise. It is clear that, if such a telephone were to become a consumer item, it would change the whole way we deal with telephones. I could refuse to answer calls from people I didn't want to speak to right now. In fact, I would probably program the micro in the telephone with a phone list of people who were and weren't allowed to disturb me. There would appear to be many human engineering problems to solve there. And many computer RISKS. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Mar 87 12:45:40 PST From: bnfb@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Bjorn Freeman-Benson) To: RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM Subject: Re: Telephone switches >The issue of automatic callers releasing the phone line is actually >a people issue rather than a technology issue. As far as I know it depends on the "office" (telephone company term for switching equipment) connected to your phone. In the NW US there are three types: mechanical, ?, and electronic. A mechanical office will hold the line open as long as the caller has his/her phone off the hook regardless of the callee's actions. An electronic office will close the connection as soon as either party hangs up. >Panic sets in and a feedback loop ensues. However, I do agree that this can be a problem in any human system. Bjorn N. Freeman-Benson ****** End of extract from RISKS [JSol: First of all, the 3 types of switching are Step-By-Step, crossbar (both of these are mechanical) and Electronic (and digital). All forms of switching posess a facility to terminate the call within 20 seconds of hang up. Almost all telephone companies will install this upon request if not already there.] ------------------------------ Subject: TO KEVIN J. BURNETT - RE: Call signs... Date: Thu, 26 Mar 87 01:51:11 -0500 From: James Cayz All, I was unable to get louie.udel.edu to recognize slacvm as a real host, so please excuse this reply to the telcom bboard... If you know a direct path, could you send me one??? Thanx, James Kevin, I don't know if this is THE answer you are looking for, but I have a rather large listing of all the country codes in existance. How they are assigned is a mystery to me - probably randomly, like many other ham radio things (callsigns in the US are assigned randomly with K, N, and W)... Since I am replying through the bboard, I don't want to send a 350+ line file, so if you are interested in it, could you send me a gateway machine name, or something I can use to relay this to you.. I'm at louie.udel.edu, on the ARPA net... If you wish more info, you may want to contact "info-hams@simtel20.ARPA".. I'm SURE they can give you the right answer... Hope this helps, somewhat... James +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | James Cayz can be found via: E-MAIL: cayz@louie.udel.edu | | PHONE: +1 302 451-6718 USPS: Educational Technology Laboratory, | | 203 Willard Hall Building, University of Delaware, Newark DE 19716 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 29-Mar-87 00:11:52-EST,6281;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sun 29 Mar 87 00:11:50-EST Date: 28 Mar 87 23:03-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #27 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, March 28, 1987 11:03PM Volume 6, Issue 27 Today's Topics: Cellular Phone Fraud Busts in NY. cellular phone experiences? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Mar 1987 07:52-PST Subject: Cellular Phone Fraud Busts in NY. From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow By LEONARD BUDER, New York Times: NEW YORK - In a federal attack on a crime made possible by the latest technology, 18 New Yorkers were arrested Thursday on charges of using illegally altered memory chips in their mobile telephones so they could make calls without being charged for them. Also arrested were seven others who, the authorities said, illegally reprogrammed the chips and placed them in the mobile telephones. Such telephones can be installed in vehicles or carried by individuals. It was the first time anyone in the country had been arrested for this kind of crime involving cellular telephones, said Thomas L. Sheer, the assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who is in charge of the New York office. He said the problem of fraud in the cellular telephone industry had grown significantly in the last six months and that Thursday's arrests were the result of ''the first of a series of initiatives'' being undertaken by the bureau and the Secret Service to counter fraud in emerging technologies. ''Every new technology carries with it an opportunity to invent a new crime,'' said Laurence A. Urgenson, the chief assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The first commercial cellular mobile telephone service began late in 1983. According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, there were nearly 682,000 customers of such phone services at the end of last year. Sheer said the government was making ''aggressive use'' of a federal statute dealing with ''Fraud in Connection with Access Devices,'' that was originally intended to combat credit card fraud but is now being interpreted to cover frauds involving all computer-based or computer-assisted systems. Thursday's arrests, which started at 6 a.m. and took place at homes and places of employment, mostly in Brooklyn, was carried out by 70 FBI and Secret Service agents. The 18 people who had the illegally altered chips installed ''awoke this morning to find that their cellular telephones had been disconnected'' electronically, Sheer said at a news conference held at the bureau office at 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan. ''They're going to get one phone call today,'' the FBI official added - referring to the call a person is permitted to make after being arrested - ''but it's not going through from a cellular telephone.'' The officials said the arrests followed a six-month investigation that involved the use of a confidential informer who installed the chip and federal agents working under cover. The authorities acknowledged the cooperation of the Nynex Mobile Communications Co. in the investigation. Sheer said the investigation was assisted by ''recent technological advances in computerized telephone-switching equipment and billing systems.'' Sheer said that the fraud, which was not the product of an organized conspiracy, cost local mobile telephone companies about $40,000 a month and that nationwide, carriers of cellular services were losing about $3 million a year because of frauds. The authorities gave no details about the alteration of the chips. Among the cellular telephone users who were arrested were a plumber, a hair stylist, a gasoline station owner, a physician, a student and a diamond merchant, as well as several business executives. Most lived or worked in Brooklyn, but they did not know each other, the authorities said. Andrew J. Maloney, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, said in a statement that the cases against those arrested would be presented to a federal grand jury in Brooklyn. The most serious charge that could be brought against each carries a maximum term of 10 years in prison and a possible fine of $250,000. Sheer said the installers usually charged $500 to reprogram and install two memory chips in a cellular phone. The chips, in their unaltered state, are sold in computer equipment stores at a price of two for 89 cents, an FBI agent said. According to the federal authorities, each cellular mobile telephone has a memory chip containing a mobile identification number, or M.I.N., and another containing an electronic serial number, or E.S.N. When a mobile telephone call is made, the two numbers are automatically transmitted to the mobile carrier. The mobile carriers make a computer check of the E.S.N. to see if it is valid. If it is, the call goes through and the cost is billed to the billing number provided by the M.I.N. chip. By using illegally reprogrammed chips, the federal complaint said, other people were billed for calls made by those participating in the fraud. Those arrested were arraigned in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn and released in their own recognizance. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Mar 87 20:53 EST From: Kovalcik@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (Richard Kovalcik, Jr.) Subject: cellular phone experiences? I am looking for information on cellular service in the Boston area: pros and cons of the two competing services, which you use, etc. Please respond directly to me or the list if you think it is of general interest. Thanks. [I'd like to get a feel for Cellular service in other areas. Perhaps a volunteer in each service area can send me a message telling me of their cellular telephone experience...? --jsol] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 2-Apr-87 22:42:56-EST,14585;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Thu 2 Apr 87 22:42:51-EST Date: 2 Apr 87 17:00-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #28 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, April 2, 1987 5:00PM Volume 6, Issue 28 Today's Topics: Re: More telecom-related items from RISKS Getting through when line is busy FCC doesn't kill PC Pursuit after all Yet more from RISKS ROLM.query Re: cellular phone experiences in Balt-Wash Q: reporting (or not) your hardware to the TELCO ?!] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leonard Erickson Subject: Re: More telecom-related items from RISKS Date: 29 Mar 87 02:28:51 GMT Reply-To: Leonard Erickson There has been a lot of talk about the 'display calling number" feature in the public Bulletin Board Syystems (BBS's) locally. Most of it was a year or so back. Most sysops would kill to get this feature. The number of would be 'hackers' and other low-life BBS nuisances would be vastly reduced. I saw a msg from a sysop somewhere in the southeastern US who claimed to be particpating in a test of the feature by his local phone co. He seemed quite pleased with it. -- Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!leonard CIS: [70465,203] ...!tektronix!reed!percival!!bucket!leonard "I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'. You know... I'd rather be a hacker." ------------------------------ Date: Mon 30 Mar 87 16:17:25-EST From: Paul G. Weiss Subject: Getting through when line is busy I had heard a rumor that if you have trouble getting through to a number that is busy because of lots of callers (as opposed to one long conversation) for example a movie theatre on a Friday evening, then you can get through by dialing all the numbers but the last one, waiting about 20-30 seconds, then dialing the last number. I've tried this a few times, and it seems to work! Now am I just getting lucky or is there any reason why this should work? ------- [The best way I have found to get through on a radio station line is to program their number into your speed calling and sit there with one finger on the hookswitch and another almost pressing 9#. --jsol] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 87 22:03:22 PST From: hoptoad.UUCP!gnu@cgl.ucsf.edu (John Gilmore) Subject: FCC doesn't kill PC Pursuit after all I found this bit of news in the FidoNet Newsletter (which you can read as mod.mag.fidonet on the Usenet, if you care). Bill Allbritten, 11/301 I just spoke with a Mr. Mayer of the FCC-(14:30, 26MAR87) about the decision on re-regulating packet switching networks known as proposal computer III. He said that today's decision was to leave things alone, that is to leave the enhanced packet switcher's deregulated. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 87 15:29:51 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: Yet more from RISKS A few more telecom-related postings from RISKS 4.68: Will Martin Date: Wed, 25 Mar 87 15:08:58 PST From: Andrew Klossner To: risks@CSL.SRI.COM Subject: Re: Increased Telephone Switching Capabilities This topic was discussed at length in the TELECOM list. Some items ... "I discussed this article with a friend, who [asserted that] the information (calling #) is already available, and is encoded somehow just prior to the ring spike on the receiving line." There is no truth to this statement. Under normal circumstances, when the originating and receiving exchanges (CO's) are different, the receiving exchange has no way of knowing the origination number. "I don't see any obvious risks to the new features." On of my concerns is that, with these features, I can no longer keep my unlisted phone number private. If I call a local department store to get their price on a pair of shoes, I may start getting unsolicited shoe sales calls from all over. Merchants would be motivated to collect and sell lists of phone numbers of consumers with particular interests, just as they now collect and sell mailing addresses. (And I can't make use of that "call screening" feature; what if my daughter is in trouble and tries to call home from a phone booth?) MORE: Re: Michael Wagner (RISKS-4.67) "1) the 911 emergency number in Toronto displays the number from which a call was made... An originating exchange sends the information only when it's using the special 911 subsystem. (At my exchange this goes out on a special trunk directly to the 911 center, it doesn't travel between exchanges.) The implications don't follow. "2) The University of Toronto recently switched over to a Centrex III system. Certain (secretarial) phones can now display the number called and the number calling. The number calling works only if the call originated within the centrex exchange. It is not clear whether the restriction is technical or legal... It's technical, that's the Centrex system talking to itself. -=- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew) [UUCP] (tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay) [ARPA] ------------------------------ Date: Wed 25 Mar 87 11:19:30-EST From: LINDSAY@TL-20B.ARPA Subject: Re: phone number of caller To: risks@CSL.SRI.COM At first glance, it seems simple to be told where your caller is calling from. All that one needs is a small display: after all, exchanges are computerized now, aren't they ? Well, yes, new ones are. Also, new exchanges tend to be bigger: several exchange numbers are implemented by a single office, rather than being one-for-one. And, of course, if all the action occurs within a single exchange, then the features that are offered are just a Small Matter Of Programming. However, old phone exchanges are still with us. Projected reliability used to be stated as outage-time per forty years ! Also, old designs were being built until recently. For example, Bermuda bought a mechanical stepping exchange (from Philips) in the early 1970's. When authorities try to trace phone calls, the major stumbling block is usually that the call has crossed one or more boundaries between exchanges. Tracing then becomes a serial process, and it used to involve a human at each physical location. A person wishing to (say) utter death threats was quite difficult to catch, particularly if rural equipment was in the chain. Of course, we will eventually resolve these problems. Mad bombers will respond by using pay phones, unattended autodialers, and other tactics. Don Lindsay ------------------------------ From: rochester!kodak!grodberg@seismo.CSS.GOV (jeremy grodberg) Date: 26 Mar 87 22:58:38 GMT To: mod-risks@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Who called? (Re: RISKS DIGEST 4.66 and 4.67) Date: 26 Mar 87 22:58:37 GMT According to _High Technology_, a caller placing a call from an unlisted phone can prevent the number from being displayed on the destination phone by entering a code. The phone company equipment still gets the number though, so the person being called can call still call the person with the unlisted phone number (using a feature which dials the number of the most recent incoming call), although there is no (legitimate) way to actually determine the unlisted number. Jeremy Grodberg ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Mar 87 09:24:37 pst From: dual!paul@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Paul Wilcox-Baker) To: ucbvax!CSL.SRI.COM!RISKS Subject: Hang-ups [Re: RISKS-4.67] > As far as I know it depends on the "office" (telephone company term for > switching equipment) connected to your phone... An electronic office will > close the connection as soon as either party hangs up. Actually, this is not true. For most electronic exchanges in the U.S., the connection is held until about 20 seconds after the called party hangs up, or whenever the calling party hangs up. This is supposed to let the answering party hang up one phone, move to a different room and continue using another. The timeout is reset every time the phone goes off-hook. This causes the apparent inability to get rid of the incoming call. The best solution to obnoxious electronic calling machines is legal - ban the damn things! Paul Wilcox-Baker. ****** End of extract ------------------------------ Date: 2 Apr 1987 00:39:05-EST From: rdsnyder@MIT-CCC Subject: Inside wiring color codes I apologize for posting the incorrect color codes for the black/yellow pair of D Station Wire. D Station Wire (quad) is used as follows: Pair Tip Ring ---- ------- ------- 1 Green Red 2 Black Yellow This chart was "Table 3" on page 3 of Section 461-200-100 of the Bell System Practices. My apologies to Larry Lippman for falsely contradicting him on this matter. Thanks for setting me straight. -Ross (rdsnyder%ccc.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Mar 87 23:33:46 EST From: David Kirschbaum Subject: ROLM.query Can someone out there make me a LITTLE smart on ROLM phone systems? I have a local firm, just paid $80,000 to get a ROLM internal phone system installed in their building (sorry, no details yet), and now none of the Apple users can use their internal modems to dial out. I haven't been there to check things out, but thought I'd do a little preparation beforehand. I know computer communications (micros, modems, etc.) but not telephone (outside of scanning this net). My source tells me the IBM PC systems still work with their modems, but that doesn't seem to make much sense. Any information would be of assistance. Thanks in advance, David Kirschbaum Toad Hall kirsch@braggvax.ARPA (direct msgs to me might be better than inflicting on the net.) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 87 21:04:49 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Re: cellular phone experiences in Balt-Wash I use Cellular 1 in the Baltimore Washington area. The service is very reasonably priced at .60/.15 (peek/ofpeek) +100 offpeek minutes per month for $10.00. (standard rate plan is .46/.24 for $40.00 a month) Custom Calling is no extra charge per month, except you pay 2X-airtime for 3-way-calls and call-waiting-calls, and you pay airtime rates to forward your calls. The quality of the service is pretty good. There are certain areas where I wish there were more cells. Sound quality is pretty good as well. every now and again I get a bad connection. The avarage call dosn't sound any worse than your average AT&T long distance call. Since they are sectorizing their cells in this area, (spliting their cells up into pie slices), handoffs while using VOX mode has not been working very well. I give their customer service reps an A+ rating. They are by far the friendliest, helpful reps I've ever delt with. If you want to speak with a techi, they give you absolutly no hassle! The system is a Motorola EMX-2500. When a caller calls you, they hear clicking until the system finds your mobil, then a ring. I'm not sure if I find this annoying or not. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 1 Apr 87 22:29:03-CST From: Werner Uhrig Subject: Q: reporting (or not) your hardware to the TELCO ?!] I don't recall seeing this message make the digests. was it rejected by the moderator or did it not arrive? --------------- Date: Sat 21 Mar 87 04:53:52-CST From: Werner Uhrig Subject: Q: reporting (or not) your hardware to the TELCO ?! To: telecom@R20.UTEXAS.EDU In-Reply-To: Message of Fri 20 Mar 87 01:32:55-CST Message-ID: <12288119033.25.CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU> Gary Wells writes in TELECOM Digest V6 #23 ... > There are several methods used by the telco's for line testing. ..... > By knowing WHAT is hanging > on the end of your cable, you can quickly tell the status of the pair AND the > station. This is why the telco's fought so hard about registration. They > really didn't care about the equipment, they just need to know what it > "looks" like, for trouble isolation purposes. HMMMM, it's been years now that I've taken the trouble to tell SWB about the latest changes in equipment that I've connected at my end - mainly, because it changes so often and because I'm under the impression that they don't really care to know; or, at least, don't do anything with the information that I give them about my latest set of hardware (besides, it often changes on a daily basis; what with all these new modems, answering machines, phones and other gadgets to test and play with :-) Now, what I'd like to know is the following: 1) Can someone tell me what the phone company *SHOULD* be doing with the data describing my hardware? 2) Is there something that I should *INSIST* that SWB do in response to me reporting what I have connected? 3) Is there some way that I can test that they *ACTUALLY DID* what needed to be done at their end? 4) Can not reporting my latest set of hardware lead to *DEGRADING* in line quality somehow? for example, could this lead to degraded line quality for data communications using a modem (especially at 2400 baud)? or to another phenomenon, such as "not all connected phones ring during an incoming call"? I guess, what I really need is a pointer to a book which really all that I may ever want to know about telephones and data-communications in a lingo I can understand and make sense of (i.e. don't require the background and knowledge of the lingo of a telecommunications engineer). Please, *DO* give pointers !! ---Werner ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 3-Apr-87 23:01:44-EST,6269;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Fri 3 Apr 87 23:01:41-EST Date: 28 Mar 87 23:03-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #27 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, March 28, 1987 11:03PM Volume 6, Issue 27 Today's Topics: Cellular Phone Fraud Busts in NY. cellular phone experiences? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Mar 1987 07:52-PST Subject: Cellular Phone Fraud Busts in NY. From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow By LEONARD BUDER, New York Times: NEW YORK - In a federal attack on a crime made possible by the latest technology, 18 New Yorkers were arrested Thursday on charges of using illegally altered memory chips in their mobile telephones so they could make calls without being charged for them. Also arrested were seven others who, the authorities said, illegally reprogrammed the chips and placed them in the mobile telephones. Such telephones can be installed in vehicles or carried by individuals. It was the first time anyone in the country had been arrested for this kind of crime involving cellular telephones, said Thomas L. Sheer, the assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who is in charge of the New York office. He said the problem of fraud in the cellular telephone industry had grown significantly in the last six months and that Thursday's arrests were the result of ''the first of a series of initiatives'' being undertaken by the bureau and the Secret Service to counter fraud in emerging technologies. ''Every new technology carries with it an opportunity to invent a new crime,'' said Laurence A. Urgenson, the chief assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The first commercial cellular mobile telephone service began late in 1983. According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, there were nearly 682,000 customers of such phone services at the end of last year. Sheer said the government was making ''aggressive use'' of a federal statute dealing with ''Fraud in Connection with Access Devices,'' that was originally intended to combat credit card fraud but is now being interpreted to cover frauds involving all computer-based or computer-assisted systems. Thursday's arrests, which started at 6 a.m. and took place at homes and places of employment, mostly in Brooklyn, was carried out by 70 FBI and Secret Service agents. The 18 people who had the illegally altered chips installed ''awoke this morning to find that their cellular telephones had been disconnected'' electronically, Sheer said at a news conference held at the bureau office at 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan. ''They're going to get one phone call today,'' the FBI official added - referring to the call a person is permitted to make after being arrested - ''but it's not going through from a cellular telephone.'' The officials said the arrests followed a six-month investigation that involved the use of a confidential informer who installed the chip and federal agents working under cover. The authorities acknowledged the cooperation of the Nynex Mobile Communications Co. in the investigation. Sheer said the investigation was assisted by ''recent technological advances in computerized telephone-switching equipment and billing systems.'' Sheer said that the fraud, which was not the product of an organized conspiracy, cost local mobile telephone companies about $40,000 a month and that nationwide, carriers of cellular services were losing about $3 million a year because of frauds. The authorities gave no details about the alteration of the chips. Among the cellular telephone users who were arrested were a plumber, a hair stylist, a gasoline station owner, a physician, a student and a diamond merchant, as well as several business executives. Most lived or worked in Brooklyn, but they did not know each other, the authorities said. Andrew J. Maloney, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, said in a statement that the cases against those arrested would be presented to a federal grand jury in Brooklyn. The most serious charge that could be brought against each carries a maximum term of 10 years in prison and a possible fine of $250,000. Sheer said the installers usually charged $500 to reprogram and install two memory chips in a cellular phone. The chips, in their unaltered state, are sold in computer equipment stores at a price of two for 89 cents, an FBI agent said. According to the federal authorities, each cellular mobile telephone has a memory chip containing a mobile identification number, or M.I.N., and another containing an electronic serial number, or E.S.N. When a mobile telephone call is made, the two numbers are automatically transmitted to the mobile carrier. The mobile carriers make a computer check of the E.S.N. to see if it is valid. If it is, the call goes through and the cost is billed to the billing number provided by the M.I.N. chip. By using illegally reprogrammed chips, the federal complaint said, other people were billed for calls made by those participating in the fraud. Those arrested were arraigned in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn and released in their own recognizance. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Mar 87 20:53 EST From: Kovalcik@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (Richard Kovalcik, Jr.) Subject: cellular phone experiences? I am looking for information on cellular service in the Boston area: pros and cons of the two competing services, which you use, etc. Please respond directly to me or the list if you think it is of general interest. Thanks. [I'd like to get a feel for Cellular service in other areas. Perhaps a volunteer in each service area can send me a message telling me of their cellular telephone experience...? --jsol] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 5-Apr-87 20:53:58-EDT,17158;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Sun 5 Apr 87 20:53:56-EDT Date: 5 Apr 87 19:23-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #29 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, April 5, 1987 7:23PM Volume 6, Issue 29 Today's Topics: Re: Q: reporting (or not) your hardware to the TELCO ?!] Submission for mod.telecom Re: Getting through when line is busy Re: Getting through when line is busy Mass. and NY experiences with registration numbers AND NYNEX accused of transfusing phone revenue to arm Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) Submission for mod.telecom (Line hunting) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: acornrc!bob@ames.arpa (Bob Weissman) Subject: Re: Q: reporting (or not) your hardware to the TELCO ?!] Date: 3 Apr 87 01:51:29 GMT About a year ago, I got to feeling guilty with all the equipment on my one phone line (4 phones, answering machine, modem), and wondered whether suddently things might stop ringing, so I dutifully wrote down all the RENs, serial numbers, etc., and called up Pacific Bell. The fellow who answered my call was rather surprised when I told him why I was calling. He chuckled and replied that Pac Bell's equipment doesn't care about what you've got on your line, so their people don't care either. I never got to rattle off my list of RENs. -- Bob Weissman Internet: bob@acornrc.UUCP UUCP: ...!{ ames | decwrl | oliveb | apple }!acornrc!bob Arpanet: bob%acornrc.UUCP@AMES.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Mar 87 15:28:38 EST From: columbia!phri!dasys1.Dasys.COM!schuster@seismo.CSS.GOV (Michael Schuster) Subject: Submission for mod.telecom Recently I had occasion to call Sony Customer Service in NJ on their WATS line (800-222-SONY). Prior to ringing, I was greeted by the following telephone-company-sounding recorded message: "Thank you for calling. For faster service please press or dial '1' _now_". Does anyone know what this means? How will pressing '1' at that point give me faster service? I was unable to discern any difference with or without. l\ /l' _ Mike Schuster {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri!dasys1!schuster l \/ lll/(_ Big Electric Cat {bellcore,harpo,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!schuster l lll\(_ New York, NY USA {philabs}!tg!dasys1!schuster ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Apr 87 08:08:54 EST From: tj Subject: Re: Getting through when line is busy Reply-To: tj@gpu.utcs.utoronto (tj) I had a unique experience... I was calling Visa one day. They are always busy. I was busy too so I didn't hang up the phone when I got the busy. It was sitting on my shoulder for about 2 minutes while I typed on my terminal... It started to ring... I waited. Visa answered. Amazing. It works repeatedly with them but not other places. tj ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Apr 87 11:10:06 est From: sullivan@EDN-VAX.ARPA (Pat Sullivan) Subject: Re: Getting through when line is busy Pausing before dialing the last digit is an old trick, and I would also like to get an informed explanation of why it works. It must do something to the incoming queues. In countries with less capable phone systems, it's done all the time and doesn't work as well; I guess if everything gets dequeued, getting your number becomes a random process (which is done deliberately with many popular radio talk shows and contests as a "fairness" policy. This has appeared on Telecom before. Does anyone have the story on it? Best, -Pat Sullivan Defense Communications Engineering Center Reston, VA. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Apr 87 12:43 EST From: "Richard Kovalcik, Jr." Subject: Mass. and NY experiences with registration numbers AND When I tried to tell New England Telephone the FCC Registration Numbers and Ringer Equivalences of my phones when I moved into a house in Waltham, Mass. two years ago, they weren't interested at all. They didn't even bother to take the information down and say "that's nice". My understanding is that if you have too many ringers on the line some or all may not ring properly. I have heard that 1 to 3 ringers are indistinguishable from the central office. It is also my understanding that if you have too many phones off hook (talking / listening) at once, the sound quality will be bad. On the other hand, when my grandmother was given a phone as a gift in New York City and made the mistake of calling to give them the information, they started billing her an "extenstion phone wiring fee" and touch tone service charges! The phone wasn't touchtone, but the pushy salesperson at the ATT Phone Center Store tried very hard to convince the person buying the gift to get touchtone and even when they didn't, wrote down the touchtone registration number on the box. When I called about this "extension phone fee" and told them that inside wiring was deregulated, they said they would be very happy to stop charging the fee if they came out to the house, installed an interface jack (or whatever they are called) where the line came into the house, cut up all the existing wiring that they had put it over the years, and charged $50 (probably more now). I decided it was easier for my grandmother to pay the dollar or so extension phone wiring fee. At least, I did get the touchtone charges removed. Now, these silly interfact jacks are useful in some ways. I have had a couple of friends have their line go dead (open or short). In both cases, removing all the wires from the junction box in the basement / whereever they entered the building proved to our satisfaction that the problem was outside the house (i.e. problem stayed the same when all the interior wiring was out of the circuit). Getting the phone company to fix the problem without demanding that you stay home to let them in is a major pain. In one case the party succeeded. In the other case my friend had to stay home from work to let the phone company come in and say "yep, you were right; the problem is outside". Presumably if you have an interface jack you have more of a chance to convince them that the problem isn't with interior wiring. On the other hand, if the phone company had to pay you if the problem was outside your house and you had to stay home, just as you have to pay them if they try to fix the problem and it is inside your house, I bet they wouldn't be asking people to stay home for nothing. ------------------------------ Date: Sat 4 Apr 87 06:21:00-CST From: Werner Uhrig Subject: NYNEX accused of transfusing phone revenue to arm [without permission, from Computer+Software News, March 30, 1987; page 2] NYNEX accused of transfusing phone revenue to arm WASHINGTON - The relationship between the Regional Bell Operating Cos. (RBOCs) and their subsidiaries has once again burst into controversy. This time, NYNEX is accused of diverting income from local phone revenues to subsidize unregulated ventures, according to a new study. NYNEX, the parent of NYNEX Business Information Systems, the 94-store pc chain, has used "monopoly resources to enhance corporate profits and competitive advantage," acording to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners in a report issued last week. "It is a difficult thing to check because we can't directly trace the pattern of cross-subsidies," said Dick Marshall, an official with the New York PUSC. "We think we can document that." Critics have charged that NYNEX and the other six ex-Bell Operating Cos. have diverted money and personnel to their subsidiaries. Last year, the California PUC charged that PacTel was guilty of transferring rate-payer funds to subsidiaries. Marshall said his staff found evidence suggesting NYNEX has also violated the divestiture rules governing its relations with NYNEX unregulated firms. Spokesmen for both NYNEX and its subsidiaries denied the allegations. ...... ...... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Apr 87 15:10:24 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) In a recent article, Werner Uhrig write: > > There are several methods used by the telco's for line testing. ..... > > By knowing WHAT is hanging on the end of your cable, > > you can quickly tell the status of the pair AND the station. > > This is why the telco's fought so hard about registration. They > > really didn't care about the equipment, they just need to know what it > > "looks" like, for trouble isolation purposes. The only reason that operating telephone companies sought apparatus registration was to assure themselves that no "harm" to the switched network would result from improperly designed apparatus. For example: apparatus which places signals of excessive amplitude on a telephone line can cause crosstalk on other working lines; apparatus which provides leakage current paths to ground can not only cause crosstalk (by creating a longitudinal unbalance on the cable pair), but can also upset automatic line insulation test apparatus into thinking that a cable fault exists; etc. The FCC Part 68 registration specifications were created to set a uniform standard of what was acceptable as telephone apparatus without creating trouble conditions for the operating telephone company. While a "ringer equivalence" specification may give a telephone company test bureau some idea as to the impedance terminating the subscriber by the connected devices, for all intents and purpose, the telephone company will never trust this information. If a cable problem presents itself, the telephone company will generally send a craftsperson into the field to open the pair at the subscriber location (or outside on a pole) before any test measurements are taken. The telephone company would be naive to believe what a customer reports as being their connected apparatus. > HMMMM, it's been years now that I've taken the trouble to tell SWB about the > latest changes in equipment that I've connected at my end - mainly, because > it changes often and because I'm under the impression that they don't really > care to know; or, at least, don't do anything with the information that I > give them about my latest set of hardware (besides, it often changes on > a daily basis; what with all these new modems, answering machines, phones and > other gadgets to test and play with :-) > > Now, what I'd like to know is the following: > > 1) Can someone tell me what the phone company *SHOULD* be doing with the data > describing my hardware? Nothing, really, other than making note of the FCC registration number on their "service billing record". Quite frankly, I have never known of an operating telephone company that even checked to see if the FCC registration number was a valid number for any piece of telephone apparatus. > 2) Is there something that I should *INSIST* that SWB do in response to me > reporting what I have connected? Nope. Assuming that you have given a "valid" FCC registration number, there is nothing that your operating telephone company can or will do, based upon the nature of the apparatus that you have connected to the telephone line. Your central office telephone loop will be designed according to some already-established plan created by a facilities engineer. There may be more than one plan in effect for a given central office, with the actual plan being selected by the available serving cable facilities between the central office and your location. For example, your line may run through a negative- impedance repeater to meet an office transmission goal; or, your line may run through a subscriber line concentrator if cable facilities are scarce; etc. As a further example, New York Telephone generally tries to limit subscriber loop loss to no more than 5.5 dB. Whatever combination of cable and/or repeater facilities are available will be used to achieve this goal. Subscriber lines for dial-up data use or PBX trunks are usually available with a lower loop loss - but at an ADDITIONAL COST. You get what you pay for - which means that for the price of a regular subscriber line you get no choice of anything and no special treatment. > 3) Is there some way that I can test that they *ACTUALLY DID* what needed to > be done at their end? Nope. Since they don't do anything, you can't very well test for it. :-) > 4) Can not reporting my latest set of hardware lead to *DEGRADING* in line > quality somehow? for example, could this lead to degraded line quality > for data communications using a modem (especially at 2400 baud)? or to > another phenomenon, such as "not all connected phones ring during an > incoming call"? You might degrade your telephone line by, say, connecting too many telephone sets with equipped ringers, but that is YOUR problem - not the telephone company's. The telephone company is not going to do anything - regardless of what you tell them. > I guess, what I really need is a pointer to a book which really all that I may > ever want to know about telephones and data-communications in a lingo I can > understand and make sense of (i.e. don't require the background and knowledge > of the lingo of a telecommunications engineer). Please, *DO* give pointers !! Unfortunately, I don't know of a good book that would fulfill your request. Books that I have seen are either: (1) insultingly simple, as written for Joe and Mary Consumer, or (2) deal in theory, and therefore fail to give immediate, practicable answers. However, rather than leave you empty-handed, a good middle-of-the-road book is "Telecommunications and the Computer", by James Martin, published by Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-902494-8. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Apr 87 15:12:01 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Line hunting) In a recent article PGW@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Paul G. Weiss) writes: > I had heard a rumor that if you have trouble getting through to a number > that is busy because of lots of callers (as opposed to one long conversation) > for example a movie theatre on a Friday evening, then you can get through > by dialing all the numbers but the last one, waiting about 20-30 seconds, > then dialing the last number. > > I've tried this a few times, and it seems to work! Now am I just getting > lucky or is there any reason why this should work? You were just lucky. In many central offices, hunting will only occur if you dial the FIRST (i.e., listed) number of an incoming service group. Dialing any other number will get you just that line - and no other if it is busy. Now, there is a grain of truth to getting through to certain places by dialing a "last" number. Many places that deal with the public reserve one or more numbers for "selected" people to call; these reserved numbers are never part of the incoming service group. These reserved numbers are, of course, unlisted numbers. However, the "last" number in what may appear to be a consecutively-numbered incoming service group may really be a separate line which is not part of that group. For example, say you have a business with five lines: 234-5600, 234-5601, 234-5602, 234-5603 and 234-5604. Only the first four lines form the incoming service group (5600 to 5603); 5604 is a private line for selected people who have to get through. So, dialing the 5604 number gets you through... Of course, there is no guarantee that the private line is the last number, but more often than not - it is. > [The best way I have found to get through on a radio station line is > to program their number into your speed calling and sit there with > one finger on the hookswitch and another almost pressing 9#. --jsol] You got it! <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 9-Apr-87 20:25:54-EDT,18071;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Thu 9 Apr 87 20:25:51-EDT Date: 9 Apr 87 18:33-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #30 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, April 9, 1987 6:33PM Volume 6, Issue 30 Today's Topics: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) Defeating CLASS locally Re: Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) Submission for mod-telecom Radio call-in exchanges Submission for mod-telecom modem multi-modal handshake Submission for mod-telecom consumer ANI U.S. ROBOTICS 2400 BAUD MODEMS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Dorsey Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) Date: 6 Apr 87 05:35:33 GMT Reply-To: Scott Dorsey In article <8704051910.AA03616@seismo.CSS.GOV> larry@kitty.UUCP writes: > Nothing, really, other than making note of the FCC registration number >on their "service billing record". Quite frankly, I have never known of an >operating telephone company that even checked to see if the FCC registration >number was a valid number for any piece of telephone apparatus. Is there any problem using telephone equipment which is not FCC licensed? I have some surplus Army field telephones (modified for common battery use), and some homebrew phones which are around the house. I certainly hope that I can still operate it, although I could understand being prevented from selling such stuff. -- Scott Dorsey Kaptain_Kludge ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die), Rich 110, Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge ------------------------------ Date: Sat 4 Apr 87 02:20:47-EST From: Doug Reuben Subject: Defeating CLASS locally Those people who don't want their number displayed on a local call (if this service ever becomes available) can simply use MCI, Sprint, or any alternate LD carrier, and place the local call. Of course this might cost more, but its still an easy way to get around it. You could probably use your Bell System Calling Card as well, since I think when you make an 0+ call, the call is handled in a different manner than direct dial call, and its questionable whether the Bell Operating Companies will institute procedures to display the calling number and other "CLASS" features...Of course I never used this CLASS stuff, and with any luck I'll never have to run into an exchange with this nonsense...My old crossbar suits me just fine...(Although *one* ESS line wouldn't hurt...!) Well, if anyone knows about this for sure, please let me know...! -Doug REUBEN@WESLYN.BITNET REUBEN%WESLYN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ....(rutgers!) seismo!weslyn.bitnet!reuben (UUCP) P.S. Please e-mail me a CC of any posts about this, since I am not "directly" on the Digest..Thanks!! ------------------------------ From: sundc!cos!howard@seismo.CSS.GOV (Howard Berkowitz) Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) Date: 6 Apr 87 13:55:58 GMT One minor point (minor until it gets you): dial modems, especially the higher speed ones, may not work properly because the network interface device has resistors set for voice use, not data. It is worth letting your telco know you are running higher speed data, because your network interface should then be configured to give you better signal to noise ratios, not important for voice. If they're going to charge more for data access, do this only after you have unacceptable problems. Your problems, however, often are in the jack, not the local loop. ------------------------------ From: seismo!ihnp4!ihuxz!pmw@EDDIE.MIT.EDU Date: 6 Apr 87 13:46:26 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: ihuxz!pmw From: pmw@ihuxz.ATT.COM (Westenkirchner) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: DIAL 1 NOW Message-ID: <1986@ihuxz.ATT.COM> Date: 6 Apr 87 13:46:26 GMT Distribution: usa Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois Lines: 19 On the "dial 1 now" announcement: They are trying to find out if you have a touch tone phone. If you hit a touch tone, another announcement will be played to ask what kind of service you need. You select the service by hitting the appropriate touch tone number. If you don't hit a touch tone on the original "dial 1" announcement, you probably will be connected to a human who will have to ask what kind of service you want (repair, info,...). If you have an 800 number you dial all the time, you can get much faster service by not listening to the announcements. If you know what numbers to touch in, just dial them in as soon as the first announcement begins. Paul Westenkirchner ihnp4!ihuxz!pmw ------------------------------ From: dolqci!bruce@seismo.CSS.GOV Date: 6 Apr 87 17:42:07 GMT To: seismo!mod-telecom@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Responding-System: dolqci.UUCP Path: dolqci!bruce From: bruce@dolqci.UUCP (Bruce Limber) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: RE: Home phone wiring & TPC Message-ID: <512@dolqci.UUCP> Date: 6 Apr 87 17:42:06 GMT Reply-To: bruce@dolqci.UUCP (Bruce Limber) Distribution: usa Organization: The U.S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, DC Lines: 29 In article <870403174351.525498@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> Kovalcik@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA ("Richard Kovalcik, Jr.") writes: >. . . removing all the wires from the junction box in the basement >whereever they entered the building proved . . . that the problem >was outside the house . . . It's definitely worth while having a disconnect. My house has _very_ weird phone wiring (because I use an automatic dialer that can be controlled from any phone in the house. The phone line runs through the lightning arrestor, an RJ11 test jack, a double-pole cutoff switch, two special dialer jacks (in series, in different parts of the house), _then_ through a junction panel to all the regular RJ11 phone jacks (in parallel). When our pole connection got squirrely recently, the cutoff switch was invaluable for proving to TPC that the problem was theirs, not ours. (The less TPC know about how the phone lines in my house are wired, the better :-).) (By the way, some phone stores refuse to sell the dialer jacks (8-conductor; I forget the RJ number) to the public: DUMB!) If TPC is reading this, I live on the moon :-). Best, -- Bruce Limber (seismo!dolqci!bruce) The opinions I have expressed above are shared by my boss, my employer, the federal government, and all right-thinking people everywhere. (I'm more humble than you are!) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 87 13:05:44 EDT From: Bob Clements Subject: Radio call-in exchanges Re: Getting through to a radio station call-in (contest) number Some time ago, the Boston area contest lines were all in one of the 617-95x-nnnn exchanges. I forget which one, but let's say it was 954. I guessed that 954 was really some other exchange with an alternate address. The alternate address (954) would have minimal trunking assigned to it, but the real exchange would have normal trunking. So calls to 954 would get busy signals generated near your home rather than all being trunked in to the city and congesting the system. I figured if it was a real exchange, it would have other real phone numbers available through it. So I tried calling nice round numbers that would be business lines. First try: I called 954-1000. After a couple busy signals, I got through and someone answered "Megawidget Corp". I politely said "Sorry I have a wrong number" and hung up. A quick check of the phone book revealed Megawidget to have the phone number 261-1000. So 954 was really 261. Then calls to contest line 954-WMEX could really be placed to 261-WMEX. Sure enough, it worked. I got through much more often. It doesn't work that way any more. Too bad. Currently, the contest exchange is 617-931-1xxx and it doesn't seem to be multiply addressable. Maybe it works where you live, though. /Rcc [Above numbers and companies are for illustrative purposes only. Your mileage may vary. All disclaimers claimed. All claims disclaimed.] clements@bbn.com [Tee hee. The 931 Mass Calling Prefix (520 in area 213, 955 in area code 212) is designed with that sort of thing prevented. I suspect that these lines are merely translation tables in ESS or Xbar tandems (we have no step-by-step here). Your ESS or xbar machine has capacity to allow only 2 calls per number on your machine. I tried calling WBCN when they were offering Beastie Boys tickets, but at work I live on the 353/262/375/ etc. machine, and most of the students and young population is on that machine. Note I could call WXKS because *they* weren't having a contest, so the lines are not meant to interfere with each other either. In addition, you go through a special set of trunks which only allow a certain number of trunks through to the machine that is doing the 931. WBCN has its studio in Boston downtown so they have local lines to the 931 Central Office, but WXKS has to pay foreign exchange rates to Medford (two towns and 4 central offices away) to get their 931 service. WAAF is in Worcester and pays *through* *the* nose* for its 931 service. --JSol] ------------------------------ From: seismo!ihnp4!ihlpl!rs55611@EDDIE.MIT.EDU Date: 6 Apr 87 17:12:57 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: ihlpl!rs55611 From: rs55611@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Robert E. Schleicher) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Q: reporting (or not) your hardware to the TELCO ?!] Summary: Ringer Equivalencies Message-ID: <1966@ihlpl.ATT.COM> Date: 6 Apr 87 17:12:55 GMT References: <12291194708.5.CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU> <312@acornrc.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois Lines: 28 In article <312@acornrc.UUCP>, bob@acornrc.UUCP (Bob Weissman) writes: > > About a year ago, I got to feeling guilty with all the equipment on my > one phone line (4 phones, answering machine, modem), and wondered whether > suddently things might stop ringing, so I dutifully wrote down all the RENs, > serial numbers, etc., and called up Pacific Bell. > > The fellow who answered my call was rather surprised when I told him why I > was calling. He chuckled and replied that Pac Bell's equipment doesn't care > about what you've got on your line, so their people don't care either. > > I never got to rattle off my list of RENs. > In general, the phone companies no longer care about what kind of equipment you hang on the line. That's not to say that they will accomodate any number of phones on the line. The basic approach now is that the individual customer is responsibile for not connecting too many pieces of equipment. The phone company will tell you the Ringer Equivalency Number (REN) for your line, at your request. It's then up to you to stay under it, or risk the consequences of sporadic ringing, etc. The REN for most single-party lines is 5, although shorter lines can typically support more. Long loops may have an REN of 3 or less, and may require things like grounded ringers, or ringer isolators, etc. Bob Schleicher ihlpl!rs55611 ------------------------------ Date: Mon 6 Apr 87 21:54:46-EDT From: Philip A. Earnhardt Subject: modem multi-modal handshake My company has some Vadic 2400PA modems; we're considering using the Telebit Faslink modems. With a Fastlink originating the call, they will handshake correctly and use the v.22bis protocol. However, our modem lackie can't get them to handshake correctly when the 2400PA is originating the call. First off, has anyone ever dealt with this specific compatibility pair? Is there something obvious we're missing? Do any of the CCITT specifications talk about the multi-modal handshake issue? Have any of the modem manufacturers come up with some clever ideas? Is there any sort of de-facto standard? Thanks, phil ------------------------------ From: cbmvax!hutch!rabbit1!robert@seismo.CSS.GOV Date: Tue, 7 Apr 87 19:45:22 est Subject: Re: Got message to press '1' for faster service Newsgroups: mod.telecom Summary: Dial 1 identifies touch-tone(tm) for automated answering system References: <8703292028.AA01420@dasys1.Dasys.COM> In article <8703292028.AA01420@dasys1.Dasys.COM>, schuster@dasys1.Dasys.COM (Michael Schuster) writes: > > Recently I had occasion to call Sony Customer Service in NJ on their WATS > line (800-222-SONY). Prior to ringing, I was greeted by the following > telephone-company-sounding recorded message: > > "Thank you for calling. For faster service please press or dial '1' _now_". > > Does anyone know what this means? How will pressing '1' at that point give > me faster service? I was unable to discern any difference with or without. I experienced this when calling a mutual funds company. I had the impression that the message came AFTER the phone had rung, but I could be wrong. After PRESSING 1 on the touch-tone, I was prompted to select (by number) the reason for my call from a verbal "menu". There were several transactions that could be made using the phone like an ATM (account transfers, redemptions). I assume that pressing the initial "1" identified my touch-tone capability. Had I NOT pressed the "1", I probably would have been transfered to a "live" operator after a brief pause. Due to the specific features of the system, I assumed it was an on-site system at the mutual fund company. It may have been done by AT&T or their local BOC, however. Would surprise me, though. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Apr 1987 12:41:57-EST From: rdsnyder@MIT-CCC Subject: Reporting of FCC ID/REN info to telcos Being curious about what the BOC's do with FCC ID & REN info, I asked someone at the FCC who has been involved with this issue about it. He said that the rules requiring customers to report the info grew out of confusion between the FCC and the BOC's. Apparently, the FCC thought that the BOC's needed the info to maintain their telephone systems, while the BOC's thought that they needed to collect the info to satisfy the FCC. The truth seems to be that the FCC doesn't want to know anything about people's phones and the BOC's don't trust the information. I was told that, when this confusion was discovered, the FCC dropped the requirements that the FCC ID & REN be reported. The moral of the story is: connect anything you want to your phone line, provided it has been FCC registered and does have an FCC ID #, and don't tell anyone anything about it. However, the ringers and ringing detectors might start to lose if the sum of all the REN's on the line gets above about 5. (But even this won't harm the network, since even the most primitive telephone systems have current-limited ringing signals.) -Ross (rdsnyder%ccc.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu) ------------------------------ From: columbia!phri!dasys1.Dasys.COM!rsweeney@seismo.CSS.GOV (Robert Sweeney) Date: 7 Apr 87 23:42:03 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: dasys1!rsweeney From: rsweeney@dasys1.UUCP (Robert Sweeney) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Q: reporting (or not) your hardware to the TELCO ?!] Message-ID: <319@dasys1.UUCP> Date: 7 Apr 87 23:42:03 GMT References: <12291194708.5.CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU> <312@acornrc.UUCP> Reply-To: rsweeney@dasys1.UUCP (Robert Sweeney) Distribution: world Organization: Datamerica Systems, NYC Lines: 10 An interesting thing happened when a friend of mine reported his BBS' modem line to New York Telephone. The quality of service on the line went DOWN considerably - he immediately began having trouble with line noise, disconnections, and the like. Has anyone else had a similar experience? -- Robert Sweeney {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!\ Datamerica Systems {harpo,bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!rsweeney New York, NY. USA {philabs}!tg!/ "NO SLEEP 'TILL BROOKLYN!!" ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 87 01:05:52 EDT From: *Hobbit* Subject: consumer ANI My big question is: Is there a "standard" protocol for the way in which the calling-party data is transmitted down the line, so that I could still sit down and build myself a full-feature phone? My old Western Electric unit, which I love and cherish and have extensively modified, won't serve unless I can add the proper hardware to display these things. Said unit will probably still be around when my exchange [which *is* one of those awful digital things and feels like someone's basement PBX] starts playing with such toys. _H* ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Apr 87 17:09 EST From: (Tom - FANDM Tech Support) Subject: U.S. ROBOTICS 2400 BAUD MODEMS We are looking for some input on the reliability of the U.S. Robotics 2400 baud modem. We will be using on a VAX 8500 on a dedicated dial-in line so it will be powered up at all times. Any experiences (+ or _) with this unit would be appreciated. Thanks. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 16-Apr-87 19:32:45-EDT,24876;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Thu 16 Apr 87 19:32:22-EDT Date: 15 Apr 87 01:53-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #31 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, April 15, 1987 1:53AM Volume 6, Issue 31 Today's Topics: Re: "press or dial 1 now" ringer equiv's; orlando ESS features; fcc reg's mass calling numbers, number ID Telephone Ring Detection Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) Submission for mod.telecom (Modems and data jacks) Submission for mod-telecom Universal telephone network plug?? Re: Submission for mod-telecom Re: Line hunting Hang-ups [Re: RISKS-4.67] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Apr 87 21:27:59 est From: Stuart Friedberg Subject: Re: "press or dial 1 now" In article <8704080219.AA19687@seismo.CSS.GOV>, robert@rabbit1.UUCP writes: > Summary: Dial 1 identifies touch-tone(tm) for automated answering system > In article <8703292028.AA01420@dasys1.Dasys.COM>, schuster@dasys1.Dasys.COM (Michael Schuster) writes: > > "Thank you for calling. For faster service please press or dial '1' _now_". > I experienced this when calling a mutual funds company. I had the impression > that the message came AFTER the phone had rung, but I could be wrong. After > PRESSING 1 on the touch-tone, I was prompted to select (by number) the > reason for my call from a verbal "menu". > [...] > I assume that pressing the initial "1" identified my touch-tone capability. > Had I NOT pressed the "1", I probably would have been transfered to a "live" > operator after a brief pause. Strange you should mention that! I just called 9 mutual funds last Friday and four of them had this feature. My phone is a dark-ages dial phone and when I dialled 1, I got only Muzak followed eventually by live operators. This tends to confirm that "press or dial 1" is to identify touch-tone capability. In each case, the message was given *after* the initial ringing of the phone, so the discrimination and subsequent menu processing is almost certainly performed by a box local to the subscriber. Personally, I think the message is misleading. Requesting someone to "press or dial" suggests strongly that both touch-tone and dial phones are acceptable when the whole point is to discriminate between them. Stu Friedberg ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Thu, 09 Apr 87 22:49:35 PDT Subject: ringer equiv's; orlando ESS features; fcc reg's MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/09/87 22:49:33 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: ringer equiv's; orlando ESS features; fcc reg's To: Telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Can anyone explain why REN's (Ringer Equivalent No's, which you add up to see if you are over, for example, 5, and risk getting unreliable ringing) come in "A" and "B" flavors? On my many instruments I see old-fashioned phones are usually 1.0A, and flimsy electronic jobs are 0.5B or 1.5B. I have dreamed up something about whether it uses the real AC to drive a bell (A?) or runs an electronic tweeter (B?). Do you add them all together anyway, and why do they bother telling you which flavor? In issues of telecom digest in past years (perhaps 2-3 years ago) I read a lot about the orlando telco offering advanced ess features. They included, roughly, the following: You could get a service to tell you the number calling; you could get selective ringing (never described to my satisfaction; can you both INCLUDE and EXCLUDE? can you give partial pattern profiles? Could you dream of GREP descriptors?); you could, as a caller, request anonymity, in which case the receiver would see something like "private" for the calling no. The privilege of getting the caller's no. was special somehow (available only to, say, businesses or computer centers, perhaps, who would love it for the security tracing aspect). But selective ringing was available to all. And you had "call the last b*tard back" which did that even if they were secret. Supposedly for returning calls you missed, barely, while running in the door. The thing was layered rather marvelously. For example, you could with the proper arrangements "freeze and report" a calling no. to the telco, without its being disclosed to you, to enable the grabbing of obscene callers while preserving others' privacy. This reporting feature reported all including those who had specified privacy. My impression, which needs confirmation by others, is that many exchanges routinely forward the calling no. on local and long-dist trunks; but I bet the local exchanges which could deal with it, filter it off for non-buyers before you would have a chance to see it. You gotta be "wired" (coded) for it. (Those in the know please confirm). As for pac bell san francisco, years ago they did record your equipment diligently in their files. I tried to register a rad shack phone and they couldn't find it in their master book; the book listed "all" fcc phones, was available for viewing in local phone offices. Neither me nor telco could figure out what to do about my phone which said it was registered but was not in their book; I felt squeezed unfairly at the time. Later discovered somehow that the Rad Shack phone was somehow not authorized in Calif. and that's why it wasn't in the telco book. But they were not stopped from selling it. Nowadays if you try to report your stuff they don't seem to know how to handle that request. Please note that many phones being marketed, even recently invented ones, have a long printed speil explaining your need to call the local telco. Those instructions offer their own reason: "to allow the tel co to inform you if they are going to make any changes that will affect your service. They are required to so notify you...etc.". On that basis, I "registered" a representative set of example instruments so I'd get informed of almost anything. Never heard a word. I have since concluded that telcos can hardly maintain such databases these days, and that a mutual solution is possible. First of all, they can hardly make changes that deviate way outside some sort of industry range or parameter standards. Second of all, should they ever need to make radical changes, they must have concluded by now that they'd just have to inform every subscriber in the mass bills, so why bother with elaborate sublists of equipt. types and costly partial notification, which wouldn't even reach all those affected. Supposedly in the year 2012 or 2045 they'll finally kill rotary, for example. So just tell everyone, 6 times over 2-3 whole years. Thanks, Doug &ringer equiv's; orlando ESS features; fcc reg's ------------------------------ Date: 10-Apr-1987 0919 From: goldstein%delni.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Subject: mass calling numbers, number ID Bob Clements' observation about Boston's mass calling number is interesting, since the prefix code 931 (mass calling) mapped into 261, but doesn't any more. About five years ago, NE Telephone _deleted_ 617-261 from the list of active codes. Anybody who had such a number presumably had it changed (I don't know of too many, though; probably a couple of Centrex systems). Now it makes more sense... re: "CLASS" services that offer calling number id: I don't think being on a crossbar will protect your number. Crossbars have automatic number ID on them, for billing purposes, and probably forward it to the toll switch. Certainly steppers do! You only need an ESS to be on the receiving end of such services. There is no one standard technique for delivering calling number ID. Some systems use separate lines. I'm told that the Bell of PA trial uses 202-modem tones on the line between the first and second rings. Primitive but it works. Of course this is not available in many places yet, and probably will never standardize pre-ISDN. The ISDN protocol (Q.931) for call control is basically symmetrical for incoming and outgoing calls. When the network sends a call to your phone, it may contain a calling number field, if you pay for the service. Field trials are beginning... fred ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Apr 87 11:55 EDT From: (Jon Loos 814/238-6649) Subject: Telephone Ring Detection Is it just my imagination, or did Radio Shack used to sell a chip that would detect the ring signal on a telephone line? What I want to do is build a simple box that would plug into my equalizer input or output lines, and also the phone lines. When the phone rings, it would can the stereo, so that I can hear the phone. (Don't tell me I'm playing the stereo too loud, I already know that.) I called both Radio Shack stores around here, and they are clueless. (Both stores misunderstood and tried to sell me their touch- tone decoder chip... haha Gotta love their training.) Any ideas on where I can get this chip now, or how I might build something w/o the aid of this chip? Feel free to e-mail me, or post to the net. I would also like to have some idea what the REN of whatever contraption you come up with would be. Our lines are pretty taxed w/6 phones & an answering machine. Thanks for your time (or in advance, if you prefer, but I gather that's not real cool. Can anybody explain to me why?) - Jon ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Apr 87 13:25:53 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (FCC Registration) In a recent article kludge%gitpyr@gatech.gatech.EDU (Scott Dorsey) writes: > Is there any problem using telephone equipment which is not FCC licensed? > I have some surplus Army field telephones (modified for common battery use), > and some homebrew phones which are around the house. I certainly hope that > I can still operate it, although I could understand being prevented from > selling such stuff. I will give you two answers: (1) The OFFICIAL answer is that you are only allowed to connect devices to the telephone line which are FCC registered (which carry FCC registration numbers), or devices which were "grandfathered" at the time FCC Part 68 took effect. Grandfathered devices are listed by the FCC and by operating telephone companies, and are devices which were deemed acceptable to connect to the telephone line prior to the issuance of FCC registration numbers. Most of the grandfathered devices consisted of telephone answering machines, modems and PBX's; these devices would now be at least 11 years old, and would be pretty much obsolete. (2) The UNOFFICIAL answer is that you could damn well connect anything you want to the telephone network, and not have a problem PROVIDED that the device was a telephone with no external source of energy (i.e., not some 120 VAC powered device). Devices that utilize AC line power and are neither FCC-registered nor grandfathered should be carefully checked for powerline leakage before use. It is extremely difficult to cause physical harm to the telephone company cable plant or central office equipment, but it is possible if you intentionally try. It is also difficult to cause crosstalk on telephone company cables, but it is possible if you do something pretty stupid (like send a +20 dBm tone over the line), or if your motive is intentional interference. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Apr 87 13:30:30 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Modems and data jacks) In a recent article howard@cos.UUCP (Howard Berkowitz) writes: > One minor point (minor until it gets you): dial modems, > especially the higher speed ones, may not work properly > because the network interface device has resistors set > for voice use, not data. It is worth letting your telco > know you are running higher speed data, because your > network interface should then be configured to give you > better signal to noise ratios, not important for voice. > > If they're going to charge more for data access, do this > only after you have unacceptable problems. Your problems, > however, often are in the jack, not the local loop. The above article raises a good point, but it is not quite accurate. First, let's talk about data jacks. There are two types of data jacks with resistors: 1. The Fixed Loop Loss (FLL) jack, such as the RJ41S (RJ42S and RJ43S for A-lead control where data lines terminate in key equipment). This jack provides direct tip and ring access through pins 5 and 4, respectively. It provides an attenuated tip and ring access through pins 2 and 1, respectively. It is intended that voice signals utilize the direct line connection, while data signals utilize the attenuated line connection. The value of the attenuator pad will be set by the telephone company according to loop loss so that the effective loss (total of loop loss and pad loss) between the jack and the central office will be between 8 and 9 dB. The net result is that a 0 dBm data signal sent by the modem will reach the central office at -8 to -9 dBm. So the point is: the line connection through the resistor pad is for DATA use, and NOT for voice use. 2. The Programmable Loss jack, such as the RJ45S (RJ46S and RJ47S for A-lead control where data lines terminal in key equipment). This jack provides direct tip and ring access through pins 5 and 4, respectively. A resistor installed by the telephone company across pins 7 and 8 (leads PR and PC) tells the modem what output level to send. An infinite resistance tells the modem to send at -9 dBm; 19,800 ohms sends at -8 dBm; 9,200 ohms sends at -7 dbm; 5,490 ohms sends at -6 dBm; ...; and a direct short sends at 0 dBm. This resistor is sensed by internal modem circuitry, and has nothing to do with direct telephone line tip and ring. The telephone company will set the programming resistor such that the transmitted data signal will enter the central office at between -8 and -9 dBm (i.e., modem transmit level + loop loss = -9 dBm). Telling the telephone company that you are running "higher speed" data will most likely accomplish nothing. The telephone company could care less about your data rate or noise concerns (at least for the price of a POTS line); all the telephone company cares about is that your transmitted data signal reaches the central office at between -8 and -9 dBm. Period. Speaking candidly, if you feel compelled to send data at a greater transmit level, you can defeat any FLL or Programmable data jack and send at 0 dBm - regardless of actual central office loop loss. While I don't want to get off on a tangent here, the fact is that transmitting at a higher level is NOT necessarily going to result in a lower error rate. I can vouch for this from extensive personal experience. Most of the newer modems have receive threshholds of < -40 dBm; this is really quite a bit of sensitivity. Transmitting at a higher-than-necessary level can "strain" the ability of the band-pass filters in the modem to reject the locally-generated transmit signal, and leakage of the transmit signal into the modem receiver can often exacerbate a data line error situation. So the moral is: LOUDER is not always BETTER. :-) <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ From: seismo!ihnp4!ihlpa!kdf@EDDIE.MIT.EDU Date: 12 Apr 87 03:20:29 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: ihlpa!kdf From: kdf@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Ken Frantzen) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: Re: Dial '1' for faster service Message-ID: <3571@ihlpa.ATT.COM> Date: 12 Apr 87 03:20:29 GMT References: <8704080219.AA19687@seismo.CSS.GOV> Reply-To: kdf@ihlpa.UUCP (Ken Frantzen) Distribution: world Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 15 In article <8704080219.AA19687@seismo.CSS.GOV> robert@rabbit1.UUCP writes: >Subject: Re: Got message to press '1' for faster service >> >> Does anyone know what this means? How will pressing '1' at that point give >> me faster service? I was unable to discern any difference with or without. > >I assumed it was an on-site system at the mutual fund company. It may >have been done by AT&T or their local BOC, however. Would surprise me, though. This is an AT&T service offering. AT&T's Direct Services Dialing Network Services Complex sitting behind a 4ESS(tm) Switch detects your DTMF '1', plays the oral menu and, based on your subsequent digit selection, routes you to the desired service center. If you don't have a DTMF phone, an attendant will process your request. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 87 10:01:52 EDT From: dave%lsuc%math%math.waterloo.edu@RELAY.CS.NET To: Path: lsuc!dave From: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Newsgroups: mod.telecom Subject: simulate conference calling with 2 lines? Message-ID: <1714@lsuc.UUCP> Date: 13 Apr 87 12:56:48 GMT Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto Lines: 19 I have two lines at home, one normally used for a modem. Of the 4 wires in any jack, red & green hook up the main line and yellow & black (if connected to red & green on the phone) hook up the second line. I'm curious to know whether I can construct something which will let me achieve conference calling by using both lines -- the electronic equivalent to holding the mouthpiece of one phone to the earpiece of another, I guess. In other words, if I'm at home talking to my wife on one line and our broker on the other, can I do something which will let them hear each other as well as me? I realize I can get conference calling from the phone company; I'm curious as to whether I can do it with what I already have. David Sherman dave@lsuc.UUCP Toronto -- { seismo!mnetor cbosgd!utgpu watmath decvax!utcsri ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 87 11:40:07 PDT From: Rich Wales Subject: Universal telephone network plug?? I received the following insert in my latest phone bill. (My phone company is General Telephone; I'm in western Los Angeles.) QUALITY AND CONVENIENCE . . . TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN THE 90'S Today about 90 percent of the information carried over telephone lines in the United States is through conversation, what we call voice communication. But the demand for computerized data is growing tremendously. So we're working hard to make it as convenient for you to send and receive both voice and data over your existing telephone line as it is to use an electrical plug. To do that, we're going to transform the existing public telephone system. Very soon, all kinds of telecommunications equipment, such as telephones, alarm systems, computers and image facsimile machines, will use a universal plug to connect to the telephone network. The connection will be as receptive to your communications equipment as electrical outlets are to appliances. And unlike now, where each type of service often requires its own telephone line, the future network will let you use a wide range of techniques on a single phone line. For example, if you're install- ing a burglar alarm, you won't have to install an additional tele- phone line. Services such as telecommuting (working by computer at home), elec- tronic catalog shopping, electronic banking, electronic mail and electronic libraries will be offered by businesses, financial insti- tutions and merchandisers. Utilities will be able to read your gas, water and electric meters remotely. The potential of our telephone network is tremendous. And the con- venience of having several services provided to you on a single phone line will give you the flexibility to grow and change your telephone service as the need arises. Can anyone out there shed more light on what my local GTE people are talking about here? In particular, when they talk about "transforming" the existing system so that everything will connect to it via a "universal plug", are they thinking of the existing RJ11/RJ14 modular system, or something else? -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1600 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(ucbvax,rutgers)!ucla-cs!wales "Sir, there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder." ------------------------------ From: rutgers!seismo!sun!cwruecmp!ncoast!smith@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Phil Smith) Subject: Re: Submission for mod-telecom Date: 13 Apr 87 15:30:57 GMT Reply-To: rutgers!seismo!sun!cwruecmp!ncoast!smith (Phil Smith) > Article <8703251425.AA20549@ektools.uucp> From: john@ektools.UUCP > In article <172329.870323.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes: > >For broadcast stations, the FCC has ruled that stations East of the > >Mississippi begin with W, West of the Mississippi begin with K. (A > >very few early stations such as KDKA break this rule.) > > The rule must have been made since 1970, for that was about when Westinghouse > Broadcasting bought WRCV (?) radio and TV in Philadelphia and changed their > calls to KYW. The K-prefix and 3-character call are both unusual in the > Philadelphia area. > -- Call sign KYW (an old sign, just like KDKA) was formerly in Cleveland, Oh. I have trouble remembering all of the details, but the call sign change was required by the FCC. Sign KYW was moved to Philadelphia and WKYC (NBC) was moved from Philadelphia to Cleveland, Oh. -- decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!smith ncoast is dead, long live ncoast! ncoast!smith@case.csnet (ncoast!smith%case.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA) ------------------------------ From: rutgers!seismo!sun!cwruecmp!ncoast!billw@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Bill Wisner) Subject: Re: Line hunting Date: 13 Apr 87 18:56:02 GMT Reply-To: rutgers!seismo!sun!cwruecmp!ncoast!billw (Bill Wisner) [Hmm.. why does an article from kitty.UUCP have an id from seismo? -bw] In article <8704051912.AA03671@seismo.CSS.GOV> larry@kitty.UUCP writes: >> [The best way I have found to get through on a radio station line is >> to program their number into your speed calling and sit there with >> one finger on the hookswitch and another almost pressing 9#. --jsol] > > You got it! Even better: sit there with your trusty Hayes Smartmodem, with the speaker on, one finger on the A, one finger on the slash... hasn't failed me yet. -- Bill Wisner: "You're kidding, right?" ..{sdcsvax,ihnp4}!jack!wolf!billw ..cwruecmp!ncoast!billw ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1987 22:53 EDT From: LENOIL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Hang-ups [Re: RISKS-4.67] >The best solution to >obnoxious electronic calling machines is legal - ban the damn things! We have. I just read in last week's paper that electronic calling devices are prohibited by California's public utilities code, unless a human caller comes on the line first and gets the callee's permission to listen to the machine's sales pitch. The article went on to say that many firms are flaunting the law. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 16-Apr-87 21:14:02-EDT,14885;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Thu 16 Apr 87 21:13:59-EDT Date: 15 Apr 87 01:55-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #32 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, April 15, 1987 1:55AM Volume 6, Issue 32 Today's Topics: IBM System 36 Telecom Info Wanted telephone credit cards Radio Station Call Letters, International Allocations Submission for comp-dcom-telecom handling telephone repair people Transmission Product Calling number delivery ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rochester!kodak!ciaraldi%rochester.ARPA@seismo.CSS.GOV (Mike Ciaraldi) Subject: IBM System 36 Telecom Info Wanted Date: 14 Apr 87 17:42:55 GMT Reply-To: rochester!ciaraldi@seismo.CSS.GOV (Mike Ciaraldi) Is there any way to set up an IBM System 36 so it can call other systems? In particular, I know someone with a 36, who wants to communicate by modem to a VAX/VMS system. I heard that the 36 has only synchronous communication, no asynch. What I would really like would be something that lets him emulate a VT100 with his 36 terminals. Failing that, is there an easy way to connect an IBM PC or compatible to a 36? Thenit could be used to capture data from the VAX and upload it to the 36. Thanks, Mike Ciaraldi ARPA: ciaraldi@cs.rochester.edu uucp: seismo!rochester!ciaraldi ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Tue, 14 Apr 87 13:19:34 PDT Subject: telephone credit cards MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/14/87 13:19:33 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: telephone credit cards To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Does anyone know about the law and policy regarding charge cards following the divestment? I am puzzled by the following practice: Pacific bell sent me a card with the number consisting of my telephone number and a secret 4-digit code not on the card. ATT sent me a card with the same whole number INCLUDING the same 4-digit verifier embossed on the card. Both cards have magnetic strips. (I may have it reversed about which one was secret, which clear-text.) In any case, two facts appear: apparently there is still a "deal" between them about long-distance; I suppose in effect that when you charge, you needn't know whether the call is intra- or inter-lata, and the billing all gets done by Pac bell anyway. But it seems odd to have two cards from two different companies, that look different, that perform an identical practical and business function. Moreover it is interesting to see the choice of styles, whether you choose the secret or clear-text code to carry around. Thanks, Doug ; telephone credit cards ------------------------------ Date: 14-Apr-1987 1940 From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) Subject: Radio Station Call Letters, International Allocations FR: Greg Monti, National Public Radio, Washington, DC RE: SUBMISSION FOR TELECOM DIGEST In answer to Kevin. J Burnett's request... RADIO STATION CALL LETTERS, INTERNATIONAL ALLOCATIONS Source: 1983 Broadcasting Yearbook, used without permission Afghanistan YA, T6 Albania ZA Algeria 7R, 7T-7Y Andorra C3 Antigua V2 Argentina AY, AZ, LO-LW, L2-L9 Australia AX, VH-VN, VZ Austria OE Bahamas C6 Bahrain A9 Bangladesh S2, S3 Barbados 8P Belgium ON-OT Benin TY Bhutan A5 Bolivia CP Boputhatswana H5 Botswana 8O, A2 Brazil PP-PY, ZV-ZZ Bulgaria LZ Burma XY, XZ Burundi 9U Cambodia XU Cameroon TJ Canada CF-CK, CY, CZ, VA-VG, VO, VX, VY, XJ-XO Cape Verde D4 Central African Republic TL Chad TT Chile CA-CE, XQ, XR, 3G China B, XS, 3H-3U Colombia HJ, HK, 5J, 5K Comoros D6 Congo TN (hmm, thought this was Zaire now) Costa Rica TE, TI Cuba CL, CM, CO, T4 Cyprus 5B, C4, H2, P3 Czechoslovakia OK-OM Denmark OU-OZ, XP, 5P, 5Q Djibouti J2 Dominica J7 Dominican Republic HI Ecuador HC, HD Egypt SSA-SSM, SU, 6A, 6B El Salvador HU, YS Equatorial Guinea 3C Ethiopia ET, 9E, 9F Fiji 3DN-3DZ Finland OF-OJ France & territories F, HW-HY, TH, TK, TM, TO-TQ, TV-TX Gabon TR Gambia C5 Germany West DA-DT Germany East Y2-Y9 Ghana 9G Greece SV-SZ, J4 Grenada J3 Guatemala TD, TG Guinea 3X Guinea Bissau J5 Guyana 8R Haiti HH, 4V Honduras HQ, HR Hungary HA, HG Iceland TF India AT-AW, VT-VW, 8T-8Y Indonesia JZ, PK-PO, YB-YH, 7A-7I, 8A-8I West Irian JZ International Civil Aviation Organization 4Y Iran EP, EQ, 9B-9D Iraq HN, YI Ireland EI, EJ Israel 4X, 4Z Italy I Ivory Coast TU Jamaica 6Y Japan JA-JS, 7J-7N, 8J-8N Jordan JY Kampuchea XU Kenya 5Y, 5Z Kiribati T3 Korea North P5-P9 Korea South HL, HM, 6K-6N, D7-D9 Kuwait 9K Laos XW Lebanon OD Lesotho 7P Liberia EL, 5L, 5M, 6Z, A8, D5 Libya 5A Lithuania LY Luxembourg LX Madagascar 5R, 5S, 6X Malawi 7Q Malaysia 9M, 9W Maldive Islands 8Q Mali TZ Maliwi 7Q Malta 9H Mauritania 5T Mauritius 3B Mexico XA-XI, 4A-4C, 6D-6J Monaco 3A Mongolia JT-JV Morocco CN, 5C-5G Mozambique C8, C9 Nauru C2 Nepal 9N Netherlands PU-PI Netherlands West Indies PJ, P4 New Hebrides YJ New Zealand ZK-ZM Nicaragua HT, YN, H6, H7 Niger 5U Nigeria 5N, 5O Norway JW, JX, LA-LN, 3Y Oman A4 Pakistan AP-AS, 6P-6S Panama HO, HP, 3E, H3, H8-H9 Papua New Guinea P2 Paraguay ZP Peru OA-OC, 4T Phillipines DU-DZ, 4D-4I Poland HF, SN-SR, 3Z Portugal CQ-CU Portuguese Overseas Provinces XX Qatar A7 Romania YO-YR Rwanda 9X Saint Lucia J6 Saint Vincent J8 San Marino 9A Sao Tome e Prinicpe S9 Saudi Arabia HZ, 7Z, 8Z Senegal 6V, 6W Service abbreviations (not used for call signs) Q Seychelles S7 Sierra Leone 9L Singapore 9V, S6 Solomon Island H4 Somali Republic 6O, T5 South Africa ZR-ZU Spain AM-AO, EA-EH Sri Lanka 4P-4S Sudan SSN-STZ, 6T, 6U Surinam PZ Swaziland 3DA-3DM Sweden SA-SM, 7S, 8S Switzerland HB, HE Syria YK, 6C Tanzania 5H, 5I Thailand HS Togo 5V Tonga A3 Transkei S8 Trinidad & Tobago 9Y, 9Z Tunisia TS, 3V Turkey TA-TC, YM Tuvalu T2 Uganda 5X United Arab Emirates A6 United Kingdom G, M, VP-VS, ZB-ZJ, ZN, ZO, ZQ, 2 United Nations 4U United States AA-AL, K, N, W Upper Volta XT Uruguay CV-CX Union of Soviet Socialist Republics EK, EM-EO, ER, ES, EU-EW, EX-EZ, LY, R, U, YL, 4J-4L Belorussia EU-EW Estonia ES Latvia YL Lithuania LY Ukraine UR-UT Vatican State HV Venezuela YV-YY, 4M Vietnam XV, 3W Western Samoa 5W World Meterological Organization C7 Yemen Arab Republic 4W, 7O Yemen PDR 7O Yugoslavia YT, YU, YZ, 4N, 4O Zaire 9O-9T Zambia 9I, 9J Zimbabwe Z2 -end- ------------------------------ From: rochester!ur-laser!daemon@seismo.CSS.GOV Date: 14 Apr 87 22:24:58 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ur-laser!rochester!ciaraldi From: ciaraldi@rochester.ARPA (Mike Ciaraldi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.dcom.telecom Subject: IBM System 36 Telecom Info Wanted Message-ID: <26989@rochester.ARPA> Date: 14 Apr 87 17:42:55 GMT Reply-To: ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (Mike Ciaraldi) Distribution: world Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY Lines: 19 Is there any way to set up an IBM System 36 so it can call other systems? In particular, I know someone with a 36, who wants to communicate by modem to a VAX/VMS system. I heard that the 36 has only synchronous communication, no asynch. What I would really like would be something that lets him emulate a VT100 with his 36 terminals. Failing that, is there an easy way to connect an IBM PC or compatible to a 36? Thenit could be used to capture data from the VAX and upload it to the 36. Thanks, Mike Ciaraldi ARPA: ciaraldi@cs.rochester.edu uucp: seismo!rochester!ciaraldi ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU Date: Tue, 14 Apr 87 17:54:54 PDT Subject: handling telephone repair people MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/14/87 17:54:53 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: handling telephone repair people To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu The problem was mentioned where one waits unnecessarily at home for a tel repair person, when the problem is surely central office. I tend to adopt the following strategy now: I disconnect my house wiring and make sure the problem is at the telco end. Then I call for the repair. When they say "will you be home on day x?" I say "suuuurrrree". Then I don't be home. They fix the central office problem and never come out. I don't know whether all offices think the way ours does but they should. It is expensive to do a customer call. Why not run the office checks first. Since that catches the problem there is no reason for the expensive customer visit. Now we have an ESS. Some offices might I suppose have an opposite economic rule; for them it may be more expensive to do the office check. Note that, though there could be a charge if customer equipt is at fault, there is not currently a charge for "customer not home when visited". I generally think that simple lying is bad karma, but in the specific case where I know that it's telco equipment, and the secretary I call can't operate on such info and is instructed to arrange a time for the customer to be home, lying seems the most effective path of action. Thanks, Doug handling telephone repair people ------------------------------ From: ketri!kslim@seismo.CSS.GOV (Sik Lim) Subject: Transmission Product Date: 15 Apr 87 00:38:10 GMT I am working in the transmission part. So please send me information (i.e. product companies, Tel NO., FAX NO. etc ...) about products which convert 1 Mbps serial input data into T-1 carrier (1.544) speed as soon as possible. Thank you. ------------------------ Donghee Han Switching S/W Dept. ETRI, KOREA. {...!seismo}!kaist!ketri!tops!kslim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 87 17:06:27 edt From: ms6b#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) Subject: Calling number delivery For those who want more information about how CLASS systems deliver the caller's number to a handset in a non-ISDN environment, consult the following: BellCore Technical Advisory TA-TSY-000031, November 1984 "Calling Number Delivery" and TA-TSY-000030, November 1984 "SPCS/Customer Premises Equipment Data Interface" Available from: Manager-Information Release Bell Communications Research, Inc. 435 South Street Room 2J-272 Morristown, NJ 07960-1961 (201) 829-4149 Some quotes: "The Calling Number Delivery service allows the called customer premises equipment (CPE) to receive the Directory Number (DN) of the calling party during the ringing cycle....Then, depending on the options offered by the CPE, the DN is displayed, and or printed out. "...Calling Number Delivery service allows customers with Call Waiting Service to possibly receive the calling DN two times in the call sequence--during the ringing cycle, as above, and also during the talking state of the call. For the latter case, the DN transmitted is the DN of the party calling the customer while the customer is busy on another call. "Finally Calling Number Delivery service allows the called CPE to receive a four digit or longer Personal Identification Number (PIN) instead of the calling DN. The PIN would be dialed by the calling party as part of the calling sequence. Receiving a PIN would indicate to the called party that the call is from someone that the called party probably wants to talk to, even though the call might be from a line having a DN that would not have been recognized if displayed to the called party (e.g. a coin line)." "For calling parties concerned about the privacy of their DN's the capability is provided to allow callers to prevent transmission of their DN's to the called party's CPE, either for all calls or on a per call basis." The details of the data communication physical layer is not spelled out in TA-TSY-000030--in this report BellCore seems to be soliciting ideas from switch vendors. The link layer protocol specified consists of checksummed packets of asynch characters with a simple ACK/NAK stop and wait ARQ. Information can be coded as ASCII or BCD (specified in packet header). ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 18-Apr-87 23:42:54-EDT,15769;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 18-Apr-87 23:29:56 Date: 18 Apr 87 23:29-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #33 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, April 18, 1987 11:29PM Volume 6, Issue 33 Today's Topics: KYW Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Submission for mod-telecom conference calls Re: Universal telephone network plug?? Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Modems and data jacks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1987 02:18 MDT From: WANCHO@SIMTEL20.ARPA Subject: KYW Phil, KYW-TV and -AM (both owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting) was originally in Philadelphia, and moved to Cleveland in a swap between NBC and Westinghouse, circa 1958 or so. After a couple of years, it was swapped back. The exact reason for the second swap is gone from memory, but, I vaguely recall the FCC in the middle of it - either the number of stations NBC could own, or the number in a metropolitan area, i.e., NYC/Phila area, or some combination. --Frank ------------------------------ From: rochester!cci632!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV ( remote copy) Date: 15 Apr 87 04:24:21 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: cci632!ritcv!rochester!ciaraldi From: ciaraldi@rochester.ARPA (Mike Ciaraldi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.dcom.telecom Subject: IBM System 36 Telecom Info Wanted Message-ID: <26989@rochester.ARPA> Date: 14 Apr 87 17:42:55 GMT Reply-To: ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (Mike Ciaraldi) Distribution: world Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY Lines: 19 Is there any way to set up an IBM System 36 so it can call other systems? In particular, I know someone with a 36, who wants to communicate by modem to a VAX/VMS system. I heard that the 36 has only synchronous communication, no asynch. What I would really like would be something that lets him emulate a VT100 with his 36 terminals. Failing that, is there an easy way to connect an IBM PC or compatible to a 36? Thenit could be used to capture data from the VAX and upload it to the 36. Thanks, Mike Ciaraldi ARPA: ciaraldi@cs.rochester.edu uucp: seismo!rochester!ciaraldi ------------------------------ From: David M. Balenson Date: 15 Apr 87 21:52:42 GMT Subject: Submission for mod-telecom Path: mimsy!balenson From: balenson@mimsy.UUCP (David M. Balenson) Newsgroups: sci.crypt,mod.telecom Subject: DES Second Review Notice Message-ID: <6301@mimsy.UUCP> Date: 15 Apr 87 21:52:41 GMT Reply-To: balenson@mimsy.UUCP (David M. Balenson) Distribution: usa Organization: University of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Sci. Lines: 106 For your information, here is a copy of the Federal Register Notice regarding the second review of Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 46, Data Encryption Standard (DES). If interested, please submit your written comments by June 4, 1987. The more comments we receive, the better NBS will be able to take a stance regarding the future of DES. Please feel free to distribute this notice to all who may be interested. Thank you. David M. Balenson (DB) [balenson@icst-ssi.ARPA] Security Technology Group / Computer Security Division National Bureau of Standards Technology A216 Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899 (301) 975-2910 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Federal Register / Vol. 52, No. 44 / Friday, March 6, 1987 / Notices ---------------------------------------------------------------------- National Bureau of Standards [Docket No. 70109-7009] Second Review of Federal Information Processing Standard 46, Data Encryption Standard (DES) AGENCY: National Bureau of Standards, Commerce. ACTION: Notice of second review of federal information processing standard (FIPS) 46, data encryption standard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: Federal Information Processing Standard 46, Data Encryption Standard, issued in 1977, provides an algorithm to be implemented in electronic hardware devices and used for the cryptographic protection of computer data. The standard provided that it be reviewed within five years to assess its adequacy. The first review was completed in 1983, and the standard was reaffirmed for Federal government use (48 FR 41062 dated September 13, 1983). The purpose of this notice is to announce the second review to assess the continued adequacy of the standard to protect computer data. Comments from industry and the public are invited on the following alternatives for FIPS 46. The costs (impacts) and benefits of these alternatives should be included in the comments. o Reaffirm the standard for another five (5) years. The National Bureau of Standards would continue to validate equipment that implements the standard. FIPS 46 would continue to be an approved method for protecting unclassified computer data against unauthorized modification or disclosure. o Withdraw the standard. The National Bureau of Standards would no longer continue to support the standard. Organizations could continue to utilize existing equipment that implements the standard, and non-government organizations could continue to develop new implementations as desired. Government organizations would begin to utilize new security devices as they become available through the Commercial Communication Security Endorsement Program of the National Security Agency. o Revise the applicability of the standard. The applicability statement of the standard would be changed to specify certain uses, such as using the standard for protecting Electronic Funds Transfers. Proposed technical changes to the algorithm will not be considered during this review. Interested parties may obtain a copy of FIPS 46 from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161, telephone (703) 487-4650. DATE: Comments on this second review of FIPS 46 must be received on or before June 4, 1987. ADDRESS: Written comments concerning this standard should be submitted to the Director, Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, ATTN: Second Review of FIPS 46, Technology Building, Room B154, Gaithersburg, MD 20899. Written comments received in response to this notice will be made part of the public record and will be made available for inspection and copying in the Central Reference and Records Inspection Facility, Room 6628, Herbert C. Hoover Building, 14th Street between Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues NW., Washington, DC 20230. FOR FURTHUR INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Dennis Branstad, Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, (301) 975-2913. Dated: February 26, 1987. Ernest Ambler, Director [FR Doc. 87-4707 Filed 3-5-87 8:45am] Billing Code 3510-CN-M ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |David M. Balenson (DB) ARPA: balenson@maryland| |UUCP: {seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!balenson CSNet: balenson@umcp-cs | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 87 00:53 EDT From: Jeffrey Del Papa Subject: conference calls Reply-To: Jeffrey Del Papa Date: Mon, 13 Apr 87 10:01:52 EDT From: dave%lsuc%math%math.waterloo.edu@RELAY.CS.NET I have two lines at home, one normally used for a modem. Of the 4 wires in any jack, red & green hook up the main line and yellow & black (if connected to red & green on the phone) hook up the second line. I'm curious to know whether I can construct something which will let me achieve conference calling by using both lines -- the electronic equivalent to holding the mouthpiece of one phone to the earpiece of another, I guess. In other words, if I'm at home talking to my wife on one line and our broker on the other, can I do something which will let them hear each other as well as me? I realize I can get conference calling from the phone company; I'm curious as to whether I can do it with what I already have. David Sherman dave@lsuc.UUCP Toronto -- { seismo!mnetor cbosgd!utgpu watmath decvax!utcsri ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave some cheap two line phones have this as a feature. (I got mine from some sleazy mail order house whose name escapes me) the problem with the cheap ones, is that they have no buffer amp, so engaging the feature costs 6db. This was more featurefull than the telco conferencing, as that prohibits certain revenue beating combinations. (It is impossible for you to conference two incoming calls with telco conferencing, as it is possible to beat tolls with this arrangement) ------------------------------ From: cuccia@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Cuccia) Subject: Re: Universal telephone network plug?? Date: 16 Apr 87 05:56:36 GMT Reply-To: ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU!cuccia@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Cuccia) In article <870413.184007z.01112.wales@DIANA.CS.UCLA.EDU> wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales) writes: >I received the following insert in my latest phone bill. (My phone >company is General Telephone; I'm in western Los Angeles.) > > QUALITY AND CONVENIENCE . . . TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN THE 90'S > > Today about 90 percent of the information carried over telephone > lines in the United States is through conversation, what we call > voice communication. But the demand for computerized data is > growing tremendously. > > So we're working hard to make it as convenient for you to send > and receive both voice and data over your existing telephone line > as it is to use an electrical plug. > >Can anyone out there shed more light on what my local GTE people are >talking about here? > >In particular, when they talk about "transforming" the existing system >so that everything will connect to it via a "universal plug", are they >thinking of the existing RJ11/RJ14 modular system, or something else? The head of ATT's CS research facility in Murray Hill came to Berkeley last month; he gave a talk on where network research at ATT was going now. Most of his talk centered on the Datakit processors, but the latter part orbited around ATT's recent work in both long-haul networking (ex: the new experimental network connecting Berkeley, UW-Madision, U. of Illinois, and Bell Murray Hill) and "local-area" networking. Work that has been done indicates that current wiring technology will allow data transfer rates on the order of 2 Mb. Not bad for non-twisted copper. One of the gizmos that has been built is a line-powered modem that plugs into the standard wall socket. Out the other end comes good old RS-232, all ready for your Blit or other terminal. ATT seems to be basing their work on current standard technology. I know nothing about GTE's work, though, so I can't say what they have up their sleeve... >-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 Bell Labs people: I'd like to find out more about the Datakit, and expecially the work that's been done implementing packet-based protocols (ie: X.25) on top of the Datakit "streams." Thanks, --Nick ------------------------------ From: tli%sargas.usc.edu@usc-oberon.arpa (Tony Li) Date: 16 Apr 87 21:10:35 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: sargas.usc.edu!tli From: tli@sargas.usc.edu (Tony Li) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Remote lines Message-ID: <1616@sargas.usc.edu> Date: 16 Apr 87 21:10:34 GMT References: <8704150627.AA25812@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: tli@sargas.usc.edu.UUCP (Tony Li) Distribution: world Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles Lines: 32 To: earle@jplpub1.jpl.nasa.gov In article <8704150627.AA25812@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> JSOL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU writes: I live in the 213 Area code in L.A. I recently moved, and want to get two lines for my new abode, one of which I will use exclusively for a modem line. When I talked to Pacific Bell I was told I could (for a nice high fee, of course) get a `Data Access Line' which would (presumably) run from the local switching office to my home; a higher grade line would replace the normal voice grade phone line. I was told that this was recommended for anyone doing data transmissions of 2400 baud or higher. I almost bit; but then I thought, what about the rest of the way? I would be calling JPL in Pasadena 99% of the time, which is in Area code 818, prefix 354. Since I'm not a TELECOM expert, I just surmised that the calls I would make would go from my home, over my `good' data line, to the local switching office; then to whatever the local switching office for Pasadena is, and then over a (presumably) standard voice grade line to my other modem. My question for you experts is (a) is this something like the real path that the call will take (3 hops; home <=> switching office <-> s.office#2 <-> work) At least. And possible more. It's not clear that there is an interoffice trunk between downtown LA and Pasadena. and (b) if this is so, then is there any point in getting a higher grade line No, not at all. Besides, the quality of the interoffice trunk here is questionable at best. I call this same path in reverse all of the time... for one's home, when one has no control over the line quality for the other 2/3 of the connection ?!? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 87 15:50:14 PDT From: randolph@cognito (Randolph Fritz ) Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Modems and data jacks) Reply-To: randolph@sun.UUCP (Randolph Fritz ) At the end of a very good informative article on RJ-41 & RJ-45, Larry Lippman (larry@kitty.UUCP) writes: > While I don't want to get off on a tangent here, the fact is that >transmitting at a higher level is NOT necessarily going to result in a lower >error rate. I can vouch for this from extensive personal experience. >Most of the newer modems have receive threshholds of < -40 dBm; this is >really quite a bit of sensitivity. Transmitting at a higher-than-necessary >level can "strain" the ability of the band-pass filters in the modem to >reject the locally-generated transmit signal, and leakage of the transmit >signal into the modem receiver can often exacerbate a data line error >situation. > So the moral is: LOUDER is not always BETTER. :-) Moreover, some telco equipment does *not* have automatic gain control and cannot handle "hot" levels. This is especially a problem with older frequency-muliplexors -- the high levels cause overmodulation and the hot signal inteferes with adjacent signals on the same carrier. (I wonder: was this why telcos used to insist on Data Access Arrangements?) -- Randolph Fritz sun!randolph randolph@sun.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 18-Apr-87 23:43:09-EDT,15785;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 18-Apr-87 23:31:04 Date: 18 Apr 87 23:31-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #34 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, April 18, 1987 11:31PM Volume 6, Issue 34 Today's Topics: Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #31 Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #31 RE: AC powered phone devices system 36-pc, FCC registrations, standards activities Re: Calling number delivery Submission for mod.telecom (Plans for 2-line conference device) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Apr 87 09:11:28 PDT (Friday) From: Thompson.PA@Xerox.COM Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #31 >From: rutgers!seismo!sun!cwruecmp!ncoast!smith@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Phil Smith) >Subject: Re: Submission for mod-telecom >Date: 13 Apr 87 15:30:57 GMT >Reply-To: rutgers!seismo!sun!cwruecmp!ncoast!smith (Phil Smith) > > >> Article <8703251425.AA20549@ektools.uucp> From: john@ektools.UUCP >> In article <172329.870323.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. >Lynch") writes: > >For broadcast stations, the FCC has ruled that stations East of the >> >Mississippi begin with W, West of the Mississippi begin with K. (A >> >very few early stations such as KDKA break this rule.) >> >> The rule must have been made since 1970, for that was about when Westinghouse >> Broadcasting bought WRCV (?) radio and TV in Philadelphia and changed their >> calls to KYW. The K-prefix and 3-character call are both unusual in the >> Philadelphia area. > -- >Call sign KYW (an old sign, just like KDKA) was formerly >in Cleveland, Oh. I have trouble remembering all of the >details, but the call sign change was required by the FCC. >Sign KYW was moved to Philadelphia and WKYC (NBC) was moved >from Philadelphia to Cleveland, Oh. > >-- > decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!smith > ncoast is dead, long live ncoast! > ncoast!smith@case.csnet > (ncoast!smith%case.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA) > Actually it goes back a lot farther than 1970. I would guess that it dates from WWII. KYW got its label in Cleveland sometime in the 50's when Westinghouse either swapped with NBC in Philadelphia. I think it was WTAM before the trade. My recollection is that KYW were established call letter in Philadelphia and moved to Cleveland thereby preserving the identity of a grandfathered call set. Isn't there anybody over the age of 50 from northern Ohio on this DL who can end all this speculation by us youngsters and tell us the real answer? (It seems like there is a correlation between East of the Miss. K???'s and Westinghouse. KDKA, KYW) Geoff Thompson Thompson.pa@Xerox.COM Xerox Corporation (408) 737-4690 475 Oakmead Parkway Sunnyvale, CA 94086 ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 87 10:00:20 PDT (Friday) From: Thompson.PA@Xerox.COM Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #31 Re: Date: Fri, 10 Apr 87 11:55 EDT From: (Jon Loos 814/238-6649) Subject: Telephone Ring Detection Is it just my imagination, or did Radio Shack used to sell a chip that would detect the ring signal on a telephone line? I think so, don't know whether or not they still do. There certainly are a number of chips on the market that will do that. You could also do it with a with an electronic ring generator chip of which there are several. I think that the one that Radio Shack sold is the Texas Insturments TCM1520A A brief description of it appears on pg 13 of TI's Telecom Circuits Selection Guide, 1983 VLSI/LSI for Telecom Applications Good luck Geoff Geoff Thompson Thompson.pa@Xerox.COM 475 Oakmead Pkwy (408) 737-4690 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 87 10:23 CDT From: Mike Linnig Subject: RE: AC powered phone devices > Devices that utilize AC line power and are neither FCC-registered nor > grandfathered should be carefully checked for powerline leakage before use. > It is extremely difficult to cause physical HARM to the telephone company > cable plant or central office equipment, but it is possible if you > intentionally try. Another item that can be damaged by AC leakage into the phone line is THE PHONE COMPANY LINEMAN (person?). It is not uncommon for linemen to touch uninsulated (live) telephone wires. At 48 volts DC you hardly notice it (except when the phone rings -- ouch!). If you think damaging the TELECO equipment might be expensive, try being sued after being convicted of manslaughter!. Mike Linnig, Texas Instruments ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Fri, 17 Apr 87 12:33:43 PDT Subject: system 36-pc, FCC registrations, standards activities MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/17/87 12:33:42 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: system 36-pc, FCC registrations, standards activities To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu System 36-pc connection IBM provides some sort of interconnect for pc's which I think does what the requester wants. Contact the IBM support people for the System 36 owner. If they aren't helpful shake them till they call their daddies/mommies. FCC registrations; how ETCO did it In about 1982 or so, I used to buy telephones and terminal blocks etc. from "ETCO" who had a thick surplus electronics pulp catalog. (Since then you can buy these things at all rad shacks and for that matter drugstores so ETCO became relatively less needed and more expensive than alternatives). Several miscellaneous old-fashioned standard used phones I bought, of clearly different styles (e.g. including both bell and Gen Telephone types) all had the same FCC registration sticker on them, identical. I always wondered whether ETCO or others got a broad FCC registration for the whole grandfathered set, or whether they were cheating. Just curious. Standards activities In past times, MA bell was a focal point for a lot of telephone activity, but even then there were other companies. Now it's the known mess. How in the past, and how now, does anyone coordinate? Such matters as protocols, assignment of area codes, plans for new service offerings, etc. Are there agencies such as ANSI involved? Do they all meet with some sort of trust-busting exemption? Are we worse off after the bustup in terms of coordinated development? Do companies copy each other to some extent to coordinate service offerings? An example of an issue would be this: "call-waiting" has been out long enough now for "the public" to begin to have some understanding of what it is and what those funny beeps mean etc. This was an advantage of a new concept disseminating itself into the populace over time. (But, answering machines are also now widely understood even though they required no particular standards activity.) I wonder about the developments such as passing the caller's number, call screening, etc. It would seem advantageous to have some aspects of the form of this service comprehensible to "the populace", and more specifically for instrument makers to know what to look for on the line no matter where the call originated. Thanks, Doug system 36-pc, FCC registrations, standards activities ------------------------------ From: jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) Subject: Re: Calling number delivery Date: 18 Apr 87 03:47:35 GMT The calling number delivery service was offered as "TouchStar" in the Orlando FL area starting in 1985 or 1986. Supposedly all CO's in an area code must be ESS before this capability can be installed. I asked our local business office about plans for this service in the 415 area code, and after some discussions was told that the number of old switches in the San Francisco area put an all ESS area code some years in the future. All current CO's have Automatic Number Identification so that long distance billing will work, of course, but the question is whether this information is forwarded beyond the originating CO when the destination is not an inter-LATA toll call. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Apr 87 11:16:39 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Plans for 2-line conference device) In a recent article dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes: > I have two lines at home, one normally used for a modem. > > I'm curious to know whether I can construct something which will > let me achieve conference calling by using both lines -- the > electronic equivalent to holding the mouthpiece of one phone to > the earpiece of another, I guess. In other words, if I'm at home > talking to my wife on one line and our broker on the other, can > I do something which will let them hear each other as well as me? > > I realize I can get conference calling from the phone company; > I'm curious as to whether I can do it with what I already have. There are several methods of constructing a two-line conference device: 1. The _ideal_ method utilizes transformer isolation of each line, with a voice-switched hybrid-amplifier which supplies gain to the conference circuit (to compensate for connection loss so that the _distant_ parties can adequately hear _each_other_.) 2. A passive circuit employing transformer isolation. 3. Capacitor coupling of the two lines, possibly in conjunction with a resistor or inductor to "hold" one line (the local telephone set provides the DC resistance to hold the other line). 4. Direct hard-wire connection of the T (tip) and R (ring) leads of each line. Of the above, (1) is the best approach, but such a circuit is not trivial to design and build; (3) is a rather poor approach, and (4) is absolutely atrocious (although it does work, after a fashion). This leaves (2) which, if done using the proper components, works reasonably well, is inexpensive and easy to build, and is 100% safe to the telephone network. This article furnishes plans to build a conference device based upon that method. While building such a device and attaching it to the telephone network without it having been FCC-registered may be a technical violation of your "agreement" with your telephone company, people connect such non-registered devices every day, with no one being the wiser. Since the enclosed circuit is intrinsically "safe" (i.e., no ground reference or external power is used), I have no hesitation to provide its construction plans. Installation and operation is, of course, at the sole risk of the user. This device connects to the T and R leads of each line, through a four-pole switch. When the switch is operated, the lines are coupled together, and are also held through a resistor/inductor so that they do not disconnect from the central office. Actual operation is at the discretion of the reader, and should be self-evident. An example would be if two single-line telephones were present on a desk, with the device and its switch connected between them. In operation, a call would be made using telephone 1; the handset of telephone 1 would be put aside while telephone 2 was used to dial the other distant party; when the party on telephone 2 answered, the conference switch would be operated and telephone 2 hung up; the user would continue to use telephone 1 for the duration of the call, and would release the conference switch to drop the telephone line holds (actually on both lines) when the call or the conference was completed. The user could, of course, choose to talk with telephone 2 after the conference was completed, or could originate the call on telephone 2. The key to a successful implementation of this design is the selection of a proper coupling transformer (called repeating coil, in telephone parlance). Any 'ole audio transformer will NOT work, since each winding needs an EQUAL impedance between 500 and 1,000 ohms, IN ADDITION to being able to handle at least 50 milliamperes of DC current without saturating; it is this latter requirement which limits the transformer selection. The best transformer would be a "surplus" telephone repeating coil, with a type designation of 120C or 202A. Such a device can often be purchased for a few dollars from a surplus store or hamfest. Other sources would be a "friend" at a telephone company who would have access to their surplus equipment (such surplus abounds these days as telephone companies replace older equipment with ESS). This repeating coil has eight terminals since it has split windings; I have furnished the proper connections for these terminals (improper connection may result in very poor operation). If you can't find a surplus repeating coil, then try a regular audio transformer that can handle the DC current; some typical part numbers would be Stancor TA-52, TAPC-52; Triad TY-305P; UTC A-22, HA-108. Equivalents to these transformers can often be found surplus for a few dollars. If a transformer is used in place of the repeating coil, the transformer will no doubt have only one winding on each side. In this case, ignore any center-tap lead, and just connect the resistor-capacitor below in series with one lead. If anyone is wondering why the resistor-capacitor is connected _between_ the split windings below it is because, well, er, that is just the "traditional" way telephone circuits are designed when one has split windings. There is nothing special about the resistors or capacitors; just follow the specs below. Build the device in a case, with all leads properly insulated from each other and from the outside world. Switch REP Switch T (Line 1)______________X_____ | | _____X______________(Line 2) T X 2 ) | | ( 4 X ) | | ( 1 ) | | ( 3 _________) | | (_________ | | | | | | R1 / C1| | | C2 | R2/ \ _|_ | | _|_ \ / ___ | | ___ / \ | | | | \ / | | | | / |____|___ | | ____|____| 6 ) | | ( 8 ) | | ( 5 ) | | ( 7 R (Line 1)______________X_____) | | (_____X______________(Line 2) R X X Switch Switch REP Repeating coil (i.e., transformer), type 120C, 202A, or equivalent (see text) R1, R2 Resistor, 600 ohms, 2 watts C1, C2 Capacitor, non-polarized, 2.0 uF @ 100 WVDC Switch Four-pole single-throw toggle or rotary switch <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 19-Apr-87 22:30:32-EDT,18033;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sun 19 Apr 87 22:30:28-EDT Date: 19 Apr 87 21:08-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #35 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, April 19, 1987 9:08PM Volume 6, Issue 35 Today's Topics: Converting a modem+terminal to TTY/TTD Submission for mod.telecom (Telephone line quality) [news from the SW: additional $3 service fee considered ] [news from the SW: "marketing-test" ends ] Re: standards activities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Friday, 17 April 1987 17:18-EDT From: Sarah Ferguson Subject: Converting a modem+terminal to TTY/TTD Does anyone out there know how to convert a standard modem+terminal setup for use as a TTY/TTD machine (phone for the deaf)? I am told it can be done, but no one I know seems to know how. Thanks in advance - Sarah Ferguson Sasha@Think.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Apr 87 01:35:32 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Telephone line quality) In a recent article Greg Earle (earle@jplpub1.JPL.NASA.GOV) writes: > I live in the 213 Area code in L.A. I recently moved, and want to get two > lines for my new abode, one of which I will use exclusively for a modem > line. When I talked to Pacific Bell I was told I could (for a nice high > fee, of course) get a `Data Access Line' which would (presumably) run from > the local switching office to my home; a higher grade line would replace the > normal voice grade phone line. I was told that this was recommended for > anyone doing data transmissions of 2400 baud or higher. I almost bit; but > then I thought, what about the rest of the way? I would be calling JPL in > Pasadena 99% of the time, which is in Area code 818, prefix 354. Since I'm > not a TELECOM expert, I just surmised that the calls I would make would go > from my home, over my `good' data line, to the local switching office; then > to whatever the local switching office for Pasadena is, and then over a > (presumably) standard voice grade line to my other modem. > > My question for you experts is (a) is this something like the real path that > the call will take (3 hops; home <=> switching office <-> s.office#2 <-> work) > and (b) if this is so, then is there any point in getting a higher grade line > for one's home, when one has no control over the line quality for the other > 2/3 of the connection ?!? Let's break up this discussion into two areas: (1) quality of central office subscriber lines (i.e., between your home/office and the telephone company central office); and (2) quality of lines between telephone company central offices. I'll answer (2) first, because it is the easier answer. In general, the quality of an interoffice trunk (i.e., a line connecting two telephone company central offices) is FAR superior to the quality of any subscriber line. In keeping with the DDD network operating goals and an overall transmission design plan called VNL (Via Net Loss), the transmission loss on most interoffice trunks originating at End Offices (Class 5) trunks is carefully kept below 4.0 dB. Interoffice trunk transmission loss on Toll Center (Class 4) and up to Regional Center (Class 1) switching offices is carefully kept below 2.6 dB, or even below 1.4 dB, depending upon the path. Such interoffice trunk design is generally done so precisely that loss is kept within +/- 0.1 dB of the design goal on any interoffice trunk of a given path to assure a uniform transmission quality. In addition, such interoffice trunks are generally equalized to have a reasonably flat transmission characteristic between 300 and 3,000 Hz. Furthermore since most interoffice trunks originating in End Offices (except in high-density urban areas where adjacent central offices are close together) are four-wire (i.e., separate receive and transmission paths - one for each direction) and are terminated in a precision hybrid-network, the transmission quality will be far superior to anything which could ever exist on a two-wire subscriber loop. All interoffice trunks of Toll Center and up origin are four-wire. Noise level, ERL (Echo Return Loss), and other parameters which affect the quality of transmission are also kept within precise design goals on interoffice trunks. The BOC's and larger independent operating telephone companies check the transmission quality of interoffice trunks on a regular basis, often using automatic test apparatus such as ATMS (Automatic Transmission Measuring System), CAROT (Centralized Automatic Reporting of Trunks), TFMS (Trunk and Facility Maintenance System), etc. Trunks which fail to pass these automatic tests are disabled until repair is effected. So the point is: under virtually all circumstances, you should have little concern about the transmission quality of interoffice trunks, as compared to your own subscriber loop. (IMPORTANT NOTE: The above applies to what is traditionally known as the DDD network; some of this standardization has gone to hell with the advent of Alternate Long Distance carrier. The above information should still be safely applicable if your call is intra-LATA in length, is inter-LATA but served by the same operating telephone company at both ends, or is routed through AT&T. This is NOT a "plug" for AT&T; it's just a simple fact of life since AT&T still runs all the major toll switching centers in the U.S.) Now we'll get back to the first topic, which is the local subscriber loop. Subscriber loops are generally designed based upon only two parameters: (1) DC resistance and (2) transmission loss at 1.0 KHz. Since most central office apparatus has subscriber loop resistance limits between 1,200 and 1,500 ohms, resistance of a subscriber loop is controlled to be within this range by selecting cable layout with sections that have large-enough wire gauges (the SMALLER gauge sections are generally CLOSEST to the central office). If the resistance limit still cannot be economically met with wire gauge selection alone, then a signaling range extender (loop extender) will be connected to the line; this device is always located in the central office. Under this condition, the subscriber loop resistance may be >> 1,000 ohms, but the loop extender has the sensitivity to support such a higher resistance. In simple terms, the transmission loss of a subscriber loop is directly proportional to its DC resistance - so a long loop will also have a large transmission loss. Invariably, subscriber loops greater than 10 kft (kilofeet) in length will have loading coils installed every X-kft (there are different loading schemes which use different spacing between loading coils); these loading coils add inductance which compensates for the attenuation of the loop that results from distributed capacitance. The worse case loss that any reasonable telephone company would impose on a subscriber loop is about 9 dB. New York Telephone, as an example, tries to keep loop loss to no more than 6 dB - but not every loop is that lucky. :-) If a maximum subscriber loop transmission loss goal of 6 to 9 dB cannot be met through loading and cable routing, then a voice-frequency repeater is installed on the subscriber line; this repeater is almost always installed in the central office on the required lines. Sometimes a combination loop extender-repeater is used, but in many cases there will be two discrete devices in the central office. Under most circumstances, subscriber loop loss is measured at only 1.0 kHz. However, a frequency-vs-attenuation plot of a subscriber loop can look like a roller coaster! Since the human ear is rather forgiving, for voice applications most telephone companies care little about the frequency-vs-attenuation curve on a POTS (Plain 'Ole Telephone Service) subscriber loop. However, MODEMS can care about this curve! Subscriber loops which run through mixed gauges of loaded cable, and/or run through voice-frequency repeaters (especially of the older E6 variety) can have some pretty ugly frequency-vs-attenuation curves. The only way to flatten the curve (and thereby make the line more attractive to data) is by means of an equalizer, a better quality repeater (hybrid rather than a negative impedance type like the E6), along with more careful design engineering of the particular loop. This equalizer, repeater change, and additional engineering is not necessary for most voice applications - so it isn't done. However, an equalizer and additional engineering DOES result in a superior subscriber loop for data purposes. So, telephone companies generally charge more money for a better subscriber loop design for data applications. If you are making serious use of data transmission at > 2,400 bps, the comparatively small additional monthly and installation charge is well worth it to get a better subscriber loop. I don't make a habit of defending telephone companies, but I must say that I feel such an additional charge is reasonable. They do have to install additional equipment (under most circumstances), and certainly do have to perform specific engineering on the design of the subscriber loop. As far as noise level on subscriber loops is concerned, this is generally caused by wet terminals and splices and is really a repair problem. There is little that can be done to reduce noise level on a subscriber loop other than to track down wet or poor splices. However, for the price of a better quality loop, one generally gets a quantitative noise measurement with some attempt at repair if the noise level is beyond normal limits. Now, to sum up and answer the $ 64 question: In my opinion, for data transmission > 2,400 bps on LONGER SUBSCRIBER LOOPS (say > 2 miles from the central office), an additional charge for a better quality loop (i.e., flatter frequency response and lower attenuation) IS a worthwhile expense. At least, with a known good loop of known characteristics, one can look elsewhere should data errors become a problem. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sun 19 Apr 87 13:16:08-CDT From: Werner Uhrig Subject: [news from the SW: additional $3 service fee considered ] [ from the Austin American Statesman, April 12, 87 ] PHONE UTILITIES CONSIDERING $3 SERVICE FEE DALLAS (AP) - More than a dozen Texas telephone utilitties are considering adding a $3 cahrge for basic service to monthly bills, a move that would transfer costs now paid by long-distance companies to local consumers. The additional charge, which must be approved by the PUC would cost customers $820 million over five years, the Dallas Times Herald reported Saturday. Jon Loehman, vice president for rates and revenues for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., said the suggested charge has not been formally approved by the utilities. If the proposal was approved by the companies, it would go before the PUC. The utilities' proposal is to gradually use revenue from the $3 fee to replace some of the multimillion-dollar charges long-distance companies must pay local telephone companies for access to their lines. "It sounds to me like another plan to put money in the pockets of phone companies that is going to hurt some consumers and small businesses," said Sen. Chet Edwards, D-Duncanville. ------------------------------ Date: Sun 19 Apr 87 13:27:59-CDT From: Werner Uhrig Subject: [news from the SW: "marketing-test" ends ] [ from the Daily Texan, April 14, 1987 ] BELL ENDS AREA MARKETING PROGRAM (by Keefe Borden, Daily Texan Staff) Southwestern Bell Telephone ended a two-year marketing program Sunday designed to evaluate the marketability of several telephone features. Jim Goodwin, public relations manager for SWB, said Monday "customer response has been good" to the program, entitled "Custom Calling Services Plus." Although Bell received a few complaints, "there was no strong customer reaction" to the decision to end the program, Goodwin said. The services included automatic re-call, distinctive ringing, selective call rejection, selective call forwarding and customer-originated trace, Goodwin said. SWB officials chose the Austin area for the market-testing program the local company has the type of equipment needed for the test, Goodwin said. The test began in January 1985 and was planned for two years. The program was extended into April to evaluate the effictiveness of an advertising campaign started in fall 1986, Goodwin said. Generally, telephone numbers beginning with four or eight, about 200,000 of the 370,000 lines in the Austin area, had access to the services. About 30,000 customers used at least one of the services each month, Goodwin said. He said SWB will not reintroduce the services in the Austin area in the near future. Selective call rejection allowed customers to avoid unwanted phone calls and cost 25 cents for each use. Customer-originated trace recorded the number of the caller, the date and the time of a call. Customers had to contact Bell officials to have the information released to police. The cost of tracing a call was $5. The distinctive ringing service, which cost 25 cents per use, allowed customers to assign identifiable rings for up to three numbers. Selective call-forwarding allowed customer to forward calls from a maximum of three different numbers to a second number. Other calls would not be forwarded. That service cost 10 cents for each use. [ instead of passing on the advantages that new technology brings to the consumers, they want to milk the customer all they can. As long as local service is left as a monopoly, the Baby-Bells will continue in the tradition of Mama, it seems. Would anyone care to discuss the possibilities and problems of demonopolizing local service? I certainly think it's needed and possible. Please don't misunderstand - I will praise the achievements and benefits of the US-phone system anyday. my metha is "take the best and improve on it; ignore the mediocre and eliminate the bad". Unfortunately, as most of us seem to agree, the breakup was done in a manner which cannot be considered as an improvement by anyone but the consumer. ---Werner ] ------------------------------ From: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu (David Lewis) Subject: Re: standards activities Date: 19 Apr 87 23:56:20 GMT > In past times, MA bell was a focal point for a lot of telephone activity, but >even then there were other companies. Now it's the known mess. How in the >past, and how now, does anyone coordinate? Such matters as protocols, >assignment of area codes, plans for new service offerings, etc. Are there >agencies such as ANSI involved? Do they all meet with some sort of >trust-busting exemption? Are we worse off after the bustup in terms of >coordinated development? Do companies copy each other to some extent to >coordinate service offerings? > > An example of an issue would be this: "call-waiting" has been out long >enough >now for "the public" to begin to have some understanding of what it is an >what those funny beeps mean etc. This was an advantage of a new concep >disseminating itself into the populace over time. (But, answering machines are >also now widely understood even though they required no particular standards >activity.) > >I wonder about the developments such as passing the caller's number, call >screening, etc. It would seem advantageous to have some aspects of the form of >this service comprehensible to "the populace", and more specifically for >instrument makers to know what to look for on the line no matter where the >call originated. I'm sure there are Bellcore people out there rushing to answer this, but... Much of this is done by Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), which is an offshoot of Bell Labs (now completely independent of AT&T) owned by the Regional Bell Operating Companies. Bellcore does a lot of standards setting and new services planning. I know a little about it; I'm starting in their Network Services Planning Center in June... <=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=> Arpa: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Usenet: {ihnp4|ucbvax|cmucspt}!cmu-cs-ius2!deej Bell System: (412) 681-6380 USMail: 5170 Beeler St., #1 Pittsburgh, PA 15217-1002 Carrier Pigeon: The big red brick house with the plate-glass windows out front. The opinions contained herein must be mine. No one else will claim them. "If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem." -- <=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=> Arpa: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Usenet: {ihnp4|ucbvax|cmucspt}!cmu-cs-ius2!deej Bell System: (412) 681-6380 USMail: 5170 Beeler St., #1 Pittsburgh, PA 15217-1002 Carrier Pigeon: The big red brick house with the plate-glass windows out front. The opinions contained herein must be mine. No one else will claim them. "If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 24-Apr-87 00:14:51-EDT,21040;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 23-Apr-87 23:43:01 Date: 23 Apr 87 23:43-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #36 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, April 23, 1987 11:43PM Volume 6, Issue 36 Today's Topics: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom GTE Features Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards REN table and limits Call Forwarding Questions.. Re: telecom standards Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #31 Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Modems and data jacks) I Remember KYW Standards activities, ISDN plug ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rochester!cci632!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV ( remote copy) Date: 20 Apr 87 03:54:07 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: cci632!ritcv!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!ius2.cs.cmu.edu!deej From: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu (David Lewis) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: standards activities Message-ID: <1110@ius2.cs.cmu.edu> Date: 19 Apr 87 23:56:20 GMT References: <8704172112.AA02262@jade.berkeley.edu> Distribution: world Organization: CMU Electrical Engineering Etc. Lines: 63 > In past times, MA bell was a focal point for a lot of telephone activity, but >even then there were other companies. Now it's the known mess. How in the >past, and how now, does anyone coordinate? Such matters as protocols, >assignment of area codes, plans for new service offerings, etc. Are there >agencies such as ANSI involved? Do they all meet with some sort of >trust-busting exemption? Are we worse off after the bustup in terms of >coordinated development? Do companies copy each other to some extent to >coordinate service offerings? > > An example of an issue would be this: "call-waiting" has been out long >enough >now for "the public" to begin to have some understanding of what it is an >what those funny beeps mean etc. This was an advantage of a new concep >disseminating itself into the populace over time. (But, answering machines are >also now widely understood even though they required no particular standards >activity.) > >I wonder about the developments such as passing the caller's number, call >screening, etc. It would seem advantageous to have some aspects of the form of >this service comprehensible to "the populace", and more specifically for >instrument makers to know what to look for on the line no matter where the >call originated. I'm sure there are Bellcore people out there rushing to answer this, but... Much of this is done by Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), which is an offshoot of Bell Labs (now completely independent of AT&T) owned by the Regional Bell Operating Companies. Bellcore does a lot of standards setting and new services planning. I know a little about it; I'm starting in their Network Services Planning Center in June... <=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=> Arpa: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Usenet: {ihnp4|ucbvax|cmucspt}!cmu-cs-ius2!deej Bell System: (412) 681-6380 USMail: 5170 Beeler St., #1 Pittsburgh, PA 15217-1002 Carrier Pigeon: The big red brick house with the plate-glass windows out front. The opinions contained herein must be mine. No one else will claim them. "If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem." -- <=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=> Arpa: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Usenet: {ihnp4|ucbvax|cmucspt}!cmu-cs-ius2!deej Bell System: (412) 681-6380 USMail: 5170 Beeler St., #1 Pittsburgh, PA 15217-1002 Carrier Pigeon: The big red brick house with the plate-glass windows out front. The opinions contained herein must be mine. No one else will claim them. "If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem." ------------------------------ Date: Sat 18 Apr 87 05:10:12-EST From: Doug Reuben Subject: GTE Features About the post dealing with "General Telephone moves into the '90s", I think the service they are talking about is some sort of ISDN thing. You frequently hear about this a lot now, and I assume that GTE wants to get in on the act (Oh no!!!!! :-) ) As to why GTE didn't explain any further, well, after all, they ARE GTE, and you really can't expect too much from them. (Do people moving to LA *really* ask to be located in a neighborhood that isn't served by GTE? The weren't THAT bad when I was there last :-) .......) -Doug (loyal Bell user!) REUBEN@WESLYN.BITNET REUBEN%WESLYN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ...(rutgers!) seismo!weslyn.bitnet!reuben (UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: Sat 18 Apr 87 04:49:40-EST From: Doug Reuben Subject: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards Message-ID: <12295447378.35.S.D-REUBEN@KLA.WESLYN> The question dealing with the similarities of AT&T calling cards and Bell Operating Company calling cards is pretty complicated. Basically, in most areas, there is no difference between Inter-LATA and Intra-Lata calls placed using 0+ dialing with a credit card. All calls are handled by the same equipment. Some areas, like 415, 408, and some other areas in CA, and 516 on Long Island in New York, have separated the Intra-Lata Calling Card Equipment from the Inter-lata equipment, as per federal regulation. In these "newer" areas, when you make a local (Intra-Lata) call, you will get routed over the Bell Operating companies equipment. Instead of the usual voice saying "Please dial your card number or 0 for an operator now", you will hear a stranger, less well pronounced voice. This is the local (Pac*Bell or NY Tel) equipment which handles your call. When you place a long-distance (inter-lata) call, you get the usual AT&T equipment. The problem with this is that if you make a local (intra-lata) call over the local Bell company, you can't press the "#" sign to make a new call, IF THE CALL IS INTER-LATA (LONG DISTANCE). If you want to make multiple intra-lata calls, you CAN sequence call, but the moment you make an inter-lata call, you will get a message saying "Please hang up and dial your call again. Your call can not be completed as a sequence call" (in a British accent, no less...) If you FIRST make an inter-lata call, (long distance), and then try to make a local call, it will work fine. (My local company SAYS AT&T will be changing this soon, but I don't think they know what they are talking about as usual...) Briefly then, in areas 415,408,516 and probably others in the near future, inter-lata and intra-lata calls ARE handled by different equipment. Moreover, this creates problems because you can not sequence-call to an inter-lata call after you have initially made an intra-lata call over either Pac*Bell's or NY Tel's equipments. This, however, is the only change to calling card service that I have heard of. New York Tel, in their calling card literature, says that you can use the NY Tel calling card to call locally, nationally, or around the world. Obviously, they intend for you to use your calling card for more than just local calls. The Pac*Bell (the clear ones) calling cards also have similar literature. So I don't think that the local operating companies will change their PIN numbers from that of AT&T's, or even if they have the capability to do so. (AT&T and the Bell Operating companies have a pretty good system to eliminate card fraud, and all the system have to be tied together for it to work. In most areas, if you dial more than 36 calling card calls in 3 hours, a person at your local security department will be notified, and they will try to contact you to see if the calls are valid. If they do not get in touch with you, they will temporarily cancel the card until they do get in touch with you...) Therefore, it seems unlikely that there will be separate PIN numbers for AT&T cards and local cards. The real problem is this nonsense with separate calling card equipment, which is just a waste of money. I think this is just another good example of what a mess the Bell System Divestiture was and is...Hopefully, some day, some one in charge with these people will realize this and put the Bell System back together again...Wishful thinking, I know, but its better than getting upset with this idiocy...:-) !!! -Doug REUBEN@WESLYN.BITNET REUBEN%WESLYN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ...(rutgers!) seismo!weslyn.bitnet!reuben (UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Apr 87 12:05:25 EDT From: Barry Nelson Subject: REN table and limits In response to: > Can anyone explain why REN's (...) come in "A" and "B" flavors? > On my many instruments I see old-fashioned phones are > usually 1.0A, and flimsy electronic jobs are 0.5B or 1.5B. I have dreamed up > something about whether it uses the real AC to drive a bell (A?) or runs an > electronic tweeter (B?). Do you add them all together anyway, and why do they > bother telling you which flavor? Not quite. The letter following the Ringer Equivalent Number (REN) is the Ringing Type letter representing the frequency range for which the REN is tested. It may be one of A through Q or, in special cases, Z. Furthermore, REN is based upon loop or ground start modes and the on-hook impedence range of the loop. One must reference several diagrams and tables to figure out what to test and then compute the largest of several methods to arrive at the REN for each listed Ringing Type for each phone option. Type A is 20 or 30 Hz (+/- 3 Hz), 40-130 vrms, 1400 ohms (1000 ohms at 30 Hz). Type B is 15.3 to 68.0 Hz, 40-150 vrms, 1600 ohms (looks like a harder test) Types C through P are other segments of 15.3 to 68 Hz with volts from 54 to 150 and impedences all limited to 1600 ohms. Type Q is 20 Hz +/- 3 Hz, 40-130 vrms, 1400 ohms. Type Z does not comform to these on-hook characteristics and requires consent from the local telco (which is by no means guaranteed). The limitation for REN is stated as follows: "68.312(f) All registered terminal equipment and registered protective circuitry which can affect on-hook impedance shall be assigned a Ringer Equivalence. The sum of all such ringer equivalences on a given telephone line or loop shall not exceed 5; ... " It appears that they don't discriminate totals based upon Ringing Type, although I suspect the Telco knows what RT they send you and can use your REN and RT designators against you in certain situations (if you give it to them), notwithstanding their ability to empirically determine your instrument and loop characteristics. Reference 47 CFR part 68.312 if you would like to know more. Caution: It's sometimes a little dry compared to reading a hex core dump of the same length. "This document contains statements of opinion by the author which are not attributable to BBN Communications Corporation or its management." Barry C. Nelson / Network Consultant / International Certifications BBN Communications Corporation ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Apr 87 11:12:29 EDT From: Curran%UMASS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu Subject: Call Forwarding Questions.. I have this wonderful service on my line called Call Fowarding (It had best be wonderful; the person who sold it to me told me it was wonderful, and my monthly overhead just went up a little..) If I set forwarding to a line that would be a charge call, and you call me, who pays to have that call forwarded? Also, what rate applies? If you are paying for it is there anyway for you to detect this fact? Would the rate be calculated based as if you called the destination directly? Finally, If both my best friend and myself set call forwarding to each other, what happens when someone calls? John Curran [If you set call forwarding, the rate between you and the forwarded destination is what is charged, and YOU PAY THAT NO MATTER WHERE THE CALL ORIGINATES FROM. Also, if you forward to someone who forwards to you the call goes "click", "click", busy. The two clicks are the trunks going between your central offices. If you do this to someone on the same ESS machine, it gives you a busy immediately. This is useful especially if you have your calls forwarded from home to work and vice versa. You can safely forward your calls bi-directionned until you get home and clear the forwarding. Also, I crashed our central office forwarding once to someone on the same machine (that was 12 years ago). --jsol] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 87 11:55:37 edt From: ms6b#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) Subject: Re: telecom standards Since BellCore is owned by the seven Regional Holding Companies, it has a lot of clout in setting standards -- as long as its parent companies all agree. But Bellcore is not all-powerful. Since the RHC's aren't permitted to manufacture, Bellcore must still persuade companies like AT&T or Northern Telecom to make things the way they want -- and at a price the RHC's can afford. Moreover, Bellcore doesn't represent GTE --which is as big as any of the regionals--nor the 1400 other independent excahange carrriers. Nor does it represent the interexchange carriers such as ATT or MCI. Formal U.S. standards are actually set in the ANSI T1 committee, which is sponsored by the Exchange Carriers Standards Association -- a group set up specifically to foster standards development after the divestiture. Any corporation that wishes to can join T1; Bellcore and the RHC's represent only a fraction of the total membership. The working committees of T1 try to achieve consensus standards, and most of the time they do, but a 2/3 vote is all that is formally required for approval under ANSI rules. The T1 committee finds itself spending lots of time drafting contributions to international standards setting groups operated by the CCITT (Comite Consultatif International de Telephone et Telegraph). Few manufactures want to have standards which are U.S. only, since that means they must build different products for the international market. Thus, the standards adopted by ANSI for the U.S. are strongly influenced by what is happening in the CCITT. Marvin Sirbu CMU ------------------------------ From: decuac!casemo!brian@seismo.CSS.GOV (Brian Cuthie ) Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V6 #31 Date: 20 Apr 87 14:33:38 GMT In article <870417-100022-2409@Xerox>, Thompson.PA@XEROX.COM writes: > I think that the one that Radio Shack sold is the Texas Insturments > TCM1520A > Yea, but just try to get some. It took me over three months to get 18 of the things from a local distributor. I tried everyplace I could think of (major firms [ie. Hallmark, Hamilton, Arrow, etc]) and they all quoted lead times of 12 to 16 weeks from TI. It seems that everybody is using this chip and there just aren't any around. It's a great chip, but if you can't reliably get it what doog is it ??? Regards -Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ARPA: brian@umd5.umd.edu USENET: ...!seismo!mimsy!brian@umd5.umd.edu ------------------------------ From: rochester!cci632!jvz@seismo.CSS.GOV (John V. Zambito) Date: 20 Apr 87 14:18:35 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: cci632!jvz From: jvz@cci632.UUCP (John V. Zambito) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Telephone Ring Detection Message-ID: <1132@cci632.UUCP> Date: 20 Apr 87 14:18:34 GMT References: <8704150611.AA25473@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: jvz@ccird1.UUCP (John V. Zambito) Distribution: world Organization: CCI, Communications Systems Division, Rochester, NY Lines: 10 In article <8704150611.AA25473@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> JEL@PSUVM (Jon Loos 814/238-6649) writes: >detect the ring signal on a telephone line? What I want to do is build a >simple box that would plug into my equalizer input or output lines, and also >the phone lines. When the phone rings, it would can the stereo, so that I The part you want is the TI TCM1520A. I got one as a somple from the local TI rep. I hooked it up through a FET to drive a relay. The relay can be used to switch a light or cut out the speakers or turn on a loud horn, etc...... It only loads the line while the phone rings, and only about a milliamp. The app. note in the TI telecomm products data book is very helpful. ------------------------------ From: sundc!cos!howard@seismo.CSS.GOV (Howard C. Berkowitz) Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Modems and data jacks) Date: 22 Apr 87 19:00:07 GMT I do want to emphasize that it's bad practice to transmit at a higher level than that which is designed for a local loop; it's quite accurate that louder is not always better -- but it is important to be loud enough. The worst horror story I've heard on excessive level, which may be apocryphal: An [unnamed by my informant in DATEC] user called his telephone test board for a problem with the remote site's Bell 829 data auxiliary set. [This is an interface device, for Telco use, which has a tone-operated loopback feature]. The user complained that the unit would not go into loopback. Now, 829's are for telco use, not customer. Most telcos are happy, however, to let customers use them for fault isolation. The 829 is put into loopback with at least a 1-second application of 2713 Hz tone. In the story, the helpful test board tried to loop back the 829 in question. It worked perfectly, but the user couldn't get it to loop. The test board then asked the customer to describe exactly what he was doing; the answer was "oh, I send out 2600 Hz at a good hot +10-20 dBm -- the limiter drops it to a legal level." Horrified silence from test board. A mystery of the last week just resolved. Over the past week or so, the telco had been installing a new electronic switch in its central office, a switch equipped with toll fraud detection. "Blue Box" fraud uses a 2600 Hz tone; somehow, the user assumed this was the loopback frequency. Because the user 2600 tone went out at an extremely high level, it crosstalked a large number of pairs in its cable. The new switch kept reporting massive simultaneous toll fraud attempts (i.e., pure 2600 on a subscriber loop), a sufficiently large number that equipment failure was assumed. The switch had been torn down repeatedly to find out why it assumed massive toll fraud was in process. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 87 12:19 MST From: Schuttenberg@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA (Jim) Subject: I Remember KYW KYW was definitely well established in Cleveland in 1957, when the Cleveland-area students who had been exiled to Ohio University in Athens (in the southeastern part of the state) simply couldn't exist without their favorite radio station and constructed all manner of antennas in order to pick it up. I still remember the little jingle that was sung: "K Y W, AM and FM too, in Cleveland, Ohio." Jim Schuttenberg ------------------------------ Date: 20-Apr-1987 1849 From: goldstein%delni.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Subject: Standards activities, ISDN plug That little plug GTE sent in the mail last week about more services over the same jack was a simple plug for ISDN. The idea of ISDN is to have a standard jack that you can request, per call, your choice of bearer service -- voice, audio, data, packet. It's a couple years away from commercial deployment, but field trials (not quite the real thing) are under way. Re: Standards. They used to come from New Jersey. Nowadays, they are nominally made under the purview of ANSI and its accredited T1 committee, run by the Exchange Carriers Standards Association (in NJ, of course). About a hundred companies (at least) belong. T1 work is done by its Technical Subcommittees, currently: T1C1 - CPE connections T1D1 - ISDN T1M1 - Maintenance T1Q1 - Quality of Service T1X1 - Inter-carrier connections T1Y1 - Specialized subjects FWIW, T1C1 has generated, and T1 has sent for ballot, a standard defining loop start and ground start analog lines. Finally, an official "standard". fred (T1D1 rep at DEC) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 24-Apr-87 21:32:34-EDT,7056;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Fri 24 Apr 87 21:32:31-EDT Date: 24 Apr 87 20:30-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #37 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, April 24, 1987 8:30PM Volume 6, Issue 37 Today's Topics: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Re: Hang-ups [Re: RISKS-4.67] ring ship; area code history Re: Radio Station Call Letters, International Allocations ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Apr 87 02:28 EDT From: Jeffrey Del Papa Subject: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards Reply-To: Jeffrey Del Papa Date: Sat 18 Apr 87 04:49:40-EST From: Doug Reuben Message-ID: <12295447378.35.S.D-REUBEN@KLA.WESLYN> In most areas, if you dial more than 36 calling card calls in 3 hours, a person at your local security department will be notified, and they will try to contact you to see if the calls are valid. If they do not get in touch with you, they will temporarily cancel the card until they do get in touch with you...) -Doug REUBEN@WESLYN.BITNET REUBEN%WESLYN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ...(rutgers!) seismo!weslyn.bitnet!reuben (UUCP) ------- this sounds like a real loss. I guess I have been lucky, but when away from home, I will make heavy use of the card to track things down... It has often happened that co-workers out in the field have made repeated calls to me when they have had a problem. I would be most annoyed if I was trying to fix something, and my card stopped working. (I have a separately billed card now, as it really annoyed me when my card stopped working because I moved.) ------------------------------ From: Unprivileged User Date: 24 Apr 87 09:08:35 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: columbia!amsterdam!dupuy From: dupuy@amsterdam.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Call Forwarding Questions.. Summary: Call Forwarding when nobody answers Message-ID: <4559@columbia.UUCP> Date: 24 Apr 87 09:08:34 GMT References: <870421111229.000018E9.AAPS.MA@UMass> Sender: nobody@columbia.UUCP Reply-To: dupuy@amsterdam.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) Followup-To: comp.dcom.telecom Distribution: world Organization: Columbia University Computer Science Dept. Lines: 18 I have call forwarding on my phone line, which I primarily use for a modem. It's better than call waiting, which in some exchanges can't be overridden, since I can just forward calls to the other line while I'm using this one. But I can't forward calls to work, since (with N.Y. Tel) the other party has to answer your call-forwarding call for it to take effect. Is there some real reason for this "feature"? This feature would also seem to prevent setting up a busy forwarding loop as jsol suggested (I have not tried it, though). [You should be able to do the forwarding command TWICE to get it to work without the person answering the call. I.e. 72#5551212 72#5551212..... --jsol] I can get around it to some extent by having my calls at work forwarded to a secretary, but I would think letting the number ring a few (say 7) times ought to work as well. @alex --- arpanet: dupuy@columbia.edu uucp: ...!seismo!columbia!dupuy ------------------------------ From: hplabs!well!davids@seismo.CSS.GOV (David Schachter) Subject: Re: Hang-ups [Re: RISKS-4.67] Date: 24 Apr 87 21:06:32 GMT Reply-To: well!davids@seismo.CSS.GOV (David Schachter) In article LENOIL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU writes: >The article went on to say that many firms are flaunting the law. They are not flaunting the law, they are flouting it. To "flaunt" a law would be to show it off, perhaps at a press conference. To "flout" a law would be to break it, ignore it, or evade it. The phrase "Esc for ATtention, Home to SWitch" comes to mind. ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Fri, 24 Apr 87 15:06:10 PDT Subject: ring ship; area code history MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/24/87 15:06:09 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: ring ship; area code history To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu ring chip: If it would take 14 weeks to get the real chip, an approach would be to parasite off a device that in effect already has one. Examples: 1. Get a radio shack "fone flasher" that turns on a 110v outlet when the phone rings, and either use a 110v relay or turn on a real light and use an scr or CdS cell pointed at the light. 2. Use a sound switch (110v devices are available in the consumer market) driven off the bell. area code history: Of all things, the San Francisco Chronicle had, in a column on 4/24/87, the following article (excerpted here without specific permission): "... When were area codes invented and why aren't the numbers sequential? Roger Orr of Pacific Bell was able to answer... Area codes were invented in 1946, he said, and the first thing determined were the middle digits. States containing more than one area code, such as New York and California, were assigned a 1 in the middle. States that had only one area code at the time (today, they may have more), were assigned... 0 in the middle. Thus, California had 213 (Los angeles), 415 (Bay Area) and 916 (Sacramento area). Vermont was 802. The two digits on the end(s) of the code (4 and 5 in the Bay Area) were assigned upwards from 2, according to frequency of use. Higher digits went to... rural areas... Sacramento (had 916, took longer to dial than LA with 213). The codes most often used were New York (212), LA (213), and Wash. DC (202)... Thanks, Doug ring ship; area code history ------------------------------ From: seismo!mnetor!alberta!ncc!lyndon@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Lyndon Nerenberg) Subject: Re: Radio Station Call Letters, International Allocations Date: 21 Apr 87 07:12:19 GMT Beware that these prefixes can change on a moments notice. If you are looking for a specific mapping of a prefix or geographical area, try a posting to rec.ham-radio... -- Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM) pyramid!ncc!lyndon || seismo!mnetor!alberta!ncc!lyndon ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 29-Apr-87 19:54:04-EDT,14283;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 29-Apr-87 19:43:11 Date: 29 Apr 87 19:43-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #38 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, April 29, 1987 7:43PM Volume 6, Issue 38 Today's Topics: special dial codes for cellular phones? Re: Telephone Ring Detection Submission for mod.telecom ("Crashing" a Central Office) Submission for mod.telecom (Ringing Detection Circuits) Re: Telephone Ring Detection ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Gregory M. Paris" Subject: special dial codes for cellular phones? Date: 26 Apr 87 02:47:08 GMT Reply-To: "Gregory M. Paris" Not too long ago, I caught the tail end of a news item (TV that is) about emergency call boxes along some Massachusetts Interstates. As an aside, they mentioned that you can also contact the State(?) Police via a special dial sequence with a cellular phone. I didn't write it down, but it was something simple like *77. Does anybody know anything more about this? Are there more of these codes? Seems like the phone co. should mention these things to you when you get your cellular service, but no such list was provided for me... -- Greg Paris ............................. gmp@rayssd.RAY.COM (a UUCP domain) {cci632,cbosgd,gatech,ihnp4,linus,mirror,necntc,uiucdcs,umcp-cs}!rayssd!gmp ................. People like you should not be allowed to start any fires. ------------------------------ From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Sun, 26 Apr 87 04:03:50 edt Subject: Re: Telephone Ring Detection Funny you should ask, I posted this to sci.electronics not long ago: ------------- From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: I need a telephone ring detector chip Message-ID: <7940@utzoo.UUCP> The following circuit is from an HP app note; I have tested it and found it to work well. Sorry for the inability to just display the diagram, but I lack the patience to try to approximate it with ASCII characters... You have two wires coming in from the phone line. First, each goes through a 100k resistor. Then there is a 10M resistor between them. Then one of them goes through a 0.02 uF capacitor, which should be rated for something like 200V. Then there are two diodes in parallel between the lines, with opposite polarities (one with anode to top line, the other with cathode to top line): one a 1N4148 and one the input LED of a 6N139 opto-isolator. The 6N139 has a Darlington output with four pins available. The one going to the photodiode and the collector of the inner transistor goes to +5. The one going to the emitter of the outer transistor goes to ground. The one going to the collector of the outer transistor is the output. The one going to the internal transistor-transistor connection is connected to the output through a 0.1 uF capacitor. The output line then goes through a 10k resistor. Then there is a 56k resistor from it to +5. Then it goes into the base of a 2N3906 transistor. The emitter of this transistor is connected to +5. The collector is the final output, with a 1k pulldown resistor between it and ground. Explanation: The 100k resistors supply plenty of impedance between the whole circuit and the lines no matter what fouls up inside the circuit. The 10M resistor bleeds off static charges that might show up when the thing is not connected (HP actually made it 22M, but that's hard to find and 10M works fine). The 0.02 capacitor blocks DC completely and also gives quite a bit of AC impedance; it needs to be rated for a nice high voltage because the ringing AC is close to 100V and you want a good safety margin. The 1N4148 conducts when the AC voltage is the wrong polarity for the LED to conduct; leave this out and the opto will try to block the full ringing voltage at those times, which will fry it. The 0.1 capacitor between the internal node and the output acts as an integrator, so that the AC ringing shows up as one pulse rather than a sequence of short ones. It also gets rid of smaller and less frequent activity like dialing pulses. The 10k resistor limits current through the opto and transistor when the opto is on. The 56k resistor pulls the transistor's input up high when the opto is off. And the 2N3906, in conjunction with the pulldown resistor, amplifies the output signal. This circuit isn't particularly fussy about power voltage, although you might want to increase some of the resistor values on the output side for higher voltages. The output is certainly CMOS compatible and is probably TTL compatible, although I haven't done the numbers to be really sure about the latter. The 6N139 is a premium opto and will cost a few bucks, but overall it's not what you'd call an expensive circuit, given the logic-level output and the high degree of isolation from the phone line. -- "If you want PL/I, you know Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology where to find it." -- DMR {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Apr 87 10:35:33 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom ("Crashing" a Central Office) > Finally, If both my best friend and myself set call forwarding to > each other, what happens when someone calls? > > [ ... Also, if you forward to someone who forwards to > you the call goes "click", "click", busy. The two clicks are the > trunks going between your central offices. If you do this to someone > on the same ESS machine, it gives you a busy immediately. This is > useful especially if you have your calls forwarded from home to work > and vice versa. You can safely forward your calls bi-directionned until > you get home and clear the forwarding. Also, I crashed our central office > forwarding once to someone on the same machine (that was 12 years ago). > --jsol] Re: the comment about "crashing" the central office... If anyone finds this hard to believe, I know of a specific example where there was a bug in a particular generic software release used on some early #2 ESS machines which had just been installed by New York Telephone to replace SxS CDO's during the mid 70's. By using three telephone lines, and setting them up to forward as A --> B --> C --> A, a call from another telephone to A as a "seed" would force the #2 ESS to crash and switch to the standby processor, whereupon a second occurence would wipe out the standby processor until the call attempt was discontinued. This situation would also set off remote alarms at the SCC which handled these unattended #2 ESS machines. Needless to say, a software patch was quickly developed by WECO... The above scenario was probably unanticipated by the WECO team that designed and wrote the software. The public, however, seems to have a knack for discovering these flaws rather quickly. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Apr 87 12:13:26 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Ringing Detection Circuits) While the Texas Instruments TCM1520A is a nice IC, it is possible to build simple and reliable ringing detection circuits by other means. Here are some suggestions which may be helpful in the design of circuits which detect ringing: 1. When a telephone goes on-hook and off-hook during hookswitch (i.e., line switch) operation, a voltage transient is generated whose voltage is the same order of magnitude as a ringing signal. When a rotary dial is used, each dial pulse is a momentary line open which also generates these voltage transients. A poorly designed ringing detector circuit will falsely detect the above voltage transients as ringing signals. To avoid this problem, ALL reliable ringing detector circuits require a time constant. NO ringing detector circuit (unless it is has frequency discrimination - which is extremely rare) can tell the difference between on-hook/off-hook transients and the ringing signal itself based upon a voltage threshhold ALONE. Such a time constant can be established by three means: (1) integrating the rectified voltage from the telephone line with a resistor-capacitor before it drives an LED or relay; (2) using a thermistor in series with the LED or relay (a traditional design approach, but the "right" thermistor is difficult to obtain); (3) providing a specific timing circuit which looks at the output of the optoisolator or relay, and requires that a signal be present for a minimum period of time before asserting an output logic line. A reasonable integration time constant is between 200 and 600 milliseconds; i.e., the ringing signal must be present for this time period before a detection logic line is asserted. 2. All ringing detector circuits should have their telephone line connection electrically isolated from ground, and should be coupled to the telephone line using a series capacitor. In general, the value of this series capacitor should not exceed 0.68 uF, and such a capacitor should be rated at 200 WVDC. Excessive capacitance will cause voice-frequency attenuation on the telephone circuit, and may also result in premature "ring tripping" and dial-pulse distortion. In general, the effective DC resistance of a ringing detector circuit - EXCLUDING the capacitor - should be a minimum of 1,000 ohms. Following the above capacitance and resistance constraints should result in a ringing detector circuit which has a REN of less than 1.0 on the "B" scale, and consequently should not interfere with proper operation of the telephone line. 3. Optoisolators are nice for ringing circuit detection, but proper and reliable ringing detector circuits can be made with relays. Use a sensitive "plate" relay of 2,500 to 10,000 ohms resistance. Connect a full-wave bridge rectifier to the telephone line using a series capacitor; connect the DC output to the relay in series with a resistor, and place a capacitor across the relay winding to provide an integration time constant (be sure to have this capacitor rated at at least 100 WVDC!). If your application is a ringing "extension" circuit - like to drive an AC line horn, bell or light - you may find a plate relay with a contact current rating sufficient for the job. This makes for a pretty simple circuit. Plate relays with the required resistance and sensitivity are often available surplus for a couple of dollars. Do NOT use an AC relay rated for 120 VAC; AC relays of this type generally do not have enough sensitivity and a high enough resistance for telephone applications. Also, note that some plate relays (like certain Sigma models) have their body as the common contact - so these relays MUST be properly insulated from the case and outside world. The use of a relay to directly detect ringing and control an AC power line circuit is a well-established design technique; however, use extreme CAUTION when wiring such a circuit so that faulty construction does not permit accidental connection between the telephone line and AC power line! 4. If you are serious about designing telephone circuits, take the time to study the operation of a telephone line using a storage scope with differential inputs (i.e., one input for TIP, one input for RING - NEVER ground either TIP or RING). You will notice that -48 volts DC is ALWAYS present on the telephone line, even during the actual ringing. The 20 Hz ringing voltage is actually superimposed across the -48 volts DC; this is referred to as "superimposed ringing". Superimposed ringing is done to assure rapid operation of the "ring trip" relay in the central office trunk circuit. Generally, telephone ringing is 1 second on, and 3 seconds off (i.e., the "silent interval"). If you are using PBX extensions to "play with" for telephone circuit design, beware that their behavior may NOT be the same as central office telephone lines. For example, some PBX's use 30 Hz rather than 20 Hz; and some PBX's do not superimpose the ringing signal on -48 volts DC in the same fashion as a central office. Also, PBX's generally provide a "hotter" ringing signal than a central office because your loop resistance to the PBX is generally << 100 ohms. 5. None of what I have said applies to party lines. You should never attempt to design telephone circuits for connection to party lines. Not only might you be detecting ringing for other parties, but improper design or connection might also result in YOU getting billed for THEIR telephone calls! <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ From: hplabs!well!johnw@seismo.CSS.GOV (John Winters) Subject: Re: Telephone Ring Detection Date: 26 Apr 87 19:55:51 GMT Reply-To: well!johnw@seismo.CSS.GOV (John Winters) I was wondering, would anybody out there be able to write me a very simple schematic for 5 watt amplifier which would amplify my outgoing voice on the phone? I talked to my local Bell guy and he said 5 watts would be allowed (my grandmother can't hear at all, along with other people i know and this would be handy) Please send it via mail, as i don't check this out to often. Thanks John Winters, from DA WELL ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 29-Apr-87 19:54:39-EDT,11823;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 29-Apr-87 19:46:28 Date: 29 Apr 87 19:46-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #39 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, April 29, 1987 7:46PM Volume 6, Issue 39 Today's Topics: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom 2600 "fraud" detection Cultural imperialism and USA Direct Re: area code history Telecommunication Lines Re: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: news@decwrl.DEC.COM (News) Date: 28 Apr 87 21:32:10 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Use of modular jacks and accessories for RS-232 signals Keywords: RS-232, modular jacks, data communications Message-ID: <17031@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> Date: 28 Apr 87 20:09:18 GMT Organization: Stanford University Lines: 10 It is becoming common to use 4 and 6 conductor modular telephone jacks in non-telephone applications. MOD-TAP and Nevada Western sell modular jack to DB-25 adapters, along with various other accessories, intended for use in connecting up terminals to computers. Is there a standard, de-factor or otherwise, for the pinout on this sort of thing? Are MOD-TAP and Nevada Western adapters compatible? John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: 28 Apr 87 23:25:20 EDT From: *Hobbit* Subject: 2600 "fraud" detection Isn't this a bit redundant in these CCIS-ridden days? Also, it seems rather improper for an office to assume that any occurrence of 2600 on a subscriber loop indicates possible fraud. First of all, if someone wanted to defraud he'd just hike down to the nearest pay phone. Second, there are a lot of OCC switches that respond to 2600, so the phone co has another think coming if they believe I'm committing toll fraud every time I clobber one of them upon completion of a call. Fooey. The user-end symptoms of 2600 detection seem to be as follows: Beeeep. Switch disconnects your call, or whatever its fancy. Some switches drop the connection to the office completely, forcing the call to throw back to the office and return dial tone within a few seconds. At any rate, in the background one can hear a small "grack" sort of click -- I would assume that this indicates the bridging-in of the more sophisticated "fraud detection" equipment that would listen for and report various other tones. This is un-bridged again after about 20 seconds if nothing else happens. I could determine this because in some offices the bridging equipment is flakey and introduces extra line hum while it's connected. Would someone closer to the technical end of the above like to explain how this works in greater depth? And what is generally done with the generated reports when there's obviously no "fraud" happening on a given loop? _H* ------------------------------ From: rochester!moscom!news@seismo.CSS.GOV Date: Wed, 29 Apr 87 01:48:07 edt By making the middle digit of the area code a 1 or 0, the phone company could tell if you were dialing long distance or not. Now I am starting to see exchanges with 1 and 0 in them, and ones without an alphabetic mnemonic, as the number of available prefixes is getting used up. Mike Ciaraldi seismo!rochester!ciaraldi Path: moscom!ritcv!rochester!ciaraldi From: ciaraldi@rochester.ARPA (Mike Ciaraldi) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: ring ship; area code history Message-ID: <27353@rochester.ARPA> Date: 28 Apr 87 02:32:23 GMT References: <8704242209.AA11757@jade.berkeley.edu> Reply-To: ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (Mike Ciaraldi) Distribution: world Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY Lines: 37 In article <8704242209.AA11757@jade.berkeley.edu> SPGDCM@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU writes: > > > From: Doug Mosher > Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 > Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 > Subject: ring ship; area code history > > Roger Orr of > Pacific Bell was able to answer... Area codes were invented in 1946, he said, > and the first thing determined were the middle digits. States containing more > than one area code, such as New York and California, were assigned a 1 in the > middle. States that had only one area code at the time (today, they may have > more), were assigned... 0 in the middle. Thus, California had 213 (Los > angeles), 415 (Bay Area) and 916 (Sacramento area). Vermont was 802. But why a 1 or 0 in the middle digit? About 15 years ago I was visiting New York City for the first time, and tried to make a long distance call. It took quite a while to realize that I didn't have to dial "1" first, unlike Rochester. (no longer true, now NYC people have to dial 1). At the time I wondered how the phone company could tell that the first 3 digits dialed were an area code, rather than an exchange. Then I realized that exchanges were traditionally based on words, e.g. my home exchange was "Hopkins 7". You could dial either HOP or 467 and it would be the same, since H = 4, O = 6, and P = 7. Because 1 and 0 do not have letters on the dial, it was impossible to have a 1 or 0 in an exchange. By making the middle digit of the area code a 1 or 0, the phone company could tell if you were dialing long distance or not. Now I am starting to see exchanges with 1 and 0 in them, and ones without an alphabetic mnemonic, as the number of available prefixes is getting used up. Mike Ciaraldi seismo!rochester!ciaraldi ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Apr 87 11:45:19 EDT From: think!johnl@ima.isc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Cultural imperialism and USA Direct AT&T has an amazing new service called USA Direct to encourage people to call home from overseas. In Australia, Denmark, France, Holland, Great Britain, and parts of West Germany, there is a special toll-free number you can dial and you get an AT&T operator in the U.S., who will help you complete a call into the U.S. You can call collect or use your calling card. That's pretty handy, particularly if you've ever tried to make a collect call from France (dial 19-pause-33-1, wait, get an operator, tell him that you want to make un appel PCV aux Etats Unies, give him the details; fine, he says, I'll call you back in 30 minutes.) For serious cultural imperialists, though, in Antigua, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Panama, the Philippines, Spain, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and Trinidad/Tobago, they've installed special USA Direct pay phones in places like hotels, airports, and cruise ports that you can only use to call back to the U.S. Call 1-800-874-4000, Ext. 300, for further details. The current issue of Frequent Flyer magazine has some handy wallet cards explaining the service. John Levine, ima!johnl or Levine@YALE.something ------------------------------ From: dartvax!marston.UUCP@seismo.css.gov (David Marston) Subject: Re: area code history Date: 28 Apr 87 00:51:02 GMT In article <8704242209.AA11757@jade.berkeley.edu>, Doug Mosher writes: : : area code history: : .... > The two digits on the end(s) of the code (4 and 5 in the Bay Area) were > assigned upwards from 2, according to frequency of use. Higher digits went > to... rural areas... Sacramento (had 916, took longer to dial than LA with > 213). > > The codes most often used were New York (212), LA (213), ... ...So the largest cities get the codes that pulse-dial most quickly. What I want to know is: Who thought that Boston, the logical home of the 413 code, was in the Western half of Massachusetts? (The fact that the dividing line is now known to be too far west I consider a reasonable mistake. Not so the swapping of area codes.) .................David Marston decvax!dartvax!marston ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Apr 87 14:03 EDT From: Rafiul Ahad Subject: Telecommunication Lines If any one have a summary of telecommunication lines and their characteristics, please mil me a copy. Thanks a lot in advance. kolakul%umdc.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu PS: I do not subscribe to this mailing list. ------------------------------ From: kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) Subject: Re: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards Date: 27 Apr 87 12:10:56 GMT Reply-To: seismo!xanth.cs.odu.edu!kent (Kent Paul Dolan) In article <8704240355.AA01860@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN@WESLEYAN.BITNET (Doug Reuben) writes: >[...] I think this is just another good example of what a mess >the Bell System Divestiture was and is...Hopefully, some day, some one in >charge with these people will realize this and put the Bell System back >together again...Wishful thinking, I know, but its better than getting upset >with this idiocy...:-) !!! I loved the rest of your article Doug, but here I must demur. By pure coincidence, I made two long distance pay phone calls the other day, just after the rate change at 5PM, in the C&P telephone (Eastern Virginia) service area. One call was to my home, 40 miles away; the second call was to my mother's home, 1250 miles away in Minnesota. The second call cost a dime less for the same one minute call. AT&T used to rip us off something fierce, because they held a monopoly position. Now that they are competitive with a lot of other start up long distance service providers, it has suddenly become possible for them to provide less expensive service. The local, "Baby Bells" are still monopolies, and they feel no need to provide reasonable rates. For example, normal pay phone long distance calls are now handled by computer rather than local operators, which evidently saved the phone companies a bundle. Rather than reducing the cost of the start up minute of a phone call to reflect this new economy, the cost continues to increase. Thus the ludicrous result of a 40 mile call costing more than a 1250 mile call. I suggest (<---- Opinion marker! Keep your flames to yourself! ;-) that the thing to do now is to find a not-terribly-disruptive way to introduce phone competition at the local level, since we have proved it works well nationally. It astounds me that the phone companies are the only organizations that can continue to reduce staff by automation, yet cannot seem to turn these savings to them into savings to the customer. What kind of a line are they feeding the rate approving public utilities commissions, anyway? Kent. -- The Contradictor Member HUP (Happily Unemployed Programmers) // Yet // Another Back at ODU to learn how to program better (after 25 years!) \\ // Happy \// Amigan! UUCP : kent@xanth.UUCP or ...{sun,cbosgd,harvard}!xanth!kent CSNET : kent@odu.csnet ARPA : kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu Voice : (804) 587-7760 USnail: P.O. Box 1559, Norfolk, Va 23501-1559 Copyright 1987 Kent Paul Dolan. How about if we keep the human All Rights Reserved. Author grants free race around long enough to see retransmission rights, recursively only. a bit more of the universe? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 3-May-87 00:24:56-EDT,11826;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 2-May-87 23:53:44 Date: 2 May 87 23:53-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #40 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, May 2, 1987 11:53PM Volume 6, Issue 40 Today's Topics: Re: special dial codes for cellular phones? outgoing amplifier Can't reach operator Re: Telephone Ring Detection Re: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards 0 and 1 in area codes Submission for comp-dcom-telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Apr 87 22:11:30 EDT From: Michael Grant Subject: Re: special dial codes for cellular phones? As I recal from a recent roaming experience in the Boston area, you dial 911 to get to the state police. You also get charged for this call. In the Balt/DC area, 911 from a cell phone is free. There is usually a *nnn (where nnn is the frequency of some local radio station without the decimal) that is a free call. You call it to tell the DJ about accidents or congestion, and in return, they put in a plug for the local cellular system. I believe it's *1050 in Boston, in DC it' *955. *511 in Balt/DC gets you to the local roamer port. *811 or *611 get you customer care. *394 in DC/Balt gets you a FYI, (For Your Info) recording about the cell system. Everything I'v mentioned here is for Cellular 1. I havn't used the wireline services enough to have gathered this kind of info. -Mike ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Wed, 29 Apr 87 20:40:26 PDT Subject: outgoing amplifier MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/29/87 20:40:24 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: outgoing amplifier To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu In telecom-digest no. 38, hplabs!well!johnw@seismo.CSS.GOV (John Winters) writes that he wants a 5-watt amplifier to make his outgoing voice louder so his grandmother can hear. I can't reach his address to reply directly; I hope others will forward this and others' replies to him. Please note: it is only in recent years that stereo home amplifiers go up to 50-100-150 watts, in order to use extremely low-efficiency speakers that provide various high-fidelity advantages. In the 40's and 50's, and AT PRESENT on cheap audio devices and cheap car systems, 1 to 5 watts is PLENTY. With your typical $5 regular-efficiency speaker, you could drive grandmothers completely crazy with 5 watts (in the same room). If you put 5 watts on an outgoing line with any efficient coupling, you would probably be talking to everyone that shared a cable with your line in the whole system. If not distorting your voice beyond recognition, also or instead. What's clearly needed is an amplifier on HER end. Very cheap boxes that one simply sits the headset in used to be available in stores, or use the same effort/money that would have amplified your end to work on her end. You could also consider buying her a speakerphone; and I wonder if the central offcie would do something for an elderly person, such as supply an amplified handset. My final comment would be: are you sure both your and her instruments are operating normally? It's at least possible that if either or both of you tried any modern 3rd party phone you could get an improvement. You could have an old standard with crusted-up carbon in your transmitter; people used to bang these around to loosen the carbon. Thanks, Doug w outgoing amplifier ------------------------------ Date: 30-Apr-1987 0020 From: cantor%delni.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (Dave C., 226-7726, LKG1-1/M06) Subject: Can't reach operator Using a pay phone in Chelmsford, Mass. (617-250) a few hours ago, I kept getting a fast busy attempting to dial an 800 number. So I tried to dial the operator. Guess what: I got a fast busy for code "0", too. Same for repair service 1-555-1611. I finally raised an operator by dialing 0-637-1234 (the Boston time service number), hitting "0" when the calling-card prompt tone sounded, and explaining to the operator that I didn't really want to know the time, but needed to make an 800 call and couldn't reach the operator through normal means. The operator placed the 800 call for me, and declined to take the information about not being able to reach operator or repair service through normal means. David A. Cantor ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Apr 87 11:51 EDT From: Jeffrey Del Papa Subject: Re: Telephone Ring Detection Reply-To: Jeffrey Del Papa Date: 26 Apr 87 19:55:51 GMT From: hplabs!well!johnw@seismo.CSS.GOV (John Winters) I was wondering, would anybody out there be able to write me a very simple schematic for 5 watt amplifier which would amplify my outgoing voice on the phone? I talked to my local Bell guy and he said 5 watts would be allowed (my grandmother can't hear at all, along with other people i know and this would be handy) Please send it via mail, as i don't check this out to often. Thanks John Winters, from DA WELL This would only work if you were on the same mechanical exchange. If you had to go over any trunk, or had a new electronic exchange, it would be for naught. It would be fine to put the amplifier on your grandmothers phone, and you can rather cheaply buy amplified handsets, so you dont have to haywire things. (besides that would work when other people called her too.) ------------------------------ From: deej@IUS2.CS.CMU.EDU (David Lewis) Subject: Re: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards Date: 30 Apr 87 15:17:35 GMT In article <883@xanth.UUCP>, kent@xanth.cs.odu.EDU (Kent Paul Dolan) writes... >I suggest (<---- Opinion marker! Keep your flames to yourself! ;-) that the >thing to do now is to find a not-terribly-disruptive way to introduce phone >competition at the local level, since we have proved it works well nationally. Sounds like a nifty idea -- in fact, I'd love to be the person to start it... The problem is that the local loop remains a monopoly for much the same reason that electriity, gas, water, and now CATV are monopolies -- you have to run wires through the street. (Historical reasons for the establishment of monopoly local loop service omitted for brevity -- this is just why no one's begun competition yet). PUCs wouldn't take too kindly to another phone company tearing up the streets. In addition, the capital costs of local loop service are pretty steep -- I believe something like 40% of the assets of the BOCs are in the wiring plant. Starting up a competitive local telco with that kind of entry barrier, and a very shaky prospect of success, is not a good business venture. Of course, there are all the problems of mandated interconnection to provide universal service, compatibility, and so on; the legal battles with the FCC and BOCs alone would probably be enough to prevent anyone from trying it. <=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=> Arpa: deej@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Usenet: {ihnp4|ucbvax|cmucspt}!cmu-cs-ius2!deej Bell System: (412) 681-6380 USMail: 5170 Beeler St., #1 Pittsburgh, PA 15217-1002 Carrier Pigeon: The big red brick house with the plate-glass windows out front. The opinions contained herein must be mine. No one else will claim them. "If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem." ------------------------------ From: sun!hoptoad!pozar@seismo.CSS.GOV (Tim Pozar) Subject: 0 and 1 in area codes Date: 30 Apr 87 22:18:44 GMT Reply-To: hoptoad!pozar@seismo.CSS.GOV (Tim Pozar) > >At the time I wondered how the phone company could tell that the >first 3 digits dialed were an area code, rather than an exchange. >Then I realized that exchanges were traditionally based on words, >e.g. my home exchange was "Hopkins 7". You could dial either >HOP or 467 and it would be the same, since H = 4, O = 6, and >P = 7. Because 1 and 0 do not have letters on the dial, >it was impossible to have a 1 or 0 in an exchange. >By making the middle digit of the area code a 1 or 0, the phone >company could tell if you were dialing long distance or not. > >Now I am starting to see exchanges with 1 and 0 in them, and >ones without an alphabetic mnemonic, as the number of >available prefixes is getting used up. > >Mike Ciaraldi >seismo!rochester!ciaraldi Although, I don't think I've seen a exchange/prefix with a 0 or 1 as the middle number. I have seen them in the last place (eg 570, ect.) An optional "1-" could still work if they followed the procedure above. Tim -- Tim Pozar UUCP pozar@hoptoad.UUCP Fido 125/406 USNail KLOK-FM 77 Maiden Lane San Francisco CA 94108 ------------------------------ From: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM (The devil himself) Date: 30 Apr 87 22:53:37 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: decwrl!delni.dec.com!goldstein From: goldstein@delni.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Intra-LATA toll gougine; Area Codes Message-ID: <9595@decwrl.DEC.COM> Date: 30 Apr 87 22:53:31 GMT Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 31 Re: last issue's flame about how high intra-LATA rates are in Virginia vs. AT&T; That's entirely a state matter and has nothing to do with competition, period. Intra-LATA INTRASTATE calls are priced per rates set by the state govt. These rates vary hugely state to state; NJ's, for example, are maybe half most other states'. This isn't the phone company gouging because of their monopoly, it's the state regulator's way of subsidizing cheap local residential service. Toll calls are viewed as a luxury, local lines as a necessity, so the former pay for the latter. The FCC has taken steps to reduce this subsidy within their domain, INTERSTATE calls, by using "access charges" (really a local service charge) to make up for money formerly paid via toll cross-subsidization. Some states have also moved closer to cost-based pricing. New England Telephone lowered its toll rates too, to face perceived (not very real) threats of competition, but the Mass. DPU happens to believe in cost-based (honest) rates. Most states don't; keeping "basic" rates low is (perceived as) better politics. If you had competition, the competitors would still be obligated to pay outrageous charges to the local company to contribute their share of the subsidy. That still occurs with the MCIs of the world. A lot of what they collect goes right back to pay for local service. Re: Area code 413. Someone pointed out, I think in this digest last year, that 413 (a handful of phones in the unpopulated boondocks of Western Mass.) was one of the first area codes cut into service, during the trial phase of DDD. Thus it got a "good" code and a small geographic area, since they helped the test. History bites back... fred (whose office will soon be in NPA 508, but home is still 617) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 3-May-87 00:25:17-EDT,21856;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 2-May-87 23:54:47 Date: 2 May 87 23:54-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #41 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, May 2, 1987 11:54PM Volume 6, Issue 41 Today's Topics: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Submission for mod.telecom (Telephone Company Technical Information) star66 and a modest call screening proposal Submission for mod.telecom (Comments on telephone toll fraud) Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Compendium of Phone features ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve shellans Date: 30 Apr 87 20:39:48 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: tektools!steves From: steves@tektools.TEK.COM (steve shellans) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: obsolete central office switches Keywords: obsolete central office switch Message-ID: <2405@tektools.TEK.COM> Date: 30 Apr 87 20:39:46 GMT Distribution: usa Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Lines: 25 In my home I have a touchtone phone. When I press a number, such as 7, for example, I hear 7 clicks coming back at me. Even though I can dial a complete number, including area code in a couple of seconds, the wait after that while I listen to the entire 'readback' is very annoying. (The number I dial most often is 790-0000, which is the local number for Allnet -- it seems to take forever.) >From phones at work there is none of this, and all (outside) calls go through very quickly. Whenever I travel on business and need to make calls, I always find electronic switching. My question is this -- how unusual (in the U.S.) is the kind of switching that I have from my home phone. If this is something pretty rare, I would like to contact my phone company (GTE) and the state utilities regulator to bring some pressure to bear to update the equipment into the modern world. Also, does anyone know when the heyday of this kind of equipment was? Thanks much, Steve Shellans Tektronix, Beaverton OR {decvax, wyvax, ihnp4, ucbvax} !tektronix!tektools!steves ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 May 87 00:25:05 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Telephone Company Technical Information) In a recent article johnw@well.UUCP (John Winters) writes: > I was wondering, would anybody out there be able to write me a very > simple schematic for 5 watt amplifier which would amplify > my outgoing voice on the phone? > I talked to my local Bell guy and he said 5 watts would be allowed > (my grandmother can't hear at all, along with other people i know and > this would be handy) Hmmmm... 5 watts into 600 ohms; that would be sending into the telephone line at about + 37 dBm. Is that hot, or is that HOT? Not only would your grandmother hear your voice, but so would everyone else in your central office! I didn't post this reply to make fun of John Winters; I believe his statement that the "local Bell guy said 5 watts would be allowed". I just want to point out the INCREDIBLE ignorance which is sometimes displayed by telephone company sales and administrative personnel who deal with the public. Many people naively believe that ANYTHING said by ANYONE at the telephone company must be correct. Wrong. If you have a technical question - especially concerning data transmission - INSIST upon speaking with a person who is an engineer (common titles: "customer services engineer" or "facilities design engineer"). You might get some moaning and groaning from a salesperson about such a request to speak with an engineer, but as far as I am concerned, it is your right to speak to a technically competent person when it concerns a technical question about transmission or network interface specifications. This does not mean you should abuse such a demand by asking questions about how to connect or repair telephones, or how to design or build telephone equipment; your right to obtain technical information should be properly confined to transmission and network interface specifications ONLY. You might be referred to a specific AT&T or FCC technical reference; I consider such a referral to be a reasonable response to a request for information, PROVIDED you are given a specific publication number and where to obtain it. Concerning the original article, any person who has a hearing impairment must solve the problem at THEIR END. Amplifier handsets with an adjustable volume control are readily available from AT&T Information Systems and from other vendors of telephone apparatus. Prices range from $ 30.00 to $ 60.00 for such a handset. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ From: soma!sugar.UUCP!karl@seismo.CSS.GOV (Karl Lehenbauer) Subject: star66 and a modest call screening proposal Date: 25 Apr 87 15:42:48 GMT Phone users in Austin Texas now have a service available called "Star 66." It enables you to call the last person who called you by dialing ("dialing", an anachronism in the modern age, is it not?) *66. It's great for calling back the people who hung up right before you answered. It also would be cool for calling back the more stupid of the anonymous/obscene callers. Presumably, even modestly intelligent anon./obscene callers would use pay phones if they don't already. Regarding not being able to screen calls if/when that becomes available for fear that you'll miss a call from your daughter-in-trouble calling from a payphone, yes, you can't preemptively screen calls but you could still screen them from specific numbers. This would at least prevent callbacks for sleazy solicitors (or would it? more in a sec...) and others who you just don't want to talk to at the time. RE: Preventing callbacks from sleazy solicitors. Since they use lots of lines, it would be impossible to cover all of them in advance. How about making all solicitors forward a code with their number indicating that they are making unsolicited solicitations? Then we could generically lock them out (especially the obnoxious computerized robot solicitors) without locking out calls from all unspecified numbers. -- uucp: {shell,rice,seismo}!soma!uhnix1!sugar!karl bbs: (713) 933-2440 voice: (713) 933-9134 "ahhh, personal Unix at last..." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 May 87 23:16:11 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Comments on telephone toll fraud) > In a recent article AWalker@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (*Hobbit*) writes: [discussion about SF-tone detectors in central offices] > Isn't this a bit redundant in these CCIS-ridden days? I would think so! Most toll fraud today occurs through the fraudulent use of calling card numbers. However, during the 1970's when "blue box" fraud reached its peak, the Bell System in particular did use 2600 Hz SF tone detectors. One such device was called [somewhat euphemistically] a Multichannel Tone Test Unit (MTTU). One MTTU had the capacity to monitor up to 100 trunks. The MTTU could be used in a local office to monitor outgoing DDD access trunks, or in a tandem office to monitor 2-wire or 4-wire intertoll trunks. In the MTTU, each trunk connection had a dedicated SF tone receiver which would alarm if an SF signal longer than about 200 ms was detected. The sensitivity was pretty decent - something between -35 and -40 dBm - so it COULD conceivably be susceptible to the crosstalk situation mentioned in the earlier article. The MTTU had a trunk identification unit, which would send the identity of the "offending" trunk to the Call Identity Indexer of the central office CAMA or LAMA recording apparatus. This would allow the origin (i.e., calling number) of the fraudulent call to be ascertained. > Also, it seems rather improper for an office to assume that any occurrence of > 2600 on a subscriber loop indicates possible fraud. First of all, if someone > wanted to defraud he'd just hike down to the nearest pay phone. Second, there > are a lot of OCC switches that respond to 2600, so the phone co has another > think coming if they believe I'm committing toll fraud every time I clobber > one of them upon completion of a call. Fooey. If the [possibly apocryphal] crosstalk incident had occurred several years ago, I would believe it. If the incident is supposed to be contemporary, then I would be skeptical that an operating telephone company is still using such toll fraud detection apparatus (unless they have little or no CCIS and/or are still using CAMA trunks with local ANI - at least not likely today in an ESS office). Most message accounting today is LAMA; i.e., it is done in the local central office. Such message accounting has returned to the local central office primarily to permit message unit timing on local calls. So the point is: the LAMA knows every number that a subscriber has dialed (by dial-pulse and DTMF, that is). Assuming that there is no CCIS or 3700 Hz out-of-band signaling to cause a absolute denial of "blue box" usage, one can't implement a "blue box" fraud without gaining access to a toll switching office. And one generally can't gain access to a toll switching office without creating one of three situations: 1. Dialing an inward WATS number. Simple computer exception reporting from raw LAMA call data can ascertain if certain subscriber lines are making unusually large numbers of 800-number calls. Of course, such excessive usage can be perfectly legitimate, but detection of such high usage, along with other "anomalous calling patterns" can be used to pinpoint subscriber lines where toll fraud is suspected. A "roving" SF-tone detector could then be attached to _specific_ suspect subscriber lines. 2. Dialing directory assistance in other area codes. This is even easier to detect by exception reporting: one doesn't have many directory assistance calls lasting more than, say, three minutes! 3. Dialing an actual toll call, but applying SF before answer to reseize the toll switching office and dial a "more expensive" toll call. This is not very common because the subscriber line is still going to be billed for the original dialed toll call. In addition, most newer ESS offices closely monitor answer supervision on outgoing toll trunks; such monitoring makes it difficult to perpetrate "blue box" fraud. Failure to achieve answer supervision within say, three minutes results in a forced disconnect. Once answer supervision has been detected, its subsequent loss for more than say, 30 seconds will result in a forced disconnect. Furthermore, there is ESS software to monitor "anomalous" trunk answer supervision changes. > The user-end symptoms of 2600 detection seem to be as follows: Beeeep. Switch > disconnects your call, or whatever its fancy. Some switches drop the > connection to the office completely, forcing the call to throw back to the > office and return dial tone within a few seconds. At any rate, in the > background one can hear a small "grack" sort of click -- I would assume that > this indicates the bridging-in of the more sophisticated "fraud detection" > equipment that would listen for and report various other tones. This is > un-bridged again after about 20 seconds if nothing else happens. I could > determine this because in some offices the bridging equipment is flakey and > introduces extra line hum while it's connected. Good heavens! You actually tried it?! :-) :-) :-) You are most likely just hearing the originating register or its ESS equivalent being switched into the circuit to accept the anticipated MF signaling train, with the register "timing out" after 20 seconds of no signaling. Unless there is faulty apparatus, you will NEVER aurally detect the presence of any SF monitoring devices; all such devices use bridging amplifiers that result in an effective bridging loss of no more than 0.05 dB. > Would someone closer to the technical end of the above like to explain how > this works in greater depth? And what is generally done with the generated > reports when there's obviously no "fraud" happening on a given loop? Telephone company security personnel react very cautiously to any suspected "blue box" fraud. If an SF-tone detector or exception reporting software results in "hits" for a given line on several different days, chances are a dedicated SF-tone and MF signaling detector will be attached to the suspect subscriber line. Further information will then be obtained that can be used in a prosecution; mere detection of SF tones is insufficient. It is necessary not only to know exactly what destination number was dialed, but to have some idea as to the identity of the _person_ using a given subscriber line; merely knowing the subscriber line number where the fraud originates is insufficient - the identity of the actual _person_ making the call must be ascertained. In case anyone is wondering, it is the absolute right of any telephone company or communications common carrier to attach such monitoring apparatus to any subscriber's line. Furthermore, under most circumstances, it is also an absolute right of any such telephone company or communications common carrier to aurally monitor any subscriber line to detect fraud; this may be euphemistically referred to as "service observing" - and is more common than telephone companies would like their subscribers to believe. The point I am trying to make in the above is that "blue box" toll fraud is disappearing, and the use of toll fraud detection apparatus is consequently diminishing. While the incidence of "blue box" toll fraud has decreased, it has unfortunately been replaced by fraudulent use of calling card numbers, and most recently by cellular telephone "spoofing" fraud (which is probably the worst can of worms yet!). <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ From: ut-sally!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV (Unix-to-Unix Copy) Date: 3 May 87 02:06:46 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!nrc-ut!nrcvax!ihm From: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian H. Merritt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Pac*Bell /ATT Calling Cards Message-ID: <895@nrcvax.UUCP> Date: 1 May 87 16:15:06 GMT Organization: Network Research Corp. Lines: 33 References: <8704240355.AA01860@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <883@xanth.UUCP> Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt) Distribution: world Organization: The Frobboz Magic Telephone Co., Inc. > >In article <8704240355.AA01860@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN@WESLEYAN.BITNET (Doug Reuben) writes: >>[...] I think this is just another good example of what a mess >>the Bell System Divestiture was and is...Hopefully, some day, some one in >>charge with these people will realize this and put the Bell System back >>together again...Wishful thinking, I know, but its better than getting upset >>with this idiocy...:-) !!! > Didn't see the original posting, so this may sound silly out of context, but your comment sounds more like a case of humpty dumpty. In truth, the only problems with the divestature in terms of how it effects us are that things are of course more complex now, and we are now at the mercy of "Short Term Bottom Line Business America", doing things becuase thare cheap and fast; not necessarily because they are technically good. So, we have a bunch of really poorly designed LD networks competing for our business. Call completions that take 1.5 to 2 seconds over AT&T are taking 12 to 20 seconds on some of the competition, and with the singular exception of US Sprint, now mostly fiber, virtually all calls made over other than AT&T result in poor to horrible connections. To a significant extent it is a case of you get what you pay for. Now AT&T has to cut corners and their equipment is beginning to show signs of deterioration. Terriffic. This too will pass, but I wonder if the eventual overall gains will have been worth the interim (10 years or so) pain. --i ------------------------------ From: ut-sally!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV (Unix-to-Unix Copy) Date: 3 May 87 02:06:19 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!nrc-ut!nrcvax!ihm From: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian H. Merritt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 2600 "fraud" detection Message-ID: <894@nrcvax.UUCP> Date: 1 May 87 16:03:01 GMT References: <12298260996.77.AWALKER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt) Distribution: world Organization: The Frobboz Magic Dungeon Co., Inc. Lines: 66 >Isn't this a bit redundant in these CCIS-ridden days? > >Also, it seems rather improper for an office to assume that any occurrence of >2600 on a subscriber loop indicates possible fraud. First of all, if someone >wanted to defraud he'd just hike down to the nearest pay phone. Second, there >are a lot of OCC switches that respond to 2600, so the phone co has another >think coming if they believe I'm committing toll fraud every time I clobber >one of them upon completion of a call. Fooey. > I think you may be drawing incorrect conclusions from your observations. Are you a known paranoid? (:->) Your initiial comment about CCIS is more realistic. In this day of CCIS, with the local telcos no longer concerned with interstate fraud anyway, particularly with respect to the non AT&T carriers using equipment that's doesn't fully interface with the network, I would be hard-pressed to believe that any of the local telcos still have any such equipment. It sounds as if your observations can be explained as follows: >The user-end symptoms of 2600 detection seem to be as follows: Beeeep. Switch 2600Hz >disconnects your call, or whatever its fancy. Disconnect is due to the effect of 2600 on the cheap long distance carriers equipment; not some fancy fraud detection. > [...] Some switches drop the >connection to the office completely, forcing the call to throw back to the >office and return dial tone within a few seconds. New ESS software disconnects faster. Some of the newer CO <-> Cheap LD carrier trunk interfaces provide more signalling information to detect drop faster. > [...] At any rate, in the >background one can hear a small "grack" sort of click -- I would assume that >this indicates the bridging-in of the more sophisticated "fraud detection" >equipment that would listen for and report various other tones. Probably bogus assumption. If you were the called party and your line is #1/1A ESS, the click you describe as "grack" sounds like the normal called party disconnect sound; If you were the calling party you might hear something similar when the mechanical junctors in the several older switches involved in the connection drop in rapid succession. On other switches complex sequences of clicks are common for similar reasons, particularly #5 crossbar. I would have to actually listen to it to identify exactly what it was. > [...] This is >un-bridged again after about 20 seconds if nothing else happens. I could >determine this because in some offices the bridging equipment is flakey and >introduces extra line hum while it's connected. In some offices (#5 Crossbar), when you are dropped from a connection you spend some time on a holding circuit that happes to provide you with substantial induction noise, for your listening pleasure. Generally this condition does not connect any detectors to the line other than the usual ROH (Receiver On Hook) detect. It usually lasts about 10 to 20 seconds. Try dialing out from that same office. Listen closely after breaking dialtone and see if you don't hear this noise. You can easily tell if it's crossbar if shortly (.2 to .9 second) after dialing your last digit of a valid sequence, you hear a loud clunk after which there is no more induction noise. Cheerz... --i ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Apr 87 14:31:35 EDT From: "Cpt. Jerome A. DiGennaro AV 298-2703" Subject: Compendium of Phone features Does anyone have a list of all the different phone features that are currently being offered. As people move from area to area, it seems like a good idea to have a list of the featutes that should be asked for. If such a list does not exist at one place, send me the various listings for compilation and release to the mailing list. Please include the feature and a brief description of what the feature does. Thanks in advance. Jerry DiGennaro ARPA/BITNET: jerryd@smoke.brl.mil AT&T: (301) 278-2703/5759 UUCP: ...{seismo,unc,decvax,cbosgd}!brl-smoke!jerryd ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 4-May-87 02:47:04-EDT,10581;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 4-May-87 02:27:31 Date: 4 May 87 02:27-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #42 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, May 4, 1987 2:27AM Volume 6, Issue 42 Today's Topics: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Ringing Detection Circuits) Submission for mod.telecom (Touch-tone in Older Central Offices) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: pnet01!jeh Date: Sun, 3 May 87 03:00:56 PDT From: jeh@pnet01.CTS.COM (Jamie Hanrahan) Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Ringing Detection Circuits) Here is an absurdly simple ring detector which I threw together years ago, before hobbyists had access to optoisolators: Scrounge an old phone with a conventional bell. Disconnect and throw away (or put in the junk box) everything but the 425B network (or equivalent), the ringer coil, and the external ringer capacitor (if present). (The 425B network is the mysterious box with altogether too many cryptically-labeled screw terminals on the top.) Place a magnetic reed switch in close proximity to the ringer coil. Connect the reed switch to whatever. I never had any problem with this detecting dial pulses as rings, and it is rather likely that it conforms to phone company specs. --- Jamie Hanrahan (uucp: {akgua | hplabs!hp-sdd | sdcsvax | nosc}!crash!pnet01!jeh) (arpa: crash!pnet01!jeh@nosc) (internet: jeh@pnet01.CTS.COM) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 May 87 00:44:47 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for mod.telecom (Touch-tone in Older Central Offices) In a recent article steves@tektools.TEK.COM (steve shellans) writes: > In my home I have a touchtone phone. When I press a number, such as > 7, for example, I hear 7 clicks coming back at me. Even though > I can dial a complete number, including area code in a couple of > seconds, the wait after that while I listen to the entire 'readback' > is very annoying. (The number I dial most often is 790-0000, which > is the local number for Allnet -- it seems to take forever.) > > From phones at work there is none of this, and all (outside) calls > go through very quickly. I assume that you have a "true" touch-tone (DTMF) telephone at home; not one of these touch-tone dial units which really put out dial pulses. In either case, the following is still applicable to the situation of using a touch-tone telephone in some older central offices. It sounds like your home telephone service is furnished by a "progressive control" electromechanical central office, such as step-by-step (SxS) or Stromberg-Carlson XY, that has BEEN UPDATED FOR DTMF SERVICE. Since you mention later in your article that your telephone company is GTE, I would bet money on the office having Automatic Electric 35E-type SxS apparatus. In general terms, "progressive control" central offices route the call through a series of devices known as "selectors" - one digit at a time in REAL TIME as the number is dialed ("step-by-step", as they say :-) ). This type of central office was designed around the use of a rotary dial in the subscriber telephone. Since these are electromechanical switches, there are minimum times required for the switches to operate. The dialing rate was standardized to accommodate the electromechanical response time of the switches. The call-processing speed of such offices is therefore limited by rotary dial pulsing specifications, which are typically: 1. Pulsing rate is a nominal 10 pulses/sec, which can typically vary from 8 to 12 pulses/sec. A digit "1" has one pulse, a digit "2" has two pulses, ..., and a digit "0" has ten pulses. Therefore, a digit "0" typically requires 1.0 seconds to dial. There are further specifications for the pulses within each digit. Pulses are line opens, and are generally specified as being 60 milliseconds open followed by 40 milliseconds closed; also referred to as 60% break (since each pulse interval is 100 milliseconds). 2. Inter-digit dialing interval (i.e., between dialed digits), of at least 0.25 seconds. So, to dial four "0"'s will require a minimum of 5.0 seconds (4 dialing intervals + 4 inter-digit intervals). So doing a bit of calculation, at BEST, dialing your example number of 790-0000 is going to take at least 8.35 seconds before the call can reach the 790 central office. This assumes an interoffice trunk between your office and the 790 office - if not, add another second for local tandem switching. In addition, add another 1.0 second for call processing in the 790 office. Now as I said earlier, these SxS and similar central offices respond only to dial pulses, because the pulses themselves control the switching apparatus. There is no way that the switching apparatus per se can deal with DTMF signals. However, for a number of years there have been converter circuits for use in SxS offices which receive a string of DTMF digits, decode them, store them as digital information in a register, and then outpulse the digits as rotary dial pulses at the nominal rate of 10 pulses/sec. These converter circuits are installed between the "linefinder" and the "first selector". When a subscriber line goes off hook and requests dial tone, an idle linefinder is selected by some simple relay arbitration logic. Each linefinder is a type of SxS switch which is dedicated to one particular first selector; when the linefinder completes its job and connects the tip and ring of the subscriber line to the first selector, the first selector returns dial tone. At this point, the first selector can respond in real time to the first dialed digit. Subscriber lines are typically arranged in groups of 100 or 200 lines, and each such group has access to a maximum of 10 or 20 linefinder- first selectors. The actual concentration ratio depends upon the particular type of SxS apparatus and the traffic design of the central office, but the typical concentration ratio at this point is 10:1. Typically, only ten percent of all lines in a given line group can make an outgoing call; if all linefinders in a given line group are busy, a line requesting service waits for for dial tone - since the dial tone is the indication that a first selector is available. So the point is: these DTMF converter circuits get installed before the first selector, are shared by a number of other lines in the same group, and in effect "fool" the first selector and all subsequent switches into believing that they are being controlled by a rotary dial. Since one can enter DTMF digits in a keypad at least 10 times faster than using a rotary dial, and since the SxS or other progressive control central office can only operate as fast as a rotary dial - use of the DTMF converter results in no faster switching time than using a rotary dial. The "clicks" you hear correspond to the dial pulses being generated by the DTMF converter, and are the impulse noise created by the operation of the selectors in your dialing path. If there is no faster switching time by adding DTMF converters to a SxS office, then why do telephone companies install such devices? Because customers "feel better" knowing that touch-tone is now available in their particular central office, because the telephone company can charge more for the touch-tone service, and because telephone companies don't want to spend the money to replace the SxS office with ESS! > Whenever I travel on business and need > to make calls, I always find electronic switching. You might still be going through a #1 or #5 crossbar office, or some other common-control electromechanical office; such offices when equipped with DTMF originating registers will usually switch a call in a short enough period of time as to be indistinguishable from ESS. > My question is this -- how unusual (in the U.S.) is the kind of > switching that I have from my home phone. If this is something > pretty rare, I would like to contact my phone company (GTE) and > the state utilities regulator to bring some pressure to bear to > update the equipment into the modern world. I don't think there is much pressure that can be brought to compel an operating telephone company to upgrade if they don't want to. They've given you DTMF service, they've given you DDD access, they've probably implemented coin-free operator, 800 and 911 service at coin telephones (done with a similar adapter card installed in the coin telephone linefinder group), and that's really about all the telephone service that any operating telephone company is OBLIGATED to provide. ESS features are nice, but they cost money to provide since they require total replacement of the SxS office with ESS equipment. New ESS equipment for a central office typically costs between $ 500.00 and $ 1,000.00 per subscriber line, with the higher figure being more common. That's a lot of money - that the telephone subscriber has to eventually pay for. This means that SxS and other electromechanical offices in "outlying" areas will be around for years to come. I don't disagree with your desire for better quality telephone service, but the point is: who is going to pay for the ESS to provide it? > Also, does anyone know when the heyday of this kind of equipment was? SxS and other progressive control central office equipment for smaller central offices peaked in usage during the late 1960's; common control electromechanical switches such as crossbar and its predecessor panel (ugh!) were just not economical for offices with less than say, 3000 lines. During the 1960's small "packaged" crossbar switches became available (like those from NEC), along with hybrid ESS-electromechanical switches, followed by true ESS switches. These switches made it economically feasible to replace SxS and similar progressive control central offices. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 5-May-87 00:04:56-EDT,9151;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 4-May-87 23:52:25 Date: 4 May 87 23:52-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #43 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, May 4, 1987 11:52PM Volume 6, Issue 43 Today's Topics: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Comments on telephone toll fraud) RE: 800 / 0+ Re-order signals Re: Divestiture ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sundc!howard%COS.COM@seismo.CSS.GOV (Howard C. Berkowitz) Subject: Re: Submission for mod.telecom (Comments on telephone toll fraud) Date: 4 May 87 23:17:41 GMT In an earlier article, I referred to an incident, which I suggested possibly was apocryphal, of problems due to 2600 Hz crosstalk affecting tone fraud detection equipment. I was told of the several years ago, at an ANSI standards meeting by a telephone industry employee. The incident probably took place in the late 70's or early 80's, and possibly was in Chicago. ------------------------------ Date: Mon 4 May 87 01:28:11-EDT From: Doug Reuben Subject: RE: 800 / 0+ Re-order signals Message-ID: <12299594081.15.S.D-REUBEN@KLA.WESLYN> In the last issue of the Telecom Digest which I received, I noticed that David A. Cantor said that he had received a re-order, or "fast-busy" as operators like to call it, when he attempted an 800, and then 0+ call. This happens a lot in generally less populated areas which do not have a great number of trunks from the local office to a "higher" office (toll center is the term that the telco representative used.) Besides 0+ calls, I think 800 and 950 calls are routed over the same trunks, and thus, they should all return a re-order if they are tried when the trunks are overused. Also, 1+ dialing in a rural or suburban area which requires a 1+ for calls beyond a small, local calling area should also experience the same problem (At least it does for me). I believe that calls beyond the local area from a payphone must be routed over to the operator, or operator equipment, if its available, which tells you how much money you have to put in. (IE, "One dollar and fifty cents, please. Please deposit one dollar and fifty cents for the first minute.", and if you don't put the money in on time and operator comes on the line and tells you herself.). So if the 0+ lines are jammed, I think that it is for the same reason that that the 1+ lines are jammed. In my area (Connecticut), repair is just 611, not 1+xxx-6111 or whatever it is in Mass. Therefore, when I dial repaid to complain (although they can't do anything immediate about it anyhow), it goes through, probably because its not a 1+ call. (Although wouldn't the local office know that a 1-xxx-6111 call is not an ordinary toll call?) Therefore, dialing dialing 0+weather number, and then keying 0 for the operator at the Calling Card tone was just luck. You dialed your call after one of the trunks became free. If you are in a situation like that again, then probably the best thing to do is dial "0-#", which will immediately connect you to an operator, if the trunks are free. (If not, it will return a re-order immediately, so you can try again faster, and "beat" the other people trying to make 0+ calls to it...) (Dialing 0-# also works if you just want to reach the operator quickly and don't want to wait for the equipment to see that you are not dialing any digits after the 0. I think this only works in ESS areas, since on my crossbar you have to dial 01 or 00 to get the operator quickly.) If I'm wrong about this (any of this) please let me know, so I can yell at SNET for having the problem so often and giving me some silly and bad excuse for it!! :-) -Doug Reuben@Weslyn.Bitnet Reuben%WESLYN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ...seismo!weslyn.bitnet!reuben (UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: Mon 4 May 87 02:10:58-EDT From: Doug Reuben Subject: Re: Divestiture Message-ID: <12299601869.15.S.D-REUBEN@KLA.WESLYN> In my last post about Pac*Bell and AT&T calling cards, I mentioned that the splitting up of calling card services is one reason why I feel that the requirements of the Modified Divestiture Agreement were ridiculous, and why I would like to see the Bell System put back together (Again, I know I'm dreaming). I can't recall who (terribly sorry), but someone mentioned that the divestiture worked for them because long distance rates had come down, and that now it was time for local operations to be subject to "competition" as well. Although the divestiture has allowed long distance rates to drop precipitously, which is a bonus of the breakup, everything else is not. I see little or no difference between the rates of the alternate long distance carriers and those of AT&T. Moreover, the quality of the alternates is simply horrendous, and with the implementation more and more fiber optic routes on AT&T (especially new ones like: New York- San Mateo County (415) and most of 418, Connecticut to San Francisco County (415), New York/CT to Texas (214), New York/CT to Atlanta (404), and NY/CT to South Carolina, Virginia, Chicago, Detroit as well as the "older links, like NY/CT - Mass), I am VERY willing to pay the penny per minute more on some calls so that I can use AT&T's fiber optics (believe me, once you talk via fiber you won't want to go back to anything else!) The point here is not to compare various types of LD trunks, but to say that competition really hasn't brought the great degree of choices that it was supposed to. The alternate LD co's have a few fiber optic trunks, and do a few things well, but they are more or less the same (although some are definitely on the LOW end!), and aren't much of a real choice. In other words, their rates are marginally lower than AT&T's, but not to a significant extent, and the quality of service they provide (even US Sprint, which doesn't seem to use as much fiber as they promise in their TV ads) is at times drastically lower than AT&T's, so much so that for the "average consumer", there is really not much of a choice being offered. Previously, if you wanted cheap long distance you would use someone like MCI, who didn't have such great connections, but who was significantly cheaper than AT&T (as AT&T was regulated then). Now, MCI is just like Sprint who is just like Allnet (etc....), all of which are slightly below AT&T in price and very far below in transmission quality and optional services. Thus, before you had a choice, and you gave up quality but saved a lot of money. Now, you can give op quality, but fail to realize any significant savings. So what good did all this do? Moreover, the divestiture is generally more expensive for the consumer. If you don't make a lot of long distance calls, you are probably paying more for service now then you did when it was still the Bell System. Sure, now you call call coast-to-coast for $7 per hour, but if you don't make many long distance calls, you are paying more in terms of "access fees" for a service you are not really using. Obviously, this reflects a more accurate appraisal of what the the costs for local vs. long distance service are. Yet the costs of this more "accurate appraisal" make it difficult to see if such a method for measuring phone service is worth it. Moreover, why break up the Bell System if all that was required was a more sensitive pricing system? And if this means that I have to dial 0 for a local operator and 00 for a LD operator, or if it means that to fix a trunk my local co. has to argue with AT&T about it for 4 weeks, or if it means that my local Crossbar is now takes 5 seconds to complete a call after I finish dialing (Touch Tone) when it used to go through right away, and if it means that I have deal with two companies (my BOC and AT&T) who don't like each other anymore, and if it means that my local BOC has to spend money to DUPLICATE Calling Card and operator equipment that is already in place under AT&T (which I will ultimately pay for)...and....(whew!), then when it comes right down to it, was divestiture worth it? As far as I can see, the cost of divestiture is far greater, both in economic terms and, more importantly to me as a customer, in terms of SERVICE (remember that word?? :-;), than whatever small gains it has achieved. It is for that reason that I said I would like to have to Bell System put back together again.... -(thanks to those who struggled through this long post....!) -Doug Reuben@Weslyn.Bitnet REUBEN%WESLYN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ...seismo!weslyn.bitnet!reuben (UUCP) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 7-May-87 20:41:26-EDT,4966;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Thu 7 May 87 20:41:24-EDT Date: 7 May 87 19:38-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #44 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, May 7, 1987 7:38PM Volume 6, Issue 44 Today's Topics: help!! DMS100 Advantage of Bell breakup Phone system basics Service fee for Toll-Free Calls? Ring detection ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: pur-ee!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!gardner@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: help!! DMS100 Date: 29 Apr 87 18:41:00 GMT /* Written 1:40 pm Apr 29, 1987 by gardner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu in uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.dcom.modems */ /* ---------- "help!! DMS100" ---------- */ We have recently installed a Northern Telecom DMS100 switch on campus. We have been experiencing a number fo problems with 1200 and 2400 modems and spurious line noise. Most characteristic are the two characters { and del, together received on lines comming from the switch. The local telephone company has corrected the problem with most local phones, only by repairing/ replacing local trunk line equipment not associated with the switch, but through which calls may come in to the dms100 and university mainframes. We still have unacceptable problems on long distance lines, which they are now tracing out through long distance trunks.....maybe they have to "fix" the rest of the country to work with us. Has anyone out there had similiar problems with DMS100's or similiar digital switches? Please respond by mail, I'll summarize. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Assistant Director - Computer Services Office - University of Illinois Michael G. Gardner 217-244-0914 UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!gardner ARPANET: gardner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu CSNET: gardner%uxc@uiuc.csnet ICBM: 40 07 N / 88 13 W BITNET: gardner@uiucuxc US Mail: Univ of Illinois, CSO, 1304 W Springfield Ave, Urbana, IL 61801 /* End of text from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.dcom.modems */ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 May 87 17:17:31 PDT From: mse%Phobos.Caltech.Edu@DEImos.Caltech.Edu (Martin Ewing) Subject: Advantage of Bell breakup One little advantage I note to the divestiture (and all that) is that now I can prefix long distance calls with "10777" and I never get billed... Or is this my imagination? [SPRINT does it's own billing now. You will not see it on your BOC phone bill (i.e. from Pac Bell or GTE), but Sprint will probably bill you eventually --jsol] ------------------------------ From: yale!sweedler@seismo.CSS.GOV (Jonathan Sweedler) Subject: Phone system basics Date: 6 May 87 00:31:53 GMT Reply-To: harvard!harvisr!yale-celed!sweedler@seismo.CSS.GOV (Jonathan Sweedler) Is there a good tutorial that explains the basics of the phone system. I'm lost when people talk about DDD access trunks, SF tone detectors, CCIS, ESS, and the like. Thanks in advance. -- UUCP: ...!{seismo,decvax}!yale!sweedler ARPA: sweedler@yale.arpa Jonathan Sweedler BITNET: sweedler@yalecs.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 May 1987 22:53 MDT From: WANCHO@SIMTEL20.ARPA Subject: Service fee for Toll-Free Calls? Last week I stayed at the Days Inn in Alexandria, VA while on TDY. I was suprised to find that, plainly marked on the phone cradle, they charged 30 cents for 800 numbers as well as for local calls. Can they charge a "service fee" for toll-free calls? --Frank [The Sheraton Boston charges 60c for every 3 minutes on local calls, 950 calls, calls to the operator (except toll calls), calls to 911, and calls to 800 numbers. Apparently they can get away with it. --JSol] ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 87 16:58:27 EDT From: *Hobbit* Subject: Ring detection The following .01uF +-------+ Line ----------||--------|AC +|--------> | | Line ----------||--------|AC -|--------> .01uF +-------+ 200V Bridge rect. will generate a voltage across the + and - of the bridge when ring voltage appears across the line. It will also isolate the line from your downstream equipment. You don't have to wait 14 weeks for a mess of diodes. This as given may be a little *too* sensitive and trigger on small voltage edges -- an appropriate application of R and C after the bridge can cut this down some. _H* ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 10-May-87 14:41:39-EDT,11607;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sun 10 May 87 14:41:37-EDT Date: 10 May 87 13:30-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #45 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, May 10, 1987 1:30PM Volume 6, Issue 45 Today's Topics: Telecom ad in Scientific American Re: Advantage of Bell breakup Submission for comp-dcom-telecom need help with answering machine (AUTO 60) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 7 May 87 17:16:14 PDT From: samho@larry.cs.washington.edu (Sam Ho) Subject: Telecom ad in Scientific American The current (May) issue of Scientific American contains an 8-page ad for Telecom 87 in Geneva. In the text portion of that ad are several interesting tables about the industry. (Sweden has the most per-capita telephones, and AT&T is second to the merger of ITT and Alcatel telecom divisions in most measures of size.) ------------------------------ From: msmith@gauss.rutgers.edu (Mark Smith) Subject: Re: Advantage of Bell breakup Date: 9 May 87 21:19:37 GMT > From: mse@Phobos.Caltech.EDU (Martin Ewing) > One little advantage I note to the divestiture (and all that) is that > now I can prefix long distance calls with "10777" and I never get billed... > > Or is this my imagination? Well, actually, a friend of mine did this, and he got the bill for the calls about 7 months later, but he did get it. Beware! mark -- Mark Smith "Happiness is a myth." RPO 1604, CN 5063 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 rutgers: msmith@gauss uucp: ...{seismo, ut-sally, sri-iu, ihnp4!packard}!gauss.rutgers.edu!msmith ------------------------------ From: ut-sally!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV (Unix-to-Unix Copy) Date: 10 May 87 02:06:04 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!nrc-ut!nrcvax!ihm From: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian H. Merritt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Divestiture Summary: Humpty Dumpty is dead! Keywords: Breakup, Humpty Dumpty, Bell system, Divestiture, Terrorist Message-ID: <908@nrcvax.UUCP> Date: 8 May 87 17:30:14 GMT References: <8705050405.AA27325@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt) Distribution: world Organization: The Frobboz Magic Telephone Co., Inc. Lines: 145 In reply to: <12299601869.15.S.D-REUBEN@KLA.WESLYN>: > Although the divestiture has allowed long distance rates to drop >precipitously, which is a bonus of the breakup, everything else is not. Yes, but remember that the rates were falling, albeit not as fast, before the breakup commenced, so even here, the extent of the benefit isn't entirely clear. > > I see little or no difference between the rates of the alternate long >distance carriers and those of AT&T. Moreover, the quality of the alternates is >simply horrendous, and with the implementation more and more fiber optic routes >on AT&T (especially new ones like: >New York- San Mateo County (415) and most of 418, Connecticut to San Francisco >County (415), New York/CT to Texas (214), New York/CT to Atlanta (404), >and NY/CT to South Carolina, Virginia, Chicago, Detroit as well as the "older >links, like NY/CT - Mass), I am VERY willing to pay the penny per minute more >on some calls so that I can use AT&T's fiber optics (believe me, once you talk >via fiber you won't want to go back to anything else!) Never mind the specific routes. The point that AT&T is now (if I may coin a term) 'glazing' their network is significant in itself. If they are making even a modest effort to maintain their previous standards of excellence in engineering and planning, the will do a far more professional job of it. I hope they are doing better with their network plant than they were able to do with subscriber termination equipment (phones). At least until recently, maybe still, they have been advertising their telephones as if they were as well built as 15-20 years ago, when in reality they are the same cheesy garbage you can pick up in designer pink & purple at your local supermarket. > > The point here is not to compare various types of LD trunks, but to say >that competition really hasn't brought the great degree of choices that it >was supposed to. The alternate LD co's have a few fiber optic trunks, and do a >few things well, but they are more or less the same (although some are >definitely on the LOW end!), and aren't much of a real choice. In other words, >their rates are marginally lower than AT&T's, but not to a significant extent, >and the quality of service they provide (even US Sprint, which doesn't seem to >use as much fiber as they promise in their TV ads) is at times drastically >lower than AT&T's, so much so that for the "average consumer", there is really >not much of a choice being offered. Well, I wouldn't blast Sprint quite the the extent you have. I do find that when I get an all fiber connection, the quality is ok. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and the other carriers' quality is dismal. Worse, call completion via the alternate carriers will not soon improve. Even as they install CCIS-like interoffice communication internally, they are still subject to the delay of the local CO sending both the destination and the calling number via MF signalling over the trunk, for every call, and they still dial out on a subscriber-like line at the terminating end, necessitating their DTMFing the 7, 8, 10, or 11 digit destination number only to have it partially repeated in MF tones between the local CO at their destination tandem and the actual terminating office. AT&T only has the originating CO send the destination, and it contracts with the local TELCOs for AMA service. Once at the local 4E, the call traverses the AT&T network in under 1 second, and takes only a minimum time to MF out the few digits needed to complete the call from the 4E in the destination city to the terminating CO. Overall completion time from last digit dialed is usually about 2 seconds, vs. about 7 to 20 for the other guys. In a recent TV spot, AT&T makes the claim that their calls complete twice as fast. It's much better than that. I suspect they said twice because no matter what the other carriers do, until they interface with the local CO's as AT&T does, they will not get better than about 4 to 7 seconds, thus AT&T can use the ad for some time. Incidentally, the kid in the ad, I think by the name of Roger, I recently recognized as being played by my cousin. > > Previously, if you wanted cheap long distance you would use someone like >MCI, who didn't have such great connections, but who was significantly cheaper >than AT&T (as AT&T was regulated then). >Now, MCI is just like Sprint who is just like Allnet (etc....), all of which >are slightly below AT&T in price and very far below in transmission quality >and optional services. Thus, before you had a choice, and you gave up quality >but saved a lot of money. Now, you can give op quality, but fail to realize any >significant savings. So what good did all this do? Once again you have grouped sprint with the rest. In terms of the design of their network plant, they are no better than the others, but their attitude toward quality is massively better and they are starting to pull away in terms of overall service. Still, they are as yet no match for AT&T in overall network performance. What good did all this do? It made the general public more aware of their telephone as part of a business and not something to be taken for granted. It confused (and still confuses) the majority of the telephone using public. And it has served to increase our overall long distance capacity. BIG DEAL. I share your view that we shouldn't have pushed Humpty over the wall; I was against it from the beginning. Now that we're stuck with it, we must accept that the King's horses and Men aren't even interested in collecting the pieces much less reassembling poor Humpty. Let's stop lamenting our fate and see what we can build out of the wreckage. > > Moreover, the divestiture is generally more expensive for the consumer. >If you don't make a lot of long distance calls, you are probably paying more >for service now then you did when it was still the Bell System. Sure, now you >call call coast-to-coast for $7 per hour, but if you don't make many long >distance calls, you are paying more in terms of "access fees" for a service >you are not really using. Obviously, this reflects a more accurate appraisal >of what the the costs for local vs. long distance service are. Yet the costs >of this more "accurate appraisal" make it difficult to see if such a method for >measuring phone service is worth it. FCC terrorism is the only explanation for this. Look at their recent activities under Mr. Fowler. I believe he has, as his name implies, fowled the organization. > > Moreover, why break up the Bell System if all that was required was a >more sensitive pricing system? And if this means that I have to dial 0 for >a local operator and 00 for a LD operator, or if it means that to fix a trunk >my local co. has to argue with AT&T about it for 4 weeks, or if it means that >my local Crossbar is now takes 5 seconds to complete a call after I finish >dialing (Touch Tone) when it used to go through right away, and if it means >that I have deal with two companies (my BOC and AT&T) who don't like each other >anymore, and if it means that my local BOC has to spend money to DUPLICATE >Calling Card and operator equipment that is already in place under AT&T (which >I will ultimately pay for)...and....(whew!), then when it comes right down to >it, was divestiture worth it? No. But it's done (sigh). In 10 years, the dust will have settled and we'll be back on track. ISDN standards may be the hidden order in what is now a terrible mess. > > As far as I can see, the cost of divestiture is far greater, both in >economic terms and, more importantly to me as a customer, in terms of SERVICE >(remember that word?? :-;), than whatever small gains it has achieved. It is >for that reason that I said I would >like to have to Bell System put back together again.... As would I, but even if we could, it could never be the same. > > -(thanks to those who struggled through this long post....!) > > -Doug > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 May 87 23:52:47 ast From: jsm@BLEE.LCS.MIT.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Subject: need help with answering machine (AUTO 60) Hello, I have inherited a Record-A-Call Auto 60 answering machine, but have no owners manual. It is about 10 years old and works pretty well, but it has the annoying tendency to always answer the phone on the first ring. It also won't cut itself off if I pick up the phone. If anyone has suggestions as to how I can modify it or add some home-brew circuitry to make the thing answer on the fourth ring or so, or even has manuals or schematics for this beast, please let me know. Thanks in Advance, Scott jsm@blee.lcs.mit.edu jsm@tardis.harvard.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 11-May-87 19:21:51-EDT,14123;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 11-May-87 19:05:58 Date: 11 May 87 19:05-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #46 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, May 11, 1987 7:05PM Volume 6, Issue 46 Today's Topics: Submission for comp.dcom.telecom (Transmission Quality; Answer Detection) Submission for comp-dcom-telecom How can I get my noisy phone line fixed? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 May 87 17:10:46 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for comp.dcom.telecom (Transmission Quality; Answer Detection) I thought the following two articles might be of interest to those who do not read or archive the groups to which they were posted: >From postnews Sat May 9 00:15:58 1987 Subject: Re: Phone Line Quality Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems Summary: More on noise and other topics... References: <9728@decwrl.DEC.COM> In article <9728@decwrl.DEC.COM>, nourse@nac.dec.com (Andy Nourse) writes: > > ... the transmission loss on most interoffice trunks originating at End > > Offices (Class 5) trunks is carefully kept below 4.0 dB... > > Toll Center (Class 4) and up... below 2.6 dB > > a reasonably flat transmission characteristic between 300 and 3,000 Hz. > What are the specs for signal-to-noise ratio? If I want to call out of > the three-small-town local calling area, I have to dial 1 > which routes the call out to Leominster, 15 miles away. Voice communication channels usually have a minimum of 30 dB as a signal-to-noise ratio. This may be surprising, but data channels can usually get away with a _lower_ S/N ratio minimum, typically 15 dB. Other parameters, such as phase shift (envelope delay distortion) are far more critical on data circuits than S/N ratio. It sounds to me like your central office has some bad N-carrier circuits (analog FDM), even more likely of the N1-variety which still uses vacuum tubes. N1 carrier requires continual maintenance to keep its circuits "in tune", and it sounds like someone has been remiss in this area. There is still an amazing amount of vacuum tube FDM carrier in service today. > > ... Trunks which fail to pass these automatic tests are disabled > > until repair is effected. > That must be why I sometimes get a fast busy, or drop back to a dial tone, > when i dial 1 (this is before I get to dial any other digits). I suppose > it can thus disable ALL the trunks. That does, of course, also affect > 0 (for Operator) and all paths to Repair Service. I did not mean to imply that automatic trunk testing is in use everywhere, although it is extensively implemented by AT&T Communications and the BOC's. Losing a large number of trunks though intentional disabling by automatic trunk test apparatus would be an unusual event, and would be rare and quickly attended to. It sounds more like switching apparatus trouble or traffic overload. Switching apparatus trouble which limits access to less than the allocated number of trunks is an insidious problem which is not easily diagnosed until customer complaints reach a level where a repairperson is eventually dispatched the CO and to get to the bottom of the problem. Automatic trunk test apparatus does NOT test connectivity to the trunks by the switching apparatus. If you are plagued with all trunk busy signals, complain to repair service - otherwise, they may never know about the problem! > > So the point is: under virtually all circumstances, > > you should have little concern about the transmission quality of interoffice > > trunks, as compared to your own subscriber loop. > Are old, rural, step-by-step exchanges an exception to this? > The noise starts when I dial 1, so I don't think the subscriber loop > has anything to do with it. Well, unfortunately older SxS offices usually have older carrier of the FDM variety (see above). FDM carrier requires continual maintenance. Well-maintained carrier should not present a noise problem (even N1 carrier); it sounds like your CO may be the victim of reduced maintenance manpower (to save money, of course!). > > ...some of this standardization has gone to hell with the advent of > > Alternate Long Distance carrier... > Some local operating companies (including ours) are using that as an excuse to > let line quality deteriorate, even for calls within the LATA. That's true. The telephone companies are also getting killed by increasing labor costs, so they reduce preventative maintenance, resulting in - voila! - poor transmission in some areas. Reduced maintenance is more common with independent operating telephone companies; AT&T and the BOC's predicted rising labor costs some years ago, and therefore developed and installed an extensive variety of automatic trunk test apparatus. The independent operating telephone companies have much less automatic trunk test apparatus than the BOC's and AT&T. > > the comparatively small additional monthly and installation charge is well > > worth it to get a better subscriber loop. > I just checked with New England Telephone. They said there is no such option. > In 1980, when I had a Bell 212a modem installed (with an RJ41 jack), the > installer fiddled around with his test gear on the phone line for a couple of > hours, but I can detect no difference in quality from my other phone line. It > is billed as a standard business phone line. I believe that every BOC has some type of "conditioned" central office loop for use with dial-up data. The additional charge may not be a tariffed item, but is instead a non-tariffed charge, which is sometimes referred to as a "special assembly charge". It sounds like the person to whom you spoke had little technical knowledge or experience with data communications - which unfortunately is par for the course. :-( > What does the switch, and the collection of resistors and capacitors inside an > RJ41 jack do? The resistors provide an attenuation for the transmitted signal from the modem, such that the signal arrives at the central office between -8 and -9 dBm. ---------------------------------------- >From postnews Sun May 10 16:51:48 1987 Subject: Re: Telephone answer detection Newsgroups: sci.electronics Distribution: usa Summary: Not that simple... References: <813@bgsuvax.UUCP> <837@killer.UUCP> In article <837@killer.UUCP>, royf@killer.UUCP (Roy Frederick) writes: > Detection of answer and hangup depends on the type of CO you are connected > to. Well-designed telephone apparatus should NEVER be dependent upon the characteristics of one particular type of central office switching apparatus. Those characteristics of any central office switching apparatus which might permit the detection of answer supervision by DC current sensing are unreliable, and are subject to change without notice by the operating telephone company. In North America, it is possible to design telephone station apparatus which will reliably work in any central office. Answer supervision, however, cannot be reliably detected though DC sensing means over a subscriber loop. Answer supervision must be detected by inference using call-progress tone detection, possibly in conjunction with a voice-operated switch circuit. > In some older type offices the line polarity is reversed while > you are connected to the called party. It goes back to normal when the > called party hangs up. There are in fact numerous variations and exceptions to this observation: 1. Some SxS offices have provide a polarity reversal for answer supervision only on calls made within the _same_ central office; non-toll calls made to other central offices may exhibit no such polarity reversal upon answer. 2. Some SxS offices have their "connectors" wired NOT to provide polarity reversal on calls within the same central office. 3. Some SxS offices provide a polarity reversal immediately upon the seizure of an interoffice toll trunk - regardless of whether the called party answers. This may also include calls to the Operator, directory assistance, etc. One reason for such polarity reversal is to facilitate "toll diversion" or "toll denial" for business lines and PBX trunks. Such polarity reversal may be restricted to "linefinder" groups dedicated just to business lines, or it may apply to all lines in the SxS office. The variations are numerous. > In newer offices, the line voltage drops to zero > momentarily when the party answers and again when they hang up. My CO > was a step-by-step with a common-control and used the polarity reversal > scheme. It was recently replaced by an electronic (type ?) office - it > now drops the voltage to zero very briefly. This is a dangerous assumption. Electromechanical switching apparatus (#1 crossbar, #5 crossbar, etc.) will exhibit a momentary switching open (lasting << 100 ms) as the marker switches the line from an originating register to an intraoffice trunk, or to an interoffice trunk. This time period is _extremely_ variable, and depends upon both the office traffic load and certain relay adjustment characteristics which are NOT subject to standardization. In analog ESS offices (#1 ESS, #2 ESS, etc.) there is also a switching open (lasting << 100 ms) as the line is switched between dial register, ringback tone trunk, and intraoffice trunk; or between dial register and interoffice trunk. This time period is also _extremely_ variable, and depends upon both the traffic load of the office and the operate-release time variations of bistable magnetic latching relays. In digital ESS offices (#5E ESS, DMS100, etc.) there is generally NO DC line current open until a call disconnects. > Busy (and for that matter all other call progress) tone are usually > detected by duty cycle. However, specific tone frequencies are used > for each signal. Teltone makes a nice chip that detects the tone > by frequency - I can't seem to find the reference to it (which contains > the actual tones and duty cycles) - but I'll post them later. Not all central offices use CCITT standard tones; this is especially true of SxS, Stromberg-Carson XY, AE/Leich, etc. electromechanical offices which are not equipped provide touch-tone (DTMF) service. CCITT standard (or "precise") tones primarily came into being with the implementation of DTMF service. Detection of call-progress tones MUST be made upon detected pulse shape (i.e., duty cycle and repitition rate) of any tone energy in the frequency range of 305 to 640 Hz; this covers "all bases". The _specific_ CCITT frequencies are never detected. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ From: humu!uhccux!yuan%nosc.UUCP@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Yuan Chang) Date: 11 May 87 12:38:50 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: uhccux!yuan From: yuan@uhccux.UUCP (Yuan Chang) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Syquest Cartridge Harddisk Message-ID: <482@uhccux.UUCP> Date: 11 May 87 12:38:50 GMT Reply-To: yuan@uhccux.UUCP (Yuan Chang) Distribution: usa Organization: U. of Hawaii, Manoa (Honolulu) Lines: 11 I have a Syquest 5M removable cartidge drive which is more than 5 years old. It konked out quite a while ago, and I've been unable to find the address to Syquest. Anybody know if Syquest is still in business? If so, will they repair this anciet box? Also, if you could, the address of SyQuest. Thanks in advance... -- UUCP: {ihnp4,seismo,ucbvax,dcdwest}!sdcsvax!nosc!uhccux!yuan ARPA: uhccux!yuan@nosc.MIL INTERNET: yuan@UHCC.HAWAII.EDU AT&T: (808) 395-1732 "I'm an Amigoid, she's an Amigoid, they're Amigoids, - Yuan Chang - Wouldn't _y_o_u like to be an Amigoid too?" ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 1987 10:14:46-EDT (Monday) From: "Victor S. Miller" Subject: How can I get my noisy phone line fixed? I've had a separate phone installed in my home for about five years to access the computer at work via my IBM/PC. Ever since it was installed, I've had bad problems with line noise. Even trying to use the phone for regular voice is sometimes hard: I get periodic loud bursts of static (sometimes more than a burst: the static can go on continuously for a few minutes). Most days when I pick up the telephone I don't even get a dial tone (though it varies). I've called the telephone repair service so many times, I don't remember. The person taking the call has many times remarked about how bad the static is. Nevertheless, they have never been able to fix it. One of the problems is that things are often much worse when the weather is rainy or damp (or a few days after a rain), and get better during dry spells, and invariably, the repair person comes out on a nice sunny day, and says that he can't hear anything. It doesn't matter what phone (or modem) I connect to the line. I would think that the phone company would be tired of spending money on sending out repair people, and would try to really fix it. The other line in our house has been fine. One thing is that the bad line has a phone number on a new (at least it was new when it was installed) exchange. Could that have anything to do with it? Victor S. Miller victor@ibm.com -- internet victor@yktvmx -- bitnet ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 11-May-87 19:22:10-EDT,12702;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 11-May-87 19:06:57 Date: 11 May 87 19:06-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #47 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, May 11, 1987 7:06PM Volume 6, Issue 47 Today's Topics: Are the telephones in Australia better than ours? access fees, ld pricing comparisons Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Re: Telephone answer detection ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 May 1987 10:23:25-EDT (Monday) From: "Victor S. Miller" Subject: Are the telephones in Australia better than ours? There has been a lot of discussion here about continual problem with noise on phone lines. I've excerpted two points below which may be of interest. One of the things that I found interesting is the experience of the fellow in Australia. It seems to be much better than the experiences of anyone I've talked to in America. Is it a fluke, or do the Aussies know something that we don't. From Austin Texas: >I recently went through a painful experience getting my problems with >line errors remedied. I started having tons of transmission errors, both >to and from my PC. The phone company checked the line, and found 'no' >problems, and I have to admit that it did 'sound' good.. no static, hum >and so on. > >Through sheer luck, I got a repairman who had the curiosity to pursue >the problem with me. Eventually, we ended up at the central office, >where he ran a line out the back door (they wouldn't let me in the >building) from the patch panel on the ESS and we connected a PC >Convertible up, and tried communicating from the central office (the >line to the house was out of the loop). You couldn't get much closer to >the switching system than that! Line errors still existed. > >To make a long story short, they had upgraded the switch from an old >cross-bar system to a #5 ESS (the best they have), and the problem >turned out to be a multiplexor clocking problem between central offices. >When the trunk lines were properly re-tuned, the line quality is >absolutely super. I have been working on the fixed line for over a >month now, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the line errors I >have had. > >Unfortunately, the resolution of these kind of problems where the phone >company is involved, can be very frustrating. Another friend at work >ended up escalating his line problem to the Texas State Public Utility >Commission before getting his line fixed. From Sydney Australia >The amount of air-play on line errors surprises me - in fact it staggers >me, so I thought a few comments from "outside" might help. > >I use the infamous KERMIT as a terminal emulator, because (a) it's >public domain, (b) it's the "standard" at the customer installation, and >(c) it permits me to access VAX systems as well as VM. KERMIT is fairly >crude, with almost no error recovery, so if I get line errors, I see >them on the screen - it's strictly ASCII start-stop. > >When I access VM, it's through a S/1 running YALE, which does the 3277 >emulation for me (very reliably). Between me and the S/1 there's also a >front-end switch (MICOM) which almost certainly does nothing to improve >the reliability of the connection. The modem I use is a CONCORD - quite >basic and no fancy error recovery - at 1200 baud. > >In the couple of years I've been using this combination, I've probably >seen less that 5 line errors. > >Though I'm not far from the site in question, the phone lines aren't of >particularly high quality. > >I have transferred (single) files of up to 340KB - that is, almost a >diskette full) - without any real problems. KERMIT summarises >retries/errors as it does the file transfer, and I almost always have >ZERO retries on file transfers. > >This prompts me to wonder why I've had almost ZERO problems using all >very basic gear, and so many of you guys are having so many problems. Victor S. Miller (IBM Research) victor@ibm.com -- internet victor@yktvmx -- bitnet ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Mon, 11 May 87 11:33:04 PDT Subject: access fees, ld pricing comparisons MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 05/11/87 11:33:02 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: access fees, ld pricing comparisons To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Access Fees: Local subscribers are being charged "access fees", identified as fees to cover the cost of accessing long-distance services. This confuses the #$%&* out of me. Everything I hear tells me l.d. is cheap and in the past subsidized local service; now it isn't doing that so local services' prices must increase. Fine, so call the price rises "decline- of-subsidy fees" or "cost-recovery fees". Why "access fees"? If they really were that, they should be charged to all long-distance co's incl ATT, thereby charging the long-distance users for the privilege of using long-distance, not charging all users including exclusively local users for the privilege. In this time of much exchange of fairly frank information and publicity, and widespread knowlege of what is happening, what perversity led to this conspiracy to use obfuscating terms all over the country for this price increase in local services? For that matter, who GETS these "access fees"? LD Pricing Comparisons In the discussions so far, I haven't seen my favorite cost saving mentioned. I use SPRINT and appreciate the fact that my long-distance costs are the SAME for most calls I make when travelling, to the costs when I make them from my home phone. That is, my accounting does not charge any surcharge for not being at home, over what local SPRINT users are charged for the same calls. Two modulating factors: 1. I cannot always determine the local access no., and if I use the national 800 number I DO pay extra. 2. There is a national no. I can call for free to, among other things, ask what the local access no's are. However it is often busy a lot. (worse than that: it's a tone-tree: "are you a residential or business user, dial 1 or 2, are you calling about billing or service, dial 1 or 2.... after I do all this, I get a busy signal! Fewer trunks for the residential, service needer, of course...) 3. I am told that original SPRINT customers have been grandfathered-in with this particular rate saving. SPRINT merged with another LD co. some time ago, which didn't have this feature, and apparently newer customers don't get the same savings, paying something extra for away-from-home calls. 0-0 Sprint service For awhile here (San Francisco) the ATT user had operator service (by dialing 0-0) but my sprint service required my calling sprint customer service as a regular call. Used to be a special 6-digit no. after I dialed the sprint access no., then when I got direct dial sprint, I didn't know how to reach them; then for awhile I could dial either their local access no. or 10277 from my home phone, then use the special 6-digit no. (what an odd procedure, since my home phone was already routed to them for longdist svc.) Recently I discovered that I can now dial 0-0 to get a sprint operator. I'm not sure what they DO; I actually asked "what is that number a phone user can dial to see what service they are connected to? And this operator didn't know... but then again, since she was a sprint op, I had my answer. Thanks, Doug access fees, ld pricing comparisons ------------------------------ From: Henry Schaffer Date: 11 May 87 19:03:22 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ecsvax!hes From: hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Phone system basics Message-ID: <3134@ecsvax.UUCP> Date: 11 May 87 19:03:21 GMT References: <2882@yale-celed.yale.UUCP> Organization: NC State Univ. Lines: 26 Summary: "Understanding Telephone Electronics" - an inexpensive reference. In article <2882@yale-celed.yale.UUCP>, sweedler@yale.UUCP (Jonathan Sweedler) writes: > > Is there a good tutorial that explains the basics of the phone system. > ... A very nice simple reference is a a book, Understanding Telephone Electronics, "Developed and Published by Texas Instruments Learning Center". It is written as a tutorial, with quizzes at the end of each chapter. Chapter titles are: 1 The Telephone System 2 The Conventional Telephone Set 3 Electronic Speech Circuits 4 Electronic Dialing and Ringing Circuits 5 A Microcomputer in the Telephone 6 Digital Transmission Techniques 7 Electronics in the Central Office 8 Network Transmission 9 Modems - Telephone Service for Computers 10 Wireless Telephones It is easy to read, and inexpensive. I bought a copy at Radio Shack for $3.49 a few years ago, and I believe they still carry it. My copy is Copyright 1983, and I don't know if there is a more recent edition, but even the 1983 edition is reasonably current and the basics haven't changed. --henry schaffer n c state univ ------------------------------ From: akgua!mtgzz!**RJE**@RELAY.CS.NET Date: 11 May 87 18:35:15 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: mtgzz!mtuxo!mtsbb!lav From: lav@mtsbb.UUCP (L.A.VALLONE) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Service fee for Toll-Free Calls? Message-ID: <1615@mtsbb.UUCP> Date: 11 May 87 15:59:26 GMT References: Distribution: world Organization: AT&T-Information Systems, Middletown, NJ Lines: 18 > Last week I stayed at the Days Inn in Alexandria, VA while on TDY. I > was suprised to find that, plainly marked on the phone cradle, they > charged 30 cents for 800 numbers as well as for local calls. Can they > charge a "service fee" for toll-free calls? > > --Frank > > [The Sheraton Boston charges 60c for every 3 minutes on local calls, > 950 calls, calls to the operator (except toll calls), calls to 911, > and calls to 800 numbers. Apparently they can get away with it. --JSol] Does anyone know if 800 calls can be "charged" to an AT&T credit card, thus eliminating the service charge? -- Lee Vallone AT&T Information Systems Merlin {... ihnp4, mtuxo}!mtsbb!lav ------------------------------ From: hoptoad!gnu@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John Gilmore) Subject: Re: Telephone answer detection Date: 11 May 87 21:54:23 GMT In article <813@bgsuvax.UUCP>, drich@bgsuvax.UUCP (Daniel Rich) writes: > A friend of mine has asked me to work on a telephone project for her > business, and I have run into a little snag. They want a system that will > call telephone numbers and play a message to the person who answers. Note that devices that call people to play recorded messages to strangers are regulated in many places. These are the infamous "junk phone call" machines. Now, if you're building an alarm system that will call the cops when somebody breaks in, that is different. Even if they are not regulated in your area, I recommend that you design the system such that: * If the person called gets disgusted and hangs up, you hang up also. On many exchanges their phone line will be unusable until you do. * There should be a person on the line at all times, listening, and able to speak if desired. Machines are just not able to handle all the responses that humans can make. * The recording it plays should start off by identifying who is calling, so that the customers can call the phone company or your company to complain about it if desired. There's no sense in running such a system if all it does is alienate your potential or current customers. -- Copyright 1987 John Gilmore; you may redistribute only if your recipients may. (This is an effort to bend Stargate to work with Usenet, not against it.) {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4,ucbvax}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@ingres.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 12-May-87 23:35:59-EDT,6927;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 12-May-87 21:29:14 Date: 12 May 87 21:29-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #48 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, May 12, 1987 9:29PM Volume 6, Issue 48 Today's Topics: how to get a cleaner line maybe where has everyone gone and other stuff Inside home wiring... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Mon, 11 May 87 19:12:09 PDT Subject: how to get a cleaner line maybe MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 05/11/87 19:12:07 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: how to get a cleaner line maybe To: Telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu One strategy for getting a chance at a cleaner line would be to order an additional line; once installed, disconnect the poorer of the two. Of course this is expensive but it might be preferable to a lifetime of trying to get a bad line fixed. Thanks, Doug how to get a cleaner line maybe ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 May 87 08:46:15 pdt From: ssc-vax!clark@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Roger Clark Swann) Subject: where has everyone gone and other stuff *** line eater biscuit *** Where has everyone gone??? I have not gotten any news from this group in over three weeks !!! Is someone broke down or has everyone left town? Oh, I get it. Everyone has stopped telecommunicating. :-) There has been some talk in this group lately about the need for adding more digits to the public phone numbers because we will soon run out of unused numbers. So, I was thinking about how the phone system is handled here at the big 'B' and came up with some questions and comments: Background; Most all the phones in the company are on pbx or centrex, with more going to pbx everyday. Like many large companies there are plants and offices that are spread over the entire area, using up many thousands of phone numbers in many different public exchanges. ( apporx. 40,000 different numbers ) The plants with pbx equipment are linked through leased lines to all the other plants serviced with similar equipment, making a 'private' phone network that operates in parallel with the public network. ( This 'private' network uses 'public' numbers. i.e anyone on the public network can call directly to my desk from the public network using a regular seven digit number. ) So, one of my questions is, " How many other companies have there phone networks setup in a similar way? If the answer is 'lots', then it would seem that there's a good case to make these 'semi-private' networks truely private and in the process, free up a lot of numbers in the public network. So how would people on the public network call people on a private network? Well, one way that comes to mind is to run the private network like many small and medium companies run there phone systems; ( many small firms with a pbx, a single number on the public network is called that gets an operator at the company and then tells the operator to whom they wish to speak.) This could work the same way a large company as follows: There would be a few access numbers (seven digit) allocated in the public network to get onto the private network. From there, a special dial tone or recorded message could instruct the caller to enter additional digits that would then ring through to the person they with to talk to. The big hole I see in this sort of thing is that it would work great for me calling on my tone phone connected to an ECO. However, there may be serious problems if someone were to call from say New York state where the COE might be some old cross-bar type thing and the instrument a rotory dial type. And even if such a system could be set in place, would the savings in numbers on the public network be enough? Or would all the available numbers still be used up soon anyway? Some of you in the know might comment further on this... Roger Swann UUCP: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!clark As usual, I disavow any knowledge of my actions. ------------------------------ From: sun!sunncal!scampi!ramin@decwrl.DEC.COM (Fubar Void) Subject: Inside home wiring... Date: 8 May 87 22:40:26 GMT I have to rewire the house I'm moving into in order to install a separate phone line. There are already two other phones in there and phone jacks in every bedroom. I just have to wire one of the bedrooms with a separate line. Question is, are there books or documents associated with such things as wiring requirements or guidelines in order to satisfy the local connectivity issues? Or should one just give up and pay the local Bell-CO to do it at $150+ a pop... thanks much... r... -- {ihnp4,lll-lcc,hoptoad}!scampi!ramin systems control inc. (415) 494-1165 x-1777 1801 page mill road palo alto, ca 94304 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 May 87 15:59:35 EDT From: dave%lsuc%math%math.waterloo.edu@RELAY.CS.NET To: Path: lsuc!dave From: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Advantage of Bell breakup Summary: how is billing by non-BOC enforced? Message-ID: <1787@lsuc.UUCP> Date: 11 May 87 17:26:11 GMT References: <870505171731.048@Phobos.Caltech.Edu> <250@gauss.RUTGERS.EDU> Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Distribution: world Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto Lines: 18 In article <250@gauss.RUTGERS.EDU> msmith@GAUSS.RUTGERS.EDU (Mark Smith) writes: >> One little advantage I note to the divestiture (and all that) is that >> now I can prefix long distance calls with "10777" and I never get billed... >> >Well, actually, a friend of mine did this, and he got the bill for the >calls about 7 months later, but he did get it. Beware! I'm curious about the logistics of enforcement here. The traditional TPC remedy for non-payment of a phone bill is cutting off service. What does Sprint or any other service do to facilitate enforcement? Request up-front deposits from new customers? Can anyone send a call through a random long-distance company in the U.S., or do they have to sign up first? David Sherman dave@lsuc.uucp Toronto (where all phone service is still handled by Bell Canada) -- { seismo!mnetor cbosgd!utgpu watmath decvax!utcsri ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 13-May-87 22:06:14-EDT,10208;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 13-May-87 21:58:22 Date: 13 May 87 21:58-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #49 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, May 13, 1987 9:58PM Volume 6, Issue 49 Today's Topics: Phone Line Noise Submission for comp.dcom.telecom (Hotel telephone usage surcharges) Submission for comp.dcom.telecom (Noisy Telephone Lines) Re: "access charges" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue 12 May 87 21:50:39-EDT From: Doug Reuben Subject: Phone Line Noise Victor- I had essentially the same problem with line noise. We found out that what was causing it was a "junction box" which leaked. Thus, when it rained, and a little bit after it rained, water would leak into the box, cover the two wires to our line, and cause static. After a day or so, it dried up, and the line worked fine. Not only will this cause static and prevent you from getting a dial tone, but it may also make your line busy for incoming callers. (Although if your line is just for the IBM I doubt that its much of a problem). I realized what was going on, and since the junction box is two houses down, took the repairman there and told him to fix it. He didn't believe me, so I took out a garden hose, and to his dismay, sprayed the whole thing. I then picked up my line, and sure enough, there was static. Needless enough, after that demonstration, the problem was fixed for good. I don;t know if this is the same problem you are experiencing, but it sounds very similar... Good luck in any event! -Doug Reuben@WESLYN.BITNET REUBEN%WESLYN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ...seismo!weslyn.bitnet!reuben (UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 May 87 23:28:10 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for comp.dcom.telecom (Hotel telephone usage surcharges) In a recent article lav@mtsbb.UUCP (L.A.VALLONE) writes: > > Last week I stayed at the Days Inn in Alexandria, VA while on TDY. I > > was surprised to find that, plainly marked on the phone cradle, they > > charged 30 cents for 800 numbers as well as for local calls. Can they > > charge a "service fee" for toll-free calls? > > > > [The Sheraton Boston charges 60c for every 3 minutes on local calls, > > 950 calls, calls to the operator (except toll calls), calls to 911, > > and calls to 800 numbers. Apparently they can get away with it. --JSol] The "service fees" mentioned above are collected by the hotel from which the calls are made. These are usage charges for the telephone in the guest room, and have no bearing upon the actual cost of making the call. Since these charges constitute a "resale" of local telephone service, most if not all states through their respective Public Utilities Commissions regulate the maximum amount that a hotel can charge for guest telephone usage. Bear in mind that these hotel surcharges are not as outrageous as they may seem - for local calls, at least. In New York State, the measured business message rate for daytime calls through New York Telephone is around $ 0.10 per minute. In my opinion, charging for operator, 950 and 800 calls at the same rate as local station calls is unfair since it really costs the hotel NO money. However, the problem in many cases is that the PBX used by the hotel does not have the SMDR intelligence to differentiate between a free call, and a chargeable local station call. So, if in doubt, the hotel charges for ALL calls... > Does anyone know if 800 calls can be "charged" to an AT&T credit > card, thus eliminating the service charge? Since the "charges" for these toll-free calls are surcharges imposed by the hotel, AT&T has nothing to do with the matter. It is unlikely that AT&T will collect money for a hotel under these circumstances. I agree that say, $ 0.20 per minute is a ripoff for what should be a toll-free call, but the hotel seems to hold the cards in the matter as long as state Public Utilities Commissions permit such surcharges. Even if enough people complained to PUC's to reduced the surcharges permitted to hotels, the hotels would probably just turn around and compensate by raising their basic room rates. It's probably a no-win situation... <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 May 87 23:25:34 EDT From: kitty!larry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Submission for comp.dcom.telecom (Noisy Telephone Lines) In a recent article VICTOR@YKTVMX ("Victor S. Miller") writes: > I've had a separate phone installed in my home for about five years to access > the computer at work via my IBM/PC. Ever since it was installed, I've had > bad problems with line noise. Even trying to use the phone for regular > voice is sometimes hard: I get periodic loud bursts of static (sometimes > more than a burst: the static can go on continuously for a few minutes). > Most days when I pick up the telephone I don't even get a dial tone (though > it varies). I've called the telephone repair service so many times, I don't > remember. The person taking the call has many times remarked about how bad > the static is. Nevertheless, they have never been able to fix it. One of > the problems is that things are often much worse when the weather is rainy > or damp (or a few days after a rain), and get better during dry spells, and > invariably, the repair person comes out on a nice sunny day, and says that > he can't hear anything. It doesn't matter what phone (or modem) I connect > to the line. I would think that the phone company would be tired of spending > money on sending out repair people, and would try to really fix it. The > other line in our house has been fine. One thing is that the bad line > has a phone number on a new (at least it was new when it was installed) > exchange. Could that have anything to do with it? It sounds like you have an intermittent problem with a wet cable splice or water getting into an outdoor junction box. Water can cause some really insidious cable problems which are usually difficult to locate. The problem can totally disappear during dry weather. I can believe that a telephone company repairperson can find no sign of trouble when finally being dispatched to your premises. The fact that your other telephone line is okay suggests to me that it leaves the central office in a different cable, before eventually being cross-connected to the same cable which feeds your block. The only way that the telephone company can deal with this problem is to catch it WHILE IT IS HAPPENING, and isolate the different cable sections between the central office and your house in an effort to localize the problem using leakage resistance measurements taken in each cable section. This could take a couple hours of effort, and requires two people: the person in the field and a craftsperson at a central office test position. It is often not easy to motivate the telephone company to expend the effort to solve this type of problem. Unfortunately, your best hope is that the wet splice will fail catastrophically - affecting many other subscribers, and therefore imposing some priority upon the matter. Here are my suggestions for dealing with this problem: 1. To whatever extent is possible or reasonable, inspect the telephone wiring at the point where it enters your house. Some older homes have outdoor protector boxes; if so, could this be filling with water when it rains? Try to spot the pole-mounted terminal box or cable-mounted "boot" where the drop wire to your house originates; are there open covers which could admit water when it rains? [I don't recommend climbing your utility pole for a closer look! :-)] If you see any of these conditions, take no action yourself, but DO inform a telephone company repairperson upon their next visit to your premises. I make these statements because, unfortunately, some telephone company personnel are lazy, and you have to "hold their hand" a bit if you want expedient service. 2. When the noise problem happens again, call repair service and tell them you want a repairperson dispatched NOW! Tell them this has been a chronic problem that has remained unsolved, and the only way to repair it is to find the trouble while it is happening. If you can't get satisfaction, demand to speak with a supervisor - that should get results. 3. If the problem goes away, and the telephone company claims to have fixed it, demand some details to satisfy yourself that the problem was in fact localized, and that a repair was in fact made. Unfortunately, lazy telephone company repairpersons sometimes report these problems repaired when it fact the problem spontaneously cleared without any actual repair effort. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 May 87 12:44:19 edt From: ms6b#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) Subject: Re: "access charges" The FCC has taken to calling "access charges" subscriber line charges to reflect the fact that they cover part of the cost of the line from your house to the telco CO. They do NOT cover costs for access to a long distance carrier. The phrase "access charge" is indeed confusing. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 13-May-87 22:06:54-EDT,8737;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 13-May-87 21:59:18 Date: 13 May 87 21:59-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #50 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, May 13, 1987 9:59PM Volume 6, Issue 50 Today's Topics: Re: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Submission for comp-dcom-telecom 10777+ billing inside wiring ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hao!nbires!onecom!sjk@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Scott J. Kamin) Subject: Re: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Date: 13 May 87 14:26:25 GMT Reply-To: gatech!tektronix!zeus!sjk (Scott J. Kamin) > Last week I stayed at the Days Inn in Alexandria, VA while on TDY. I > was suprised to find that, plainly marked on the phone cradle, they > charged 30 cents for 800 numbers as well as for local calls. Can they > charge a "service fee" for toll-free calls? > > --Frank > > [The Sheraton Boston charges 60c for every 3 minutes on local calls, > 950 calls, calls to the operator (except toll calls), calls to 911, > and calls to 800 numbers. Apparently they can get away with it. --JSol] >> Does anyone know if 800 calls can be "charged" to an AT&T credit >> card, thus eliminating the service charge? The charge is levied by the hotel as an attempt to recover the costs involved with supplying a sufficient number of trunks to service all the guests. It is not dependent on where the call goes or how it is paid for. An attempt to charge 800 calls will be met with the (true) statement that 800 calls are TOLL free. That is, the phone company does not charge the owner of the phone for the call. Most hotels these days have gone away from the AT&T provided billing (remember the old teletypes that hotels had in their offices to receive their billing info). These days with smart PBX's and add-on call-costing systems, most hotels route all direct-dial calls through their own networks or non-AT&T circuits and charge whatever the traffic will bear to their customers. This includes the charges for non-toll calls. All you can do is complain, threaten to stay elsewhere, or use the pay phone in the lobby. -- Scott J. Kamin {stcvax, isis, ihnp4}!onecom!sjk TelWatch Inc. (formerly OneCom, Inc.) 2905 Wilderness Place (303) 440-4756 (switchboard) Boulder, CO 80301 (303) 938-6726 (direct) ------------------------------ From: ut-sally!im4u!watson@seismo.CSS.GOV (William J. Watson) Date: 13 May 87 17:34:31 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: im4u!watson From: watson@im4u.UUCP (William J. Watson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Private PBX numbering, was Re: where has everyone gone and other stuff Summary: Exists today on many PBXs Keywords: PBX phone numbers Message-ID: <1827@im4u.UUCP> Date: 13 May 87 17:34:29 GMT References: <8705121546.AA13873@ssc-vax> Reply-To: watson@im4u.UUCP (William J. Watson) Distribution: us Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 32 In many PBX systems, only some extensions have numbers directly accessible from the public phone network. Sometimes this is done to create "internal use only" extensions, and sometimes due to the expense of buying a block of numbers from the local phone company. Usually, numbers are sold in blocks of 1000, but in some congested ares (Downtown Houston, for example) they are sold in blocks of 100. In either case, some PBX systems have the option of a direct number for "internal" access from outside. In ROLM CBXs, this is called Direct Inward System Access (DISA). When you dial the DISA number from somewhere in the outside world, you get a tone of some sort, at which point you can either simply dial the number of the extension you want, or dial a special autorization code that allows you to do anything you could from your office. This can be useful for making business long distance calls from home. This setup would clearly only work for people with tone dial phones. I think that the possibility of rotary dial phones is ignored. In any case, the numbers for all of the internal extensions are not used up and, in some cases, a sophisticated network of internal extensions of internal use only numbers can be set up, possibly spanning several sites. William J. Watson Member Technical Staff ROLM, an IBM (cough, gag) company All opinions expressed herein are my own. My employer may not even know of them -- William J. Watson UUCP: {gatech, harvard, ihnp4, pyramid, seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!watson ARPA Internet & CSNET: watson@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 May 87 11:41:22 PDT From: mse%Phobos.Caltech.Edu@DEImos.Caltech.Edu (Martin Ewing) Subject: 10777+ billing David Sherman's query: >>> One little advantage I note to the divestiture (and all that) is that >>> now I can prefix long distance calls with "10777" and I never get billed... >>> >>Well, actually, a friend of mine did this, and he got the bill for the >>calls about 7 months later, but he did get it. Beware! > >I'm curious about the logistics of enforcement here... Yeah, that was part of my original concern. I used 10777+ at my previous residence and moved in February, changing my number. Now, are the SPRINT enforcers going to track me down for their lousy few bucks? We'll see. At current interest rates, a 7 month delay in billing is like 4-5% off your bill. Why don't they promote this in their ads? :-) Martin Ewing ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu Date: Wed, 13 May 87 13:52:34 PDT Subject: inside wiring MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 05/13/87 13:52:32 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: inside wiring To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Regarding the inquiry on how to home-wire: If you have standard single-party home lines, and standard single-line home phones, the wiring itself is pure simplicity: two wires from the telco feed in parallel to each outlet. Buy outlets and wires in local grocery store. Buy a polarity red-green light from radio shack and reverse the two wires if you get a red light. Don't do it at all if it involves: two or more party lines; pay phones; public use; weird equipment; homemade things plugged into power lines or other appliances (unless those things are themselves unmodified and FCC registered). Get into more work if you want multiple lines, fancy equipment, intercom, whatever. Make sure you can disconnect your house from telco, leaving a single standard modular outlet with proper polarity, if you think the telco service is broke. I do this with two modular wall outlets and a short modular jumper. Books are available in radio shacks and electronics stores, probably bookstores too. They just tell how; it seems you can ignore a lot of spooky and unelucidated threats regarding tariffs and whatever if you avoid the restrictions listed above. The REAL problem is not the circuitry or tariffs, its the utmost magic ingenuity required to run the little wires from point x to y in your house. Depending on the situation this runs from easy and obvious, to imaginative, to very ugly. Most classic telco installers had the tools and knowledge to do this pretty easily. Nowadays you can use "electricians" but they until now are used to running ROMEX fat wires; even harder; but they may not yet be used to the tricks possible with skinny wires. They have a tendency to want to remove wallboards (you plaster and repaint afterward.) Compare costs for each if possible. If you are doing new construction, major remodelling, or a big job, consider running: at least 3 pairs, maybe 6 or 12 pair cable; and maybe standard tv coax. Use the coax for cable tv, remote vcr hookups, and one leg of the future. Use the other pairs for additional telco lines, home security, intercoms, stereo audio, and the other leg of the future. Madmen would suggest you also run a fiber optic cable. First of all they're madmen; second of all the TYPE of fiber will change before you'd ever use it. Thanks, Doug * inside wiring ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 14-May-87 18:57:09-EDT,5106;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 14-May-87 17:39:37 Date: 14 May 87 17:39-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #51 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, May 14, 1987 5:39PM Volume 6, Issue 51 Today's Topics: Phone card scam Re: 10777+ billing Data Corruption in PDNs US Sprint restricts some Int'l Long Distance Service? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 May 87 10:40 EDT From: "Steven H. Gutfreund" Subject: Phone card scam Yesterday's New York Times (12-May) did an article on phone card scams. Seems there are people offering trans-country ($2) and workd($4) unlimited phone calls. They dial the number (with a credit card number stolen by a hacker and transmitted via network) for the person and they get to talk. It seems the densitiy of credit codes is high enough so that about anyone with persistance cand find them. Does anyone have some reasonable technical suggetions about what could be done (I realize that a lot of ideas are shot down by the Long Distance Carries because of marketing and simplicity reasons) - Steven Gutfreund ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 May 87 12:11:38 PDT From: drach@Sun.COM (Steve Drach) Subject: Re: 10777+ billing Reply-To: drach@sun.UUCP (Steve Drach) 10222 (MCI) catches you faster. It was included in my next Pac bell bill. I've never (so far) been charged for 10777. ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 1987 13:28-PDT Subject: Data Corruption in PDNs From: BHUBER@ECLA.USC.EDU Has anyone had experience with or knowledge of data corruption within a public data network (PDN) using the X.25 protocol? I am specifically talking about internal corruption as opposed to noise on the local loop. I am faced with an interesting situation wherein synchronous X.25 data into a network <> synchronous X.25 data out of network, and the network is not a developmental tool or beta test, etc. Or is it just our luck that we have the first such recorded instance? Thanks, Bud Huber ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 May 87 17:10:14 EDT From: henry@GARP.MIT.EDU (Henry Mensch) Subject: US Sprint restricts some Int'l Long Distance Service? I got my US Sprint bill yesterday, which included their newsletter-type blurb. The newsletter describes how to use their International Long-Distance service and provides a chart at the bottom of the page which lists some countries and their access codes. The newsletter states that certain countries are only accessible by dial-1 service and (specifically!) not accessible by travel-code or access-code service. They explain that this is necessary to prevent unauthorized usage of their network to those countries. This is all fine and good, but why just certain countries? # # Henry Mensch / / E40-358C MIT, Cambridge, MA # {ames,cca,rochester,mit-eddie}!garp!henry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 May 87 12:24:54 edt From: Pat Sullivan The phone line noise & outage problem you were talking about was near and dear to me. In 1985, when we moved into our current apartment, we were experiencing absence of dial tone and busy-out of incoming calls for hours at a stretch. My wife was pregnant with our daughter at the time, and it was more than an inconvenience. The way we finally got C&P's attention was that we made two separate calls on the same day (not planned that way, as it happens). My wife basically said that she was 8 1/2 months pregnant and we needed a working phone. I said the same thing, but also threatened to sue them and to get the story on the local film-at-11. (We had contacted them 7 times up to that point and had gotten jerked around.) Oh, and they weren't amused when I suggested partial payment on my fone bill, since we were getting partial (and undependable) phone service. Wanted it in full on time, thank you. There was a good comment about "motivating" the telco to check these problems out. It turned out they had all kinds of problems, beginning with a leaky cable trench crossing the street to junction boxes (wrong term but I can't think of the right one) with the doors hanging open and the insides exposed to the weather. Anyway, most of the problem went away after this, though not entirely. Moral: We tried the nice polite we-don't-want-to-make-trouble approach 7 times and got ignored. Only thing that worked for us was threatening court action and publicity. I genuinely hate to do business that way but i think many companies (not just the telco) must have a policy of ignoring people until they really raise a fuss. Best, Pat Sullivan ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 16-May-87 00:06:48-EDT,15778;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sat 16 May 87 00:06:45-EDT Date: 15 May 87 22:56-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #52 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, May 15, 1987 10:56PM Volume 6, Issue 52 Today's Topics: re: Hotel surcharges phone wiring for a modem TELECOM Digest V6 #51 Re: 10777+ billing Re: how to get a cleaner line maybe Fraud on Washington State phones Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Regular phone chirp Cellular Phone Companies are protecting themselves... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14-May-1987 0942 From: goldstein%delni.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Subject: re: Hotel surcharges I'd like to clarify Larry Lipman's comment on hotel phone gouging.\ IF the call is INTRAstate, then it's governed by the DPU. That applies to local calls and in-state non-local calls. (DPU=PUC=etc.) IF the call is INTERstate, then it's governed by the FCC. That includes MOST 800 numbers. As it were, the FCC believes in a "free marketplace", or "let them gouge, it's the only phone in your room". (I usually find pay phones in the lobby for some calls.) And New York Tel's rate isn't 10c/minute; while I don't have the exact tariff in front of me (it's in fractional cents), it comes to under a dime for the first 5 minutes and under 3 cents for additional minutes. They just revised it too, so ALL calls within the 5 boroughs are "zone 1", and calls to Long Island and the rest of the LATA are cheaper to boot! NY State made NYT go through exacting, excruciating cost studies to come up with local rates, back when Alfred Kahn was running the show. They are as close to "cost" (for most things, not all) as any telco. fred ------------------------------ From: soma!rice.EDU!dbj@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Dave Johnson) Subject: phone wiring for a modem Date: 14 May 87 20:55:28 GMT I need to wire a new phone line through a house for use with a modem. Is there some kind of sheilded phone cable that I could use to help reduce any noise in the connection? Anything else I should be aware of when routing the wire such as not getting too close to electrical wires? Thanks. Dave Johnson Dept. of Computer Science Rice University UUCP: {soma,shell,cbosgd,convex,sun,texsun}!rice!dbj ARPA: dbj@rice.EDU, dbj@rice.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 May 87 21:13:23 EDT From: Simson L. Garfinkel Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #51 Date: Wed, 13 May 87 10:40 EDT From: "Steven H. Gutfreund" Subject: Phone card scam Does anyone have some reasonable technical suggetions about what could be done (I realize that a lot of ideas are shot down by the Long Distance Carries because of marketing and simplicity reasons) - Steven Gutfreund Sure. Hundred digit credit card numbers. Ok, twenty digits ought to be enough. Especially with the spiffy AT&T phones that automatically punch in your AT&T credit card number for you, there really isn't any reason (beyond convience for people at manual phones) not to use big numbers. At each central office, keep a list of every authorized credit card number. (How hard would that be? Figure 100,000,000 valid credit card numbers, 20 digits (10 bytes) each. With only BCD compression, this is only 1GB of storage, which could easily be distributed on a weekly basis. (Or looked up directly via some sort of packet switched network.) You could veryify a number in less than a second.) ------------------------------ From: genrad!panda!rob.UUCP@seismo.css.gov (Robert S. Wood) Subject: Re: 10777+ billing Date: 15 May 87 03:05:20 GMT Reply-To: rob@panda.UUCP (Robert S. Wood) Where does one find out what numbers work? I tried 10222 1 xxx xxx xxxx and it went thru. How does MCI know my address to send a bill? Will it be on my NETCO bill added on after the ATT section (ATT is my dial-1 carrier)? ------------------------------ From: Peter Kendell Subject: Re: how to get a cleaner line maybe Date: 15 May 87 09:08:44 GMT Reply-To: Peter Kendell In article <8705120212.AA03325@jade.berkeley.edu} SPGDCM@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU writes: } Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 } Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 } Subject: how to get a cleaner line maybe } } To: Telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu } } One strategy for getting a chance at a cleaner line would be to order an } additional line; once installed, disconnect the poorer of the two. Of course } this is expensive but it might be preferable to a lifetime of trying to } get a bad line fixed. } This is absolutely insane!!! Are you seriously suggesting that one should *reward* the telephone company for providing a rotten service by paying them for another line? And what if the new line is worse than the old one??? I hope you have a good investment adviser! I think I missed the :-) -- Peter Kendell 'Have you no idea of development, of progress?' 'I have seen both in an egg. We call it Going Bad in Narnia.' ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 1987 09:58-PDT From: Sam Ho Subject: Fraud on Washington State phones The Seattle Times had a story 14-May about fraud on the Washington State telephone system SCAN (State Controlled Area Network). Losses were estimated at up to $300,000. The scheme involved getting the system's local access number from an employee, and then finding the 6-digit identification codes by trial and error. Most of the calls ended up on the account of a Washington State University employee who received a 56-page SCAN bill. State officials are now tracking down the people who made the calls, and collecting settlements ranging from $0.70 to $180. Uncooperative people could also be prosecuted. ------------------------------ From: caf%omen%reed%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET Date: Fri May 15 10:53:55 1987 Date: 15 May 87 17:53:53 GMT To: reed!tektronix!comp-dcom-telecom Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Responding-System: omen.UUCP Path: omen!caf From: caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Data Corruption in PDNs Message-ID: <544@omen.UUCP> Date: 15 May 87 17:53:53 GMT References: <[ECLA.USC.EDU]14-May-87.13:28:32.BHUBER> Reply-To: caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) Distribution: world Organization: Omen Technology Inc, Portland Oregon Lines: 17 This sort of data corruption has happened in at least one major network that I know of, and there must be zillions of unreported gotcha's. "Error free Network" is an oxymoron. One really needs and end to end protocol such as ZMODEM with 32 bit CRC's to protect your data. Then you have to pray the memory boards on your CPUs are properly seated in the backplane ... Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX Author of Pro-YAM communications Tools for PCDOS and Unix ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf Omen Technology Inc "The High Reliability Software" 17505-V Northwest Sauvie Island Road Portland OR 97231 Voice: 503-621-3406 TeleGodzilla BBS: 621-3746 2400/1200 CIS:70007,2304 Genie:CAF Source:TCE022 omen Any ACU 1200 1-503-621-3746 se:--se: link ord: Giznoid in:--in: uucp omen!/usr/spool/uucppublic/FILES lists all uucp-able files, updated hourly ------------------------------ From: ut-sally!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV (Unix-to-Unix Copy) Date: 16 May 87 00:06:11 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!nrc-ut!nrcvax!ihm From: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian H. Merritt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: TCS 1001 chip: Who makes it? Summary: Who makes it? Keywords: TCS1001 IC Message-ID: <910@nrcvax.UUCP> Date: 12 May 87 21:08:46 GMT Reply-To: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian Merritt) Organization: The Frobboz Magic Integrated Circuit Finders, Inc. Lines: 12 I am posting this on behalf of a friend without net access. Said friend asked if I had ever heard of the aforementioned TCS 1001 chip. It is apparently a keypad scanner used in alarm systems. Has anybody out there heard of this chip, and if so know who makes it and where they are located? Thank you in advance. <>IHM<> Ps: Please respond by mail; no sense cluttering the news with this one. ------------------------------ From: ut-sally!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV (Unix-to-Unix Copy) Date: 16 May 87 00:06:25 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!nrc-ut!nrcvax!ihm From: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian H. Merritt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: where has everyone gone and other stuff Message-ID: <914@nrcvax.UUCP> Date: 14 May 87 19:13:54 GMT References: <8705121546.AA13873@ssc-vax> Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt) Distribution: world Organization: The Frobboz Magic Telecommunications Equipment Co., Inc. Lines: 85 > > >*** line eater biscuit *** A rubber biscuit? > >There has been some talk in this group lately about the need for >adding more digits to the public phone numbers because we will soon >run out of unused numbers. So, I was thinking about how the phone >system is handled here at the big 'B' and came up with some >questions and comments: > >Background; Most all the phones in the company are on pbx or > centrex, with more going to pbx everyday. > . . . >So, one of my questions is, " How many other companies have there >phone networks setup in a similar way? If the answer is 'lots', then >it would seem that there's a good case to make these 'semi-private' >networks truely private and in the process, free up a lot of numbers >in the public network. The answer is 'Lots'. > >So how would people on the public network call people on a private >network? Well, one way that comes to mind is to run the private >network like many small and medium companies run there phone systems; >( many small firms with a pbx, a single number on the public network >is called that gets an operator at the company and then tells the >operator to whom they wish to speak.) >This could work the same way a large company as follows: >There would be a few access numbers (seven digit) allocated in the >public network to get onto the private network. From there, a >special dial tone or recorded message could instruct the caller to >enter additional digits that would then ring through to the person >they with to talk to. The big hole I see in this sort of thing is >that it would work great for me calling on my tone phone connected >to an ECO. However, there may be serious problems if someone were to >call from say New York state where the COE might be some old >cross-bar type thing and the instrument a rotory dial type. Such systems are already in use. If you are interested in seeing one, call 818-701-3000. What is called an 'automated attendent system' is in use there at Valley Cable TV. I think they are running a ROLM system. The solution to the problem you mentioned is that the system connects an operator if it doesn't hear any digits with some time after completing its message. You can Touch-tone over any part of the message if you already know the answer and don't want to wait for the rest. Rotary customers are going away anyway; pretty soon the [dis]service will likely no longer be offered. The only problem with this vs. centrex or DID (Direct Inward Dialing) is that answer supervision is returned on initial connect, before you ring your target party. With the latter two systems, you don't pay unless somebody answers the target extension. > >And even if such a system could be set in place, would the savings >in numbers on the public network be enough? Or would all the >available numbers still be used up soon anyway? This would delay the issue by a substantial amount of time. It would be (is) worthwhile, and it is underway. I don't think, however, that it will ever be a total replacement for Centrex and DID, and as such it will not have quite as profound an effect on the availability of numbers. There is quite a bit of number-space left in an as-yet untapped, but planned scheme of using area-codes of the NNX form, i.e. no longer restricting them to N0X/N1X format as they have traditionally been. This was planned even before they started using N0X/N1X for local prefixes, first in LA, then NY and Chicago. > >Some of you in the know might comment further on this... And so I have... Cheerz-- --i ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 May 87 08:37:14 edt From: roger@sleepy.cs.cornell.edu (Roger Hoover) Subject: Regular phone chirp A friend of mine has a cheapo phone that chirps every night at 11:55pm. A call to New York Telephone about this got a response claiming that NYT did no regular testing that would cause this. A telephone on the same line with a mechanical ringer does not make any noise. 1) What is causing this noise? 2) Is their an easy way to stop it? roger@cornell.uucp roger@crnlcs.bitnet roger@svax.cs.cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri 15 May 87 22:56:10-EDT From: Jon Solomon Subject: Cellular Phone Companies are protecting themselves... I recently cancelled my Cellular Phone service with Cellular One in Boston, and they graciously turned off my service. Then I was involved in an accident, and used my NYNEX Roam port to call the police. It was a 1 minute call and wouldn't have cost me except airtime... I made 2 more calls, via credit card, and they all went through fine. SO, I called NYNEX and asked them if I make a call using a credit card does the airtime also get added, and the answer is no. Airtime is charged to the originating service, which in my case was nobody. Next time I tried to use the roam port it beeped at me. So much for abuse of the network. :-) Seriously, I think it should be possible for an unregistered cellular phone to make calling card calls and the charge should include the airtime cost for the call, thus someone in an emergency can use his/her phone to make emergency calls. This is clearly a situation where one hand refuses to talk to the other. Are Cellular Phone companies regulated? Does the PUC in each state have a say in the charging mechanisms? In this day of deregulation, probably not. By the same token, Hotel's should not charge the room bill for calling card calls either. If I am on a business trip and make a personal call I do NOT want that call to appear on my hotel bill (which I am getting reimbursed for, typically). I expect there to be alot more of this type of charging. It costs $.20 to make a local call in NJ if you use a NJB pay phone, but if you use one of the customer owned pay phones you could pay up to $1.00! What a ripoff. --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 16-May-87 17:33:03-EDT,7787;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sat 16 May 87 17:33:01-EDT Date: 16 May 87 16:39-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #53 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, May 16, 1987 4:39PM Volume 6, Issue 53 Today's Topics: The C.O. freezes services for short time 3-tone no connection question Re: Regular phone chirp Cellular Phones Submission for comp-dcom-telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hplabs!well!tenney@seismo.CSS.GOV (Glenn S. Tenney) Subject: The C.O. freezes services for short time Date: 16 May 87 07:27:22 GMT Reply-To: well!tenney@seismo.CSS.GOV (Glenn S. Tenney) Over the past year or so I've found many times that cancel call waiting (and other special services) were disabled (by getting a fast busy when trying *70). Every time I'd call 611 and be told "it'd be fixed by 5pm". After a few times I pushed and found out that they were updating the software. Their procedure froze the state of these special services and then a few hours later they'd be unfrozen. Although this usually happens at late night, it just happened in the middle of the day, but they were frozen for only 1/2 hour fixing something for a "major customer". Imagine what this means to someone, perhaps a doctor... You're going to the hospital and need to transfer calls to your service, but can't; or you get back from rounds and need to cancel forwarding, but can't. Result would be a loss of service. My problem was much less severe, my modem dialing strings (which include *70W) stopped working. Although I suggested that the LEAST they should do is advise the people working the 611 board to KNOW what was going on to tell people calling in how long it'd be frozen, I think they should find some way around this. My comments have been ignored over the last few months and I'll now write the area VP. Does your BOC do the same thing? ((I'm in San Mateo, CA served by PacBell)) -- Glenn Tenney UUCP: {hplabs,glacier,lll-crg,ihnp4!ptsfa}!well!tenney ARPA: well!tenney@LLL-CRG.ARPA Delphi and MCI Mail: TENNEY As Alphonso Bodoya would say... (tnx boulton) Disclaimers? DISCLAIMERS!? I don' gotta show you no stinking DISCLAIMERS! ------------------------------ From: hplabs!well!tenney@seismo.CSS.GOV (Glenn S. Tenney) Subject: 3-tone no connection question Date: 16 May 87 07:31:15 GMT Reply-To: well!tenney@seismo.CSS.GOV (Glenn S. Tenney) I have the feeling this was asked and answered a long time ago, but I can't recall the answer: Is that 3-tone no-connection signal in-band? What would happen if my answering machine started with such a tone sequence? -- Glenn Tenney UUCP: {hplabs,glacier,lll-crg,ihnp4!ptsfa}!well!tenney ARPA: well!tenney@LLL-CRG.ARPA Delphi and MCI Mail: TENNEY As Alphonso Bodoya would say... (tnx boulton) Disclaimers? DISCLAIMERS!? I don' gotta show you no stinking DISCLAIMERS! ------------------------------ From: Scott Dorsey Subject: Re: Regular phone chirp Date: 16 May 87 15:34:04 GMT Reply-To: Scott Dorsey In article <8705151237.AA07724@sleepy.cs.cornell.edu> roger@SLEEPY.CS.CORNELL.EDU (Roger Hoover) writes: >1) What is causing this noise? Probably some kind of high-voltage line transient, maybe even some kind of induced voltage. There may be a big DC motor somwhere that kicks on at 11:55, whose power cables are close to the phone line. Even a lighting circuit might do it. Have him pick the phone up at 11:54 pm and find out what he hears when the signal that causes the chirp comes over the line. This can give some good indication as to the nature of the thing. In addition, taking the line off hook will cause such a thing. >2) Is their an easy way to stop it? Sure. Stop buying cheapo phones, and the problem will go away. -- Scott Dorsey Kaptain_Kludge ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die), Rich 110, Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 14 May 1987 19:04-MDT From: ptsfa!dmt@LLL-TIS-B.ARPA (Dave Turner) Subject: Cellular Phones The following is from an editorial by Wayne Green in the June, 1987 issue of 73 Amateur Radio magazine: CONGRESS GOOFS The recent legislation making cellular phone calls illegal to listen in on has provided a bonanza for both organized and disorganized crime. It's difficult not to laugh over the situation the cellular industry has gotten itself into in its blind pursuit of the fast buck. What's happened is a mass move into cellular by criminals. They buy a cellular system, have an unscrupulous dealer alter the electronic serial number (ESN) on the built-in programmable IC, which makes calls both untraceable and free--a great combo. They tool around town, making calls to Pakistan, Columbia, and their Caribbean drug warehouses at will. Cellular has turned out to be great for coordinating every kind of criminal activity. It's just what criminals have been needing for years-- a dependable, free, untraceable, and safe communications system. With a combination of pagers and cellular phones, crooks are making a shambles of the cellular system--all protected by Congress. If you wanted to deal in drugs, how better to get orders from your customers than by giving them your cellular phone number? There's no way to tap a telephone that can be anywhere in a big city, operating through different cells as it moves around. And with an altered ESN it's all free! If it weren't against the law to listen to cellular channels, I'd suggest we hams help the law by listening for suspicious cellular calls and recording them. Say, how'd you like to get the goods on some serious crooks and find (a) the evidence is inadmissible because it was illegally attained and (b) yourself on trial for making the recordings. So join me in a big laugh, okay? -- Dave Turner 415/542-1299 {ihnp4,lll-crg,qantel,pyramid}!ptsfa!dmt ------------------------------ From: harvard!applix.m2c.org!jim@seismo.CSS.GOV (Jim Morton) Date: 16 May 87 16:14:37 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: applix!jim From: jim@applix.UUCP (Jim Morton) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 10777+ billing Message-ID: <509@applix.UUCP> Date: 16 May 87 16:14:36 GMT References: <870513114041.003@Phobos.Caltech.Edu> <2789@panda.UUCP> Organization: APPLiX Inc., Westboro MA Lines: 22 Summary: other 10nnn numbers In article <2789@panda.UUCP>, rob.UUCP@panda.UUCP (Robert S. Wood) writes: > Where does one find out what numbers work? I tried 10222 1 xxx xxx xxxx and > it went thru. How does MCI know my address to send a bill? Will it be on > my NETCO bill added on after the ATT section (ATT is my dial-1 carrier)? The ones I've seen are: (in New England, anyways) 10288 ATT (288=ATT) 10777 USprint (777=SPR) 10222 MCI 10333 USprint 10444 ALLNET 10488 ITT (488=ITT) If you call 10nnn17005551212 you will generally get a recording welcoming you to that company's 1+ dialing service. Anybody seen any other 10+ numbers? -- -- Jim Morton, APPLiX Inc., Westboro, MA UUCP: ...seismo!harvard!halleys!applix!jim ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 17-May-87 19:02:19-EDT,6833;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sun 17 May 87 19:02:18-EDT Date: 17 May 87 17:56-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V6 #54 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, May 17, 1987 5:56PM Volume 6, Issue 54 Today's Topics: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Hotel surcharges Re: Telephone answer detection Ringback codes Finding out the phone number you're calling from Goodbye XX, Hello BU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 May 87 02:45:10 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom From: tmsoft!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV Path: tmsoft!utgpu!lharris From: lharris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Leonard Harris) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom,sci.electronics Subject: Codecs etc... Keywords: codec, TI signal processor, HELP! Message-ID: <1987May16.164633.23513@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Date: 16 May 87 20:46:33 GMT Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Lines: 9 Checksum: 32576 Hi. I need some help in finding a codec for a certain application. Does anyone have info/preferences/prejudices on the codecs made by Motorola and the signal processor by TI. The application is for phone-line quality voice with compression to approx. 1K bytes of data per second of digitized voice. Any help would be much appreciated Thanks /leonard ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 May 87 03:26:43 EDT From: ihnp4!riccb!uucp@EDDIE.MIT.EDU Subject: Hotel surcharges It's been my experience that a lot of motels Path: riccb!hropus!jin From: jin@hropus.UUCP (Jerry Natowitz) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: re: Hotel surcharges Message-ID: <1026@hropus.UUCP> Date: 16 May 87 13:38:38 GMT References: <8705141347.AA23491@decwrl.dec.com> Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ Lines: 11 Posted: Sat May 16 09:38:38 1987 It's been my experience that a lot of motels (I haven't stayed in a hotel in a while) put that little sticker on the phone but then don't charge you for local calls. In fact I don't *ever* remember being charged for a local call, perhaps they are just trying to cut down on phone usage. -- "Still hackin' after all these years" Jerry Natowitz Bell Labs - HR 2L-150 201-615-4971 (CORNET 295-4971) ihnp4!hropus!jin ------------------------------ From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Sun, 17 May 87 05:01:05 edt Subject: Re: Telephone answer detection > Note that devices that call people to play recorded messages to strangers are > regulated in many places. These are the infamous "junk phone call" > machines. Now, if you're building an alarm system that will call the > cops when somebody breaks in, that is different. Yeah, the propagation delay of the s**t hitting the fan will be shorter because you will cut out the middleman. Alarm systems that automatically dial police or fire are also regulated or illegal in many places, because of the unacceptable false-alarm rate. Check before building. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Subject: Ringback codes Date: Sun, 17 May 87 08:42:25 EDT From: Pat Barron Every once in a while, someone posts a note asking about ringback codes (numbers to dial to make your own telephone ring). Unfortunately, these codes aren't the same everywhere, and are mostly undocumented. I've discovered the following method of making my own phone ring, and it should work everywhere. It only rings the phone once, but if all you're interested in is verifying that you can recieve calls, that's all you need. It requires that you have Call Waiting on your line, and you also need an AT&T phone credit card. Pick up your phone and call your own number using the credit card. You should hear the Call Waiting tone immediately, followed by the ring tone. Hang up; your phone will ring once. This doesn't work if you just try to direct-dial your own number, even if you have Call Waiting. Your CO is smart enough to know that it makes no sense to allow you to call yourself. Using the credit card (apparently) bypasses your CO. --Pat. ------------------------------ Subject: Finding out the phone number you're calling from Date: Sun, 17 May 87 08:52:10 EDT From: Pat Barron Not long ago, I had a phone company person out to install a second phone line in my apartment. He had some difficulty finding the correct terminal pair in the apartment's telephone closet, so he put his test set on each pair he suspected was the right one, dialed a number (I tried to look over his shoulder, but I couldn't quite see :-) ), and a synthesized voice would tell him the phone number of the line he was on. Does anyone know if this capability is common to all CO's (I'd never seen it before)? --Pat. ------------------------------ Date: Sun 17 May 87 17:55:54-EDT From: Jon Solomon Subject: Goodbye XX, Hello BU Since I work for Boston University, it makes sense for me to have TELECOM distributed from there. I have been using XX because it was on the ARPANET (and we weren't), and because MIT was my starting point on the ARPANET (on my first machine, MIT-AI). We are now on the Internet (via CSNET-CYPRESS now, by a 56kbd connection to an IMP shortly), and I can start delivering TELECOM from BU. Temporarily I will leave the archives on XX since we don't have a reliable FTP connection yet. The addresses TELECOM@XX and TELECOM-REQUEST@XX are still valid and will forward to TELECOM@BUIT1.BU.EDU and TELECOM-REQUEST@BUIT1.BU.EDU, my new addresses for TELECOM distribution. When we get our ARPANET connection, I will set up anonymous FTP of TELECOM's archives from BUIT1.BU.EDU (host 192.12.185.40). I am going to start a new "volume" of TELECOM when I start sending from BU, since the TELECOM Archives are all in TOPS-20 MM format, and the new ones will be in UNIX mail format. I wish to thank MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science publicly for allowing me to use so much of XX's resources (about 3000 disk pages of archives, and a batch job that runs for hours delivering the digest). They have been most gracious with their resources. This is the last TELECOM that will come from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU. Tomorrow's will be delivered from BU. --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest *********************