Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 21:22:29 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #251 Message-ID: <8907232122.aa31843@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 23 Jul 89 21:05:57 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 251 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Telephone Number Formats in Australia (David E. A. Wilson) Multiplexing from Vancouver to Seattle (David Tamkin) What Modem to Use in Britain (and how)? (James Woolley) FAX Radio Correction (Doug Blair) Sony Answering Machines (L. J. Judice) Does Anybody Make This Device? (Mike Morris) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (John DeArmond) Re: Labels for 2500 TouchTone sets (Dave Levenson) Re: New Custom Calling Features in Chicago (John Higdon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Jul 89 17:13:37 est From: david@wolfen.cc.uow.oz (David E. A. Wilson) Subject: Telephone Number Formats In Australia Organization: Uni of Wollongong, NSW, Australia In article , CAPEK%YKTVMV.BITNET (Peter G. Capek) writes: > Separately, I'd like to ask a question about long distance access codes. In > many countries, city codes are commonly quoted with a leading 0. In all > cases that I know of, this leading 0 is really an access code, and isn't > intended to be used, for example, when the city code is dialed from outside > the country. Is there any case in which this isn't true? That is, is there > any country which has an city code which starts with a zero? In Australia we use the leading zero as an access code. Large cities get 0 + 1 digit (ie Sydney is 02, Melbourne 03) while country areas get 0 + 2 or 3 digit unless they are still manual exchanges (ie Wollongong (including Shellharbour & Kiama) is 042, outback New South Wales is 068). The interesting ones are in Tasmania (the island state) which has area codes 002, 003 & 004. Hobart, the capital, is in 002 so if someone makes an international call starting +61 02 they will get a Hobart number rather than a Sydney number. The other peculiarity is that Adelaide is 08 but only has numbers in the range 2xx xxxx to 3xx xxxx plus 4x xxxx and 79 xxxx. Thus the rest of the state (South Australia) is 085, the Northern Territory gets 086 (and Darwin, its capital gets 089) while Broken Hill in NSW gets 080. This is all nowhere near as structured as your US numbering scheme. David Wilson david@wolfen.cc.uow.oz.AU ------------------------------ From: David Tamkin Subject: Multiplexing from Vancouver to Seattle Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 0:17:53 CDT An acquaintance of mine had a question that I thought the readers of the Digest and comp.dcom.telecom could help with. He granted permission to quote from his letter here. He is located in Burnaby, British Columbia, and is trying to access a service that is available only through Tymnet USA indials. There is a Tymnet Canada indial in Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver), but he cannot reach this particular service on it. The cost of long-distance calls to the indial in Bellingham, Washington, would become prohibitive for the amaount of time he intends to use on this service. |David, I've come up with a way to get myself to the Seattle Tymnet node, |essentially for free. Technically, this solution will work, but I don't |know if I'd be breaking any FCC rules. Here's the situation: |The company I work for has a local customer with a leased line going to |Seattle. This line has an eight-channel multiplexer on both the Vancouver |and the Seattle ends. At any one time, this company is using only two |channels. This gives me an interesting possibility. If I get a phone line |installed at their Vancouver office, so that I can dial into their MUX, |switch my signal via their leased line to their Seattle office, then get a |phone line installed in their Seattle office from which I can dial out to |the Seattle Tymnet node, this gets me into the Tymnet network IN THE USA. |I see two possible legal complications here. First, the FCC may not approve |of me dialing out from the multiplexor in Seattle into the Tymnet line. |[second complication omitted; not relevant to Telecom Digest and already |settled -- DWT] Technically, there are no complications; this setup will |work. All it will cost me is two modems and the installation of two phone |lines (one in Vancouver and one in Seattle), then the monthly phone charges |for the two lines. It costs my customer nothing, since I'd just be taking |advantage of excess capacity in a leased line that he already has to pay for. Would he have any difficulties with the FCC if he did what he proposed? These views are no one's but mine because I won't let anyone else have them. David W. Tamkin dattier@jolnet.orpk.il.us ...attctc!jolnet!dattier GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN BIX: dattier CIS: 73720,1570 until September 30, 1989: P. O. Box 567542 Harwood Heights IL 60656-7542 ------------------------------ From: James Woolley Subject: What modem to use in Britain (and how)? Date: 23 Jul 89 02:32:50 GMT Organization: Lafayette College Can travellers to Britain advise about the use of modems there? I understand that British regulations require the use of a modem approved by British Telecom. My questions: 1. What modems are approved by BT? any likely to have been purchased in the US? 2. Can modems not on the approved list nevertheless be successfully used? 3. For someone travelling to Britain with a portable computer/portable modem, what is the usual way/best way to connect the modem to the telphone system? That is, what should be added to the travel kit of of the person carrying a laptop and modem to Britain? I'm NOT raising the question of power sources, converters, etc., but only of the connection to the telephone. Many thanks. James Woolley UUCP: rutgers!lafcol!woolleyj Bitnet: woolleyj@lafayett ------------------------------ Subject: FAX Radio Correction Date: Sat, 22 Jul 89 20:51:55 CDT From: Doug Blair Doug Blair, one of the DJ's mentioned in the article in TELECOM Digest quoted as being one of the more fax-and-technically-aware DJ's, doesn't work for WLS. He's on Z95. Z95 also claims to be the first US station with a studio fax machine set aside for the DJ's and public to abuse :-). Doug is also rather proficient at unix, for a disk jockey :-)) Doug Blair, sysadm at obdient.chi.il.us ___ ___ ___ |__ || . || __| Doug Blair, Z95 WYTZ-FM Middays 10am-3pm / /_|__ ||__ | 360 North Michigan Avenue 312-591-94.7-0 |___| |_||___| Chicago IL 60601 blair@obdient.chi.il.us ___ _ _ _ _ | || |_ ___ _| ||_| ___ __ _| |_ Doug Blair Obedient Software Corp. | | || .\/ ._\/. || |/ ._\| \|_ _| 1007 Naperville Rd, Wheaton IL 60187 |___||___/\___/\___||_|\___/|_|_| |_| obdient!blair blair@obdient.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: "L. J. Judice (DTN: 323-4103 FAX: 323-4533" Date: 20 Jul 89 14:51 Subject: Sony Answering Machines I like my Sony "Integrated Speakerphone/Answering Machine" a lot. But it does have a very annoying problem. Wondering if anyone else out there finds this with their Sony or other manufacturers. On the bottom, one can select "60 seconds", "VOX" or "CPC (calling party disconnect signal)" as the mode for selecting how messages are terminated. The problem is that when CERTAIN people call my machine, it regularly hangs up on them in the middle of a conversation. It tends to affect female callers with soft voices most frequently. I've tried calling it from my other line, and whispering, and low and behold, random hang ups in all three modes. Checking the handy, 60 page instruction book, there is some microscopic small print indicating that "whatever mode you select, the device may hang up if it the calling party isn't loud enough." My outgoing message now asks callers to "speak up or I'll hang up on you", which is good for laughs. But this is a pretty annoying problem, and it sounds (from the tiny print in the instructions) like a known bug. /ljj ------------------------------ From: Mike Morris Subject: Does anybody make this device? Date: 23 Jul 89 10:27:43 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris I've got an answering machine that picks up on the 2nd ring. It does everything else right, and I don't want to swap it out. I opened it up and traced enough of the circuit to discover that the circuit doesn't lend itself to simple modifications like my old Phone-Mate 400 did to change the rings to 6 or 7. Somebody must make a small box that would "eat" the first N rings, thereby delaying an answering machine from 2 rings to N+2. Ideas? Even if it's just a pointer to an old issue of Popular Electronics, or something. US Snail: Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov P.O. Box 1130 Also: WA6ILQ Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130 #Include disclaimer.standard | The opinions above probably do not even ------------------------------ From: John DeArmond Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 23 Jul 89 22:03:52 GMT Reply-To: John DeArmond Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product" In article glen@aecom.yu.edu (Glen M. Marianko) writes: >Age old answering machine problem: forget to turn off answering machine >Anyone hear of any >such add-on gizmo to go in-line with the answering machine and the >telco jack? Seems doable... I saw just such a gizmo Friday in either The Sharper Image or Brookstone. It looked like one of these little 1-to-2 outlet splitters you can get at radio shack except it had a couple of LEDs in it. you hook your extention phone and answering machine in thru this thing. When you pick up, the answering machine is cut off. Works only for that phone, though. john -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | Manual? ... What manual ?!? Sales Technologies, Inc. Atlanta, GA | This is Unix, My son, You ...!gatech!stiatl!john **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!! ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Labels for 2500 TouchTone sets Date: 23 Jul 89 13:05:08 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , faunt@cisco.com (Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269) writes: > Does anyone know where I can get blank light cardboard labels for the 2500 > tone dial sets, preferably in a form that can be fed through a > printer, so that we can do instruction sheets for the users of the > telephone system here? > > I don't keep up with this group, so mail would be desirable. Thanx. Continuous-feed designation cards of several kinds appear in the Texocom/Centel Supply catalog. They have the large round ones for 500 sets, the small rectangles for most tone-dial sets, and the long rectangles for 2565 key telephone sets. They are almost too stiff to feed properly through most desktop printers, however. The individual labels keep separating from the backing along the perf lines. It has been several years since I've ordered, so this information could be out-of-date. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: New Custom Calling Features in Chicago Date: 24 Jul 89 00:18:09 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > The new genre of smart features are being phased in by Illinois Bell > Telephone beginning September 30. Automatic callback to the last connection; > call identification in the form of distinctive ringing with up to three > distinct phone numbers per line; call blocking of unwanted calls and home > intercom are the features being added. But once again, Pacific Bell seems to be the industry laggard. No mention anywhere of CLASS features, on a trial basis or otherwise, for customers of Pac*Bell. On the one hand I can see why PB is so non-progressive. They are constantly faced with the likes of Sylvia Seigel, whose "consumer" organization feels that anything more than a black rotary phone is excessive and campaigns actively against *any* modernization of Pac*Bell facilities. But on the other hand, it has always seemed as though every single user feature or convenience has become commonplace in the rest of the country before Californians even hear about it. While 976 was going relatively smoothly everywhere else, it has been completely botched in California. Consumers are unhappy; providers are unhappy; even Pac*Bell says they're unhappy (and they created the mess!) I remember reading about ESS offices being installed in Illinois in the late 50's; The first ones in California--the late 60's. Touch tone was available in Laurenburg, NC (of all places) in 1965. In San Jose--1969. Pac*Bell didn't become fully equal access until 1987. Living with a backwards operating company is quaint, but extremely frustrating. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell has always been a very progressive and forward-looking company. I had touch-tone on my home phones in 1968. The 1950's ESS you refer to was in Morris, IL where it was an experimental thing for several years; however the first ESS in Chicago came in 1972 when the Chicago-Illinois/Dearborn and Chicago-Superior offices were converted. In 1973-74 the downtown area was converted to ESS, beginning with Chicago-Wabash, where I had ESS on my WEbster-9 (939) office phone sixteen years ago. The coversion was completed in 1984. The CO serving my home phones, Chicago-Rogers Park was about the last CO in the area to be converted. Illinois Bell is now one hundred percent ESS. In Monday's Digest, an article by Kevin McConnaughey discusses the almost universal presence of Sprint in the United States. In the space of just little more than a decade, a remarkable network indeed. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #251 *****************************   Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 0:09:21 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #252 Message-ID: <8907240009.aa28665@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 24 Jul 89 00:00:33 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 252 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson When Sprint Was Part of the Railroad (TELECOM Moderator) Sprint's Universal Points of Presence (Kevin McConnaughey) MCI and Sprint Operator Service (Gihan Dias) Clarification: US Telecom / Telecom USA / US Sprint (David Tamkin) The Monopoly of the Telephone Company (Jon Solomon) AT&T Policy on Stolen Calling Cards (Nicholas J. Simicich) TELECOM Digest Calendar - August, 1989 (TELECOM Moderator) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 21:06:55 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: When Sprint Was Part of the Railroad Does anyone reading this remember when Sprint began operation as a public telecommunications service? In the beginning, Sprint was the internal telecommunications function of the Southern Pacific Railroad. In fact, the name 'Sprint' comes from those early, early days -- = outhern

acific ailroad nternal etwork elecommunications = For many, many decades, railroads have had telephone links between terminals along their line. Typically, they ran lines on poles along the tracks from one town to the next. Track telephones were situated a few miles apart on the line in the event of trouble requiring the crew to call for assistance. The Southern Pacific Railroad greatly expanded their internal phone network during the late sixties and early seventies. They had so much excess capacity as a result they decided to begin offering it for resale to the public once they saw the early success of icrowave ommunications, ncorporated with its first offering, 'Execunet' in the early seventies. Soon, S.P.R.I.N.T. was far too large and involved for the railroad, which decided to severe it from Southern Pacific RR and make it into a separate company on its own. The rest, as they say, is history. The main article in the Digest today was written by Kevin McConnaughey and discusses Sprint's presence throughout the United States little more than a decade after it all began. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: McConnaughey@cup.portal.com Subject: Sprint's Universal Points of Presence Date: Sun, 23-Jul-89 12:52:34 PDT Dear John, Regarding your assertion that OCCs selectively serve metropolitan areas, I can provide some information to clarify some of your misconceptions about US Sprint on this topic. 1) US Sprint has points of presence in every LATA in the CONUS (and also Hawaii) connected to Sprint's fiber optic transmission network. 2) US Sprint has points of presence (POPs) and provides service in most of the major independent Telco operating territories (GTE, United,...) 3) Except for GTE, independent Telcos are not required to offer their subscribers "equal access". (GTE signed an agreement with the DOJ to provide what was essentially equal access in their territories when they purchased Southern Pacific Communications Corp., Sprint's precursor , from the S.P. railroad.) 4) In particular, in California Sprint has at least one POP in every PacBell LATA and provides FGD service wherever PacBell has offered equal access. 5) I called PacBell information (411) and NPA 555-1212 to get area codes and exchange prefixes for the rural areas you mentioned. I then called US Sprint Customer service at (1)800-877-4646 and inquired about Sprint service in Weed, Baker, and Los Banos. The results are as follows: Location NPA NXX Equal Access Date Sprint FGD offered ________ ___ ___ _________________ __________________ Weed 916 938 12/10/88 yes Baker 619 733 not PacBell area FGD not available Los Banos 209 826 not PacBell area FGD not available I believe that Los Banos is in ConTel territory, although I am not certain, and do not know which independent Telco offers service to Baker. I also note that the date for equal access to Weed was not EOY 1987 but December of 1988. 6) US Sprint is mostly owned by United Telecommunications (80.1%). United is the second largest independent local exchange carrier in the US and serves mostly rural areas of the United States. Given this, I find it hard to believe that the management of US Sprint has a policy or attitude that, as you suggest, "...don't *really* want to bother with sleepy little out-of-the-way communities." 7) Contrary to the tenor of your message, US Sprint built a third transcontinental fiber optic route from the Chicago area through Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, and Idaho to Seattle. This allowed Sprint to have owned fiber connectivity to ALL LATAs in the CONUS. This route provides service to remote areas of the US and network diversity and survivability. It was based upon a strategic decision to provide ubiquitous coverage in the US via fiber facilities and clearly contradicts your assertion that "what they were really after was to have the metro areas have universal equal access so that they could maximize their penetration in areas that required minimal cost." 8) Lastly, it seems that you believe that AT&T has provided universal service out of the goodness of its corporate heart. Until the recent price cap regulation (an outgrowth of divestiture and regulatory liberalization, the results of which seem almost painful to you) AT&T was GUARANTEED an adequate return on its capital investment in ALL areas, rural and metropolitan. This has never been the case with the OCCs. It took no significant financial courage for AT&T to provide rural service in the past. It will be interesting to see if AT&T continues to provide the same levels of support and capital investment in rural areas in the coming years as the plant ages and requires replacement or renovation. I don't think I'll hold my breath either. Regards, Kevin McConnaughey US Sprint Employee and Customer (415) 375-4585 [Moderator's Note: Regards your point (8) above, in Tuesday's Digest will be an article on AT&T and rural telephony in the 1930's. You will probably enjoy it. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 13:07:54 pdt From: Gihan Dias Subject: MCI and Sprint Operator Service I noticed recently that MCI and US Sprint have started operator service. (at least here in Northern California) I haven't seen an announcement about it in comp.dcom.telecom so I thought I'd report it. Dialling 10222 00 gives "MCI, operator xxx" and 10333 00 gives "US Sprint, may I help you" so I assume these are really MCI/Sprint operators and not some AOS as somebody reported a while ago. Dialling 10222 0 XXX XXX XXXX gives a "BINGg" tone and an operator comes on-line if I don't enter a calling card no. Trying the same thing a few months ago resulted in a recording asking me to dial 10288 so this IS a new development here. What I'd like to know is, is this implemented across the U.S., or only in Calif.? What operator services do MCI and Sprint provide? What is their pricing like? (I'm not officially an MCI subscriber so I don't get their blurbs.) Gihan <...!ucbvax!ucdavis!gdias> [Moderator's Note: I noticed it (with MCI) for the first time about three weeks ago when I answered my ringing phone to hear a man say, 'This is the MCI Operator. I have a collect call for anyone at this number, will you accept the charges?' My first concern, of course, was that it was some AOS outfit about to give me a thrill on my next phone bill, but further investigation revealed that indeed, MCI was now equipped with operators, or at least contracting for operator services at a legitimate rate for same. My July bill from IBT had a section for MCI, with that collect call listed at a decent rate. The use of '00' is only required to bring up a long distance operator via default carrier dialing, versus '0' to raise the local telco operator. If you are using 10xxx codes, then a single '0' following the code will work. Neither Sprint nor MCI operators can test lines or call via Inward, however. PT] ------------------------------ From: David Tamkin Subject: Clarification: Telecom USA / US Telecom / US Sprint Date: Fri, 21 Jul 89 17:47:20 CDT Steve Elias wrote in volume 9, issue 245, quoting Patrick Townson: | > Sprint is not the only offender. US Telecom in Cedar Rapids, IA is another | > bunch that makes up the rules as they go along. | US Telecom is US Sprint. Each has bought the other out at | one time or another... So your enemy is the same! The company in Cedar Rapids is Telecom*USA. US Telecom in Kansas City is the parent of US Sprint now that GTE has pulled out of the partnership. These views are no one's but mine because I won't let anyone else have them. David W. Tamkin dattier@jolnet.orpk.il.us ...attctc!jolnet!dattier GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN BIX: dattier CIS: 73720,1570 until September 30, 1989: P. O. Box 567542 Harwood Heights IL 60656-7542 [Moderator's Note: With all these name changes and corporate re-arrangements, it makes it hard for me to remember exactly *who* I am fighting with!! PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Jul 89 17:46:37 EDT From: jsol@bu-it.bu.edu Subject: The Monopoly of the Telephone Company... I'm sad to say that I believe the main thrust for divesting AT&T was those moneygrabbers who are the AOS and COCOT maintainers, and hotel ripoff artists, who insist on overcharging for their calls. It is those who have the most to gain from the endeavor, so they were probably much of the force that caused the divestiture itself. --jsol ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 15:22:18 EDT From: "Nicholas J. Simicich" Subject: AT&T Policy on Stolen Calling Cards Reply-To: "Nicholas J. Simicich" Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY In article telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: [Lots of stuff] >And I might add that if your AT&T card is ever compromised for any reason, >if you call them immediatly -- 24 hours per day -- they will kill the card >on the spot AND issue you a new pin within three or four hours. That is >how serious they are about keeping service available to their customers >at all times. [....] Hmmm, interesting. Must be a recent change in policy. I remember a few years ago when my wife and I were robbed and my wallet taken. While notifying all of my credit card issuers, I happened to call AT+T. They thanked me for notifying them, and declined to issue me a new pin. According to them, they would be happy to write off any fraud that occurred, and if there were fraud, they would issue a new pin at that time. But issuing a new pin to everyone who was robbed was more expensive than writing off the fraud. Gasoline companies had the same attitude. Wait for fraud, and then issue a new number. In the meantime, I could have a new card with the same number on it. In both cases, we insisted on new numbers, as we didn't want to be the ones to have to deal with the fraud. I suspect that code abuse is more prevalent these days, and that quite a bit can be charged in a short period of time, leading AT+T to evaluate the costs differently. It took us weeks to get the new cards. I'm glad that the situation has changed. Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs --- njs@ibm.com (Internet) Seen on a button at an SF Convention: It's hard to think of you as the end result of millions of years of evolution. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 22:01:26 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest Calendar - August, 1989 August 4-7 Asia Comm '89 Conference and exhibition. Bangkok, Thailand. For information contact Trade Exhibition & Conference Co. Ltd, 254/16 Pradipat Road, Phayathai, Bangkok 10400, Thailand Telephone: 26795455 August 7-11 Digital Telephony Seminar given at George Washington University, Washington DC. Sponsored by the Continuing Education Program of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Tuition $1070. Contact registrar, Shirley Forlenzo, 202-994-8530 or toll free, 800-424-9773 (US) or 800-535-4567 (Canada). August 9-11 Introduction to ISDN Seminar sponsored by Integrated Computer Systems. Meeting in Washington, DC. Tuition $1195. Contact Integrated Computer Systems, 8000 Tower Crescent Drive, Suite 300, Vienna, VA 22180. Telephone: 800-421-8166 August 9-11 Telecommunications Traffic Engineering Conference Conference given at George Washington University, Washington DC. Sponsored by the Continuing Education Program of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Tuition $840. Contact registrar, Shirley Forlenzo, 202-994-8530, or toll- free, 800-424-9773 (US) or 800-535-4567 (Canada). August 11-12 Association of Telemessaging Service Sales And Marketing This seminar is being held in Washington, DC. For more information, contact ATSI, 703-684-0016. August 17-19 Information Technologies From A User's Perspective This conference is being sponsored by the Center For Telecommunications Management, School of Business Administration of the University of Southern California. The conference will be held at the Davidson Conference Center, Los Angeles, CA. $595. Information/reservations: 213-743-0304. August 21-24 Telecommunications In Education International symposium, meeting in Jerusalem, Israel. The sponsoring group is the International Symposium on Telecommun- ications in Education (ISTE). For information/reservations, ISTE Symposium Secretariat, c/o International Ltd., Post Office Box 29313, 65121 Tel Aviv, Israel. Telephone: 972-3-654548 or 654549. FAX: 972-3-660604. August 22-25 Security For Computer and Communications Systems Security seminar, sponsored by Integrated Computer Systems, meeting in Los Angeles, CA. Contact Integrated Computer Systems, 8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Suite 300, Vienna, VA 22180. Phone 800-421-8166 $1395. This calendar is published monthly in the Digest. Notices for the calendar should be mailed to TELECOM Digest, Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. Notices of seminars, conferences and exhibitions should be telecommunications related. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #252 *****************************   Date: Tue, 25 Jul 89 0:02:41 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #253 Message-ID: <8907250002.aa28009@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 25 Jul 89 00:01:20 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 253 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson AT&T and Rural Telephony, circa 1935 (TELECOM Moderator) The Strange Boundary Lines for Areas 708/312 (David W. Tamkin) Is Europe Going to Get 8 Digit Numbers? (Dan Sahlin) New Product Review: FAXJACK III (George Wang) Questions About "Waston" - PC Voice Processing (Mark Donnelly) Slow Scan Telephone/Video Device (R. Anand) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 23:16:23 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: AT&T and Rural Telephony, circa 1935 In Monday's Digest, Kevin McConnaughey raised an interesting point by asking what might happen to rural (or less populated areas) phone service over the next few years as the plant began to wear out. He wondered if AT&T would show the same interest in 'universal service' they have shown in the past when expenses involved in upgrading and maintainence began getting heavy. Interesting he should mention it.... A little known side to the long, and admittedly sometimes sordid history of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was its constant grab for small telcos from the early years of this century until the mid-point, when the Supreme Court ruled that AT&T was not to acquire any more operating companies, with a few exceptions; one being if a local operating company was bankrupt, or otherwise in imminent danger of discontinuing operation, then AT&T to take it! AT&T had its own rules where the farmers were concerned, however, and they found in King Roosevelt II their arch-enemy. He threatened to 'nationalize' Mother a couple of times, or break her up. Until about twenty years into this century, electricity was not available to the farmers. No one wanted to go to the expense of running electrical lines. One depression-era project of King Roosevelt II was the Rural Electrification Administration. The REA was charged with the task of getting electrical power to the many rural areas of America. When AT&T stalled on supplying phone service, citing the prohibitive costs of installation and maintainence for just a few people, well, King Roosevelt decided to make the Rural Electrification Administration do it instead. With loans guarenteed by the federal government -- a very important part of the project in depression times -- the REA helped hundreds of tiny little telephone cooperatives set up shop across America. The farmers in a given area pooled their money, supplemented with a federally guarenteed loan, and built the building, bought and installed the switchboard, and typically, hired their wives and daughters to run the board. Usually three or four telephone cooperatives in nearby areas would share the services and employment of a single techician who variously went from house to house repairing/installing instruments, repairing the switchboard as needed, and maintaining the outside wiring. AT&T was 'gracious enough' to let them interconnect for a nice fee, provided the farmers installed the wire to the nearest AT&T point-of-presence, which might be twenty miles down the highway or wherever. And of course there were interconnections to neighboring telephone cooperatives as well as the exchange in a neighboring town of some size. The rules and regulations of service, and the prices, were set by the members of the cooperative, at periodic meetings. One such group, typical of most, was the River Valley Telephone Cooperative Society, with 26 subscribers. The officers met monthly to discuss business, and at semi-annual meetings of the members of the Corporation, rates and policies were discussed. For years, these cooperatives paid on their mortgages. Almost two decades later, most of them were finally able to 'burn the mortgage' and own their building and (by now severely antiquated!) exchange plant free and clear. And once the mortgage was paid off, who showed up on the scene? Why AT&T of course! So here sit a bunch of people with twenty year old apparatus, long since technically obsolete, but at least with the outside plant and subscriber base in place, and AT&T offers them a few cents on the dollar to buy them out. By now the switchboard operator is an old lady and she wants to retire; they can't find any younger people who want to work for the cooperative at the low wages they were paying their wives and daughters all these years; the equipment needs almost constant (and costly) repair; and AT&T steps in as savior..... I have my doubts about AT&T's motives, frankly. But curiously, almost as soon as the mortgages were paid, the Mother Company was on the scene, ready to pounce. Or sometimes they would wait until a disaster hit, then move in. When the Richmond, Indiana central office burned down on Easter Sunday morning many years ago, before the ashes had cooled, executives from Indiana Bell and AT&T were on location, tsk-tsking and poking in the rubble. The little telco there was a family operation; the same family had owned it for forty years. You can assume the insurance came nowhere close to covering the fire losses in what had been a losing business for a few years anyway. AT&T bought them out, midst the rubble, pennies on the dollar. *That* was the way AT&T did business for years. That was how they acquired telcos by the hundreds and achieved their monopoly status. When they moved into Chicago in the early twenties to take over the Chicago Telephone Company it was far from a gentle takeover. The stockholder fights went on for two year afterward in the courts. I cannot fault AT&T's technical standards in any way. I cannot fault their end results: the finest telephone network in the world, bar none. But it was very bloody at times, with court battles the norm instead of the exception to the rule. And there were many small telcos which flatly refused -- and still do so to this day -- to sell out to Bell. It was the bitter fighting with AT&T and the need for mutual protection against AT&T which led to the formation of USITA -- The United States Independent Telephone Association; a group that today is on the best of terms with AT&T, and frequently has executives of AT&T as guest speakers at their annual conventions, etc. Yesterday, Jon Solomon said it was the greed of the AOS people which kept the drive going for divestiture. Maybe, but AT&T's own image in the early years of this century has not been forgotten by a few people either; people who cheered when AT&T finally got its come-uppance. In defense of Sprint/MCI et al, I must say that for the first forty years or so of its corporate existence, AT&T was just as bad, or maybe worse in terms of sheer greed. Remind me to post an article sometime on their reaction to the companies which manufactured telephones in the early years of this century after Mother's patent expired. Talk about ruthless! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Subject: The Strange Boundaries of Areas 708/312 Date: Wed, 19 Jul 89 16:51:37 CDT From: dwtamkin@chinet.chi.il.us (David W. Tamkin) (Original Title: Centel in Unincorporated Norwood Park Township) Now this is interesting. Remember how I explained that unincorporated Norwood Park Township is part 867 prefixes (sections 1 and 12), part 457 prefixes (section 11), but a mix of older Park Ridge prefixes (692, 698, 823, and 825) and Chicago prefixes (380, 399, 693, and 714) in section 2? It's going to be getting funnier: IBT is shoving 457 and 867 into area code 708, but Centel is sticking with its ca. 1976 decision to treat its piece as part of Chicago and will continue assigning Chicago prefixes to new service there (unless people want to pay $19.38 a month plus tax for the F/X fee to have a suburban prefix [no mileage charge, of course]). That will get very interesting if Dino Fenili and friends ever succeed in incorporating that area as an independent village: he's been trying to get Springfield to lower the population requirement for incorporating from 2500 to 1000 just so that they can. Beats me what the heck they're going to use for a tax base considering that the only non-residential parcel there is a church and that the alleged motivation for incorporating is to protect themselves from getting annexed to Chicago and suffering from Chicago's high real estate taxes. If they ever do incorporate, the village will have two zip codes and two area codes. I guess it would have been saner if they had managed to stake a claim to a few lots around the 8200 block of Berwyn Avenue and prevent them from being annexed to Chicago in the first place; then the whole piece could have been annexed by Norridge. Of course, if it had legally been in Norridge, Centel would have continued to assign suburban prefixes in its part and it would be going into 708 this autumn. My honest opinion is that most of the people there would rather have their seven-digit dialing to and from 312 and their eleven-digit dialing to and from 708 than vice versa. I'm truly surprised that none of the closer-in suburbs have been bitching to stay in 312 (especially those where prefix area boundaries match municipal ones, like Evanston and Oak Park and Harwood Heights) the way Sharon and Marblehead, Massachusetts, got the 617/508 line redrawn. (Responding to the reply on the question, 'Will 708 be the first area code to be in separate, disconnected parts.) | But I remembered that Liberty Island and Ellis Island are | politically part of the borough of Manhattan and the County | of New York, even though they are on the far side of Staten | Island from Manhattan Island itself. | | No they aren't; they're off the southern tip of Manhattan. Then the phones on those islands could be in area code 212 without any discontiguity, and 708 *will* be the first scattered area code. -- Absolutely no other users of Chinet share any opinions I hold on any subject. David W. Tamkin P. O. Box 567542 Harwood Heights, Illinois 60656-7542 dwtamkin@chinet.chi.il.us BIX: dattier CIS: 73720,1570 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN The post office box in Harwood Heights will be open until September 30, 1989. ------------------------------ From: Dan Sahlin Subject: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? Organization: SICS, Swedish Inst. of Computer Science Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 18:49:41 GMT Within a couple of years all telephone numbers in the outer Stockholm areas will go from 5-digit to 8-digit numbers. They will all be integrated into the Stockholm area code (08) where the other numbers are 6 or 7 digits. There are about 1.5 inhabitants in this area (and about the same number of telephones), so a wisely designed number plan using just 7 digits should be possible. For some reason, I find it much harder to remember an 8-digit number than a 7 digit number, so I don't like those plans at all. I've read that Paris and Denmark have already changed into 8 digit numbers, and that Norway is planning to do the same. Are there more countries going to get 8 digit numbers in the near future? /Dan Sahlin email: dan@sics.se PS. Isn't it about time that the world would agree on the international access code, i.e. the code that you replace the +-sign with in your international telephone number? In Sweden (and Denmark) we dial 009, but many in many countries in Europe it is the more logical 00. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 11:25:24 PDT From: George Wang Subject: New Product Review: FAXJACK III In the July 17th issue of Businessweek there is an article about a product called FAXJACK III which supposedly automatically determines whether a FAX, Modem, or Voice call is being made on a single line... This product would be very useful for people who are limited to one phone line (IE, Dorm room) but want to use the line for incoming Modem and/or Voice calls.... This product is made by Viking Electronics at 715-386-8861 and is only $96!!! Question: Is this too good to be true?? Does this really work?? *HOW* does it work... Is it reliable.... I am VERY interested in purchasing this if I get some positive feedback... Thanks George Gwang@berlioz.nsc.com National Semiconductor VLSI Software Engineer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 12:00:16 EDT From: Mark Donnelly Organization: Linotype Co., Hauppauge, NY Subject: Questions About "Waston" - PC Voice Processing System I was wondering if any one as experiences or comments about Natural Microsystems product called "Waston". It is a PC based voice processing system that I was thinking of buying. Any comments would be appreciated, if I get requests back I will post a article of the reviews I received. Thanks, Mark Donnelly Voice: 516-434-2086 Email: decvax!mergvax!donnelly ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 17:46:38 EDT From: anand@top.cis.syr.edu Subject: Slow Scan Telephone/Video Device A while back, while wandering through a shopping mall, some people were selling a type of picture phone which could be used over ordinary telephone lines. The picture is not transmitted continuously. When you push a button on your set, the image scanned by a ccd camera is converted to some digital code and sent over the telephone line. The other set updates the picture. Of course you need two sets of the same type. The resoluttion was not great - about 256 * 256. Also I suspect the number of bits per pixel were fairly limited too. I believe the set was made by Mitsubishi. Would anyone on this group know anything more about these picture phones? R. Anand Internet: anand@amax.npac.syr.edu anand@top.cis.syr.edu Bitnet: ranand@sunrise ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #253 *****************************   Date: Tue, 25 Jul 89 0:52:18 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #254 Message-ID: <8907250052.aa31295@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 25 Jul 89 00:50:25 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 254 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson California Phone Rates (Epsilon) Canadian Regulators Order LD Rate Discounts (Amit Parghi) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Chuck Bennett) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Bob Clements) Re: Phone line surge protection (John Gayman) Re: Long Distance Directory Assistance (Pete Brown) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: claris!wet!epsilon@ames.arc.nasa.gov Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 01:59:30 PDT Subject: California Phone Rates (was Re: 10xxx codes revisited) Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco In article blake@astro.as.utexas.edu writes: >| [Moderator's Note: ... If you dial an intra- >| lata call (a call within your own town, for example) using 10288 >| as the leading code, it is likely the call will be rejected and >| you will have to dial over again. > Inter-Lata Calls (San Antonio -> New Braunfels) can be completed >using 10xxx codes (and are billed at a lower rate than SW Bell inter- >lata long distance calls. This must vary by state. In CA the tariffs forbid IECs from handling intra-LATA calls. I haven't checked AT&T-C's rates since last year's rate case. The way it was, inter-LATA rates were higher for 8-30 miles, and otherwise lower than intra-LATA rates. The new CA rates raised one-time charges (100% for some business services) and basic monthly rates, and lowered usage rates. There are now 10 mileage bands; the outer 8 went away. CA Basic Monthly Rates (PacBell; GTE should be identical; no info on CONTEL and the myriad of independent telcos) Residential Flat Rate Service ............................. $8.35 (unlimited local or Zone 1 calling) Residential Measured Rate Service ......................... $4.45 (includes $3.00 calling allowance for Zones 1, 2, 3) Residential Flat Rate Universal Lifeline Service ......... $4.18 (includes $.75 telephone set credit, $.25 inside wire repair credit, 100% network access line credit, 50% discount on installation charge allowed 1x/year. Available to certified low- income households, limited to a single phone line at principal residence) Residential Measured Rate Universal Lifeline Service ...... $2.23 (same as above, except includes 60 untimed local or Zone 1 calls; each additional call $.08 each) Two-Party Line Flat Rate Service .......................... $4.70 Two-Party Universal Lifeline Service ...................... $2.35 Farmer Line Service ....................................... $2.65 Four-Party Line Suburban Flat Rate Service ................ $4.90 Four-Party Universal Lifeline Service ..................... $2.45 (above 5 services not available in large urban areas; special rate areas, special rate points, and extended area service charges apply in some places) Residential Touch-Tone Service ........................ add $1.20 Non-Published and not available through DA ............ add $.30 Non-Published but available through DA ................ add $.15 Residential IAS (976) blocking ........................ no charge (residential services include 5 DAs, then $.25 each) Business Measured Rate Service ............................ $8.35 Business Measured Rate Service/Data Line ................. $22.50 Business Semi-Public (Coin) Phone ........................ $29.00 Business COPT ............................................ $17.20 (business measured services include 2 DAs, then $.25 each; if I remember correctly, Touch-Tone service is an additional $1.70) (FEX rates are higher) CA Basic One-Time Charges Residential Install ...................................... $34.75 Universal Lifeline Install................................ $17.38 Residential Touch-Tone ................................ add $3.00 Business Install ......................................... $70.75 (These are for individual lines; FEX installs can run $580 per) Business Touch-Tone ................................... add $5.00 CA IntraLATA Usage Rates ZUM (Los Angeles/Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco area): first addl. Zone 1 (0-8 rate miles) $.04 + $.01 Zone 3 (13-16 rate miles) $.10 + $.04 (normal direct-dial sent-paid calls only; credit card calls completed without operator assistance pay toll rates below!) (FEX rates are higher) Toll rates 0-8 rate miles $.17 + $.07 (when not "local") 9-12 rate miles $.17 + $.07 13-16 rate miles $.20 + $.10 17-20 rate miles $.22 + $.13 21-25 rate miles $.25 + $.16 26-30 rate miles $.28 + $.19 31-40 rate miles $.31 + $.22 (40 mile boundary) 41-50 rate miles $.34 + $.25 51-70 rate miles $.37 + $.28 over 70 rate miles $.40 + $.31 "Rate miles" are between V-H rate centers of exchange or district area; beyond 40 miles the exchange rate centers are used. The Los Angeles Exchange has 14 district areas. However, calls within the same exchange are local, even if the district area rate centers are more than 8 miles apart. Discount periods: 5-11 p.m. M-F 30% 11 p.m.-8 a.m. and all S-S 60%. (Sun 5-11 p.m. gets night rate on all intratate calls, evening rate on interstate calls.) TDD users can get deeper discounts. Coin paid calls: local or Zone 1 are $.20 untimed. Otherwise, figure rate for a 3-minute call, round to $.05 and add $.20. (max. for an IntraLATA call is $1.00). After 3 minutes, regular toll charges apply. COPT: most local calls will be $.25, and limited to 15 minutes. The owner pays $.06 for the first minute, and $.01 for each additional. I've seen $.20 COPTs San Franciso, but never in L.A. COPT service can be ordered outgoing-only. Non-local calls will be significantly higher than from RBOC payphones. Long Distance? No thanks, I'll call from the hotel... There are a variety of optional calling plans available for both residential and business customers with predictable calling patterns and/or high-volume usage. A whole bunch of ESS features too. The latest product, "Intercom Plus," adds three distinctive ringbacks: *51 short-short *52 short-short-long *53 short-long- short, and *54 for extension hold. -=EPS=- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 16:15:33 EDT From: Amit Parghi Subject: Canadian Regulators Order LD Rate Discounts First, some background: The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is the federal agency responsible for regulation of radio, TV, and phone service in Canada. Bell Canada (once a division of, but no longer related to, Ma Bell in the States) serves Ontario, Quebec, and part of the Northwest Territories. B.C. Tel serves British Columbia, and NorthWestel serves the Yukon and the rest of the Northwest Territories. Teleglobe Canada provides [I think] international service to the regional telcos, while Telesat Canada provides satellite services both to the telcos and to individual [usually corporate] customers. All figures are in Canadian dollars. Excerpted from the Toronto _Globe_and_Mail_, Tuesday, 18 July 1989: PROVIDE DISCOUNTS WORTH $288 MILLION TO LONG-DISTANCE CALLERS, BELL ORDERED Less than a month after Bell Canada was told to give $261-million in free basic telephone service to its customers, it has been ordered to give long-distance users a $288-million dollar discount. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission yesterday also ordered B.C. Tel, Northwestel and Teleglobe Canada to reduce their long- distance rates by October 2, 1989. Telesat Canada was ordered to give up part of a 5.5 percent increase it would have implemented on January 1. The CRTC ruling follows a decision announced June 22 by the Supreme Court of Canada that requires Bell Canada to repay its customers $261-million in overcharges by providing two months of free basic service. Because of reductions in corporate income tax rates and changes in the way deferred taxes are calculated, the CRTC ruled that the five federally regulated long-distance companies overshot the total amount of deferred taxes they are allowed to carry by $350-million. The companies are required to create a reserve account in the amount they have exceeded their allowable tax deferment and charge against it over five years while giving equivalent long-distance rate reductions. [...] The CRTC did not dictate to the companies which of their long-distance rates they should reduce and by how much. That is at their discretion. [...] The CRTC's move to reduce the carriers' deferred tax total by forcing them to cut long-distance rates is in keeping with its policies of the past four years, said Eamon Hoey, president of [...] a telecommunications research firm in Toronto. "Any savings it has been finding in any cases it has been hearing since it put an embargo on increases to local rates have been in keeping with its policy of reducing long-distance rates," he said. *** End of story. Even more interesting than this recent decision is the CRTC's earlier decision (which I haven't seen discussed on on TELECOM), which ordered Bell Canada to pay back CAN$261-million in local service charges to its customers. Bell appealed the ruling on the basis that the CRTC had no authority to order a retroactive refund. After a good deal of legal wrangling (leading up to the Supreme Court of Canada), the Supreme Court ruled that the CRTC did in fact have this authority. Bell has decided to implement the refund by giving two months of free local service (which is about CAN$8.75 per month, plus touch- tone rates and phone rental[s]) to all customers who had Bell Canada service as of October 14, 1986 - the date of the original CRTC ruling ordering the refund. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 10:07 EST From: "Chuck Bennett (919)966-1134" Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter > From: "Glen M. Marianko" > Subject: Answering Machine Interrupter > Date: 21 Jul 89 17:52:01 GMT > Organization: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY > Age old answering machine problem: forget to turn off answering machine > when you get home, phone rings, answering machine picks up and you > pick up. You scream to the person on the line to hold on while you > run to shut the &#*$% thing off. > Some companies have added a nifty feature to answering machines which > will kill the machine if an extension picks up. Anyone hear of any > such add-on gizmo to go in-line with the answering machine and the > telco jack? Seems doable... Such a device is available through the Joan Cook catalog. Sorry I don't have the address but 800 information has 800-327-3799 as their number. The device looks like a 1 to 2 RJ-11 adapter and has a red and a green LED on top. One plugs it into the jack, the answering machine into one of the outputs and the phone into the other output(not really necessary). Picking up any phone on the line will shut off the answering machine. The cost is about $15. I love mine. Chuck Bennett ------------------------------ From: Bob Clements Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 24 Jul 89 14:51:05 GMT Reply-To: Bob Clements In article John DeArmond writes: |In article glen@aecom.yu.edu (Glen |M.Marianko) writes: |>Age old answering machine problem: forget to turn off answering machine |>Anyone hear of any |>such add-on gizmo to go in-line with the answering machine and the |>telco jack? Seems doable... |I saw just such a gizmo Friday in either The Sharper Image or Brookstone. |It looked like one of these little 1-to-2 outlet splitters you can get |at radio shack except it had a couple of LEDs in it. you hook your |extention phone and answering machine in thru this thing. When you |pick up, the answering machine is cut off. Works only for that |phone, though. |john I answered Glen directly in email, but I'll respond to John's answer since it was posted: If the one you saw is the same one as in the Fordham Scope catalog, which it sounds like from the physical description, then John's last sentence is incorrect. It works from any phone on the pair, even if it is NOT fed through the gizmo. Amazing for a $7.95 gizmo, but true. Bob Clements, K1BC, clements@bbn.com ------------------------------ From: John Gayman Subject: Re: Phone line surge protection Date: 24 Jul 89 17:38:31 GMT Organization: WA3WBU, Marysville,PA In article , mit-amt!geek%mit-amt. media.mit.edu@eecs.nwu.edu (Chris Schmandt) writes: > Well, as long as we're on the topic of surge protection and lightening > arresters... Several postings have painted a pretty bleak picture > on the probability of my gear surviving a strike on the phone line, > which is claimed to be not that uncommon an event. So, can anyone > suggest a reasonable approach to protection (i.e., a product?) and > any evidence that it will work? Tripp-lite (sp) makes a very nice modular surge suppressor. It is a small box with a female RJ-11 recepticle and a male RJ-11 on a short pigtail. It also has a threaded post to which you hook earth ground. These do not appear to be the cheapy MOV-type of suppressors. They have avalanche diodes, gas dis-charge tubes and MOVs. I have them on both my lines and well.......for the past 3 years.......welll..... no problem yet. :-) It's like putting flat-proof in your tires, does it work ? One things for sure, they do *not* degradate the lines at all. I've found quite a spread price-wise. The same unit going from $69.00 locally to $27 mail-order. Hope this helps. John -- John Gayman, WA3WBU | UUCP: uunet!wa3wbu!john 1869 Valley Rd. | ARPA: john@wa3wbu.uu.net Marysville, PA 17053 | Packet: WA3WBU @ AK3P ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 14:03:45 PDT From: Pete Brown <940se@mather1.af.mil> Subject: Re: long distance directory assistance >Date: Fri, 12 May 89 08:44:31 EDT >From: Steve Elias >Subject: long distance directory assistance >this is probably old news to many readers, but you can save a dime on >your 1***5551212 calls by prefixing with 10ATT. ATT still charges 50 cents >per directory assistance calls... does anyone know of another carrier >which matches ATTs rate for directory assistance? This, too, is probably old news, but I have *just* discovered that one can call long distance information (1-415-555-1212, for example) *without charge* when the call is made from a Pac Bell coin phone (which also speaks to AT&T as its default carrier... maybe a coincidence?) Pete Brown Mather AFB, CA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #254 *****************************   Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 0:04:50 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #255 Message-ID: <8907260004.aa18992@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 26 Jul 89 00:00:08 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 255 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Telephone Service in Denmark (Lars J. Poulsen) The Good and Bad Points About PacBell (David Gast) Re: Unusual Recorded Messages (John G. Dobnick) Re: Unusual Recorded Messages (John Boteler) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Mike Trout) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Otto J. Makela) Re: Long Distance Directory Assistance (Laura Halliday) Re: Dialing Area Codes (Jim Gottlieb) Re: When Sprint Was Part of the Railroad (Peter da Silva) What's the Simplest Way to Identify the L.D. Carrier? (Fred Blonder) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lars J Poulsen Subject: Telephone Service in Denmark Date: 25 Jul 89 17:56:11 GMT Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California In article dan@sics.se (Dan Sahlin) writes about numbering plan changes in Sweden and says: >For some reason, I find it much harder to remember an 8-digit number >than a 7 digit number, so I don't like those plans at all. Amen !! When I first moved from Denmark where the numbers were 6-digit, (written as "64 46 05") I at first found it hard to memorize 7-digit numbers (here written as "682-2272"). I still need to write them down (can't remember them for the 2 minutes it takes from a directory assistance call to the time I'm ready to dial) but local numbers are easier because of the limited number of prefixes I mostly deal with. And the universal (3)+3+4 format aids in recognizing incomplete numbers. I would really hate variable length numbers with up to 8 digits as is now planned for Stockholm. >I've read that Paris and Denmark have already changed into 8 digit numbers, >and that Norway is planning to do the same. Denmark is served by 4 telephone companies: - The eastern part of the country is served by KTAS, the Copenhagen telephone company. This is a common stock company but the controlling interest is held by various local governments (cities and counties). Thus, traditionally, is has exhibited the worst traits of bureaucratic governments and exploitative monopoly businesses. - The Jylland (Jutland) mainland is served by JTAS, the Jutland telephone company. This common stock company has always been very well managed, on the leading edge of technology and eager to pursue joint development efforts with telephone equipment manufacturers in their area (such as Kirk, now a division of Alcatel and Bang and Olufsen). The excellent service of JTAS was a welcome surprise for Copenhageners that moved west. In recent years, JTAS has moved agressively into cable television. - The island of Fyn (Funen) is served by FKTS, the Funen Municipal Telephone Company. This is a non-profit partnership between the local governments in the area and traditionally provided service somewhere between the level of the two larger companies. - The southern part of Jutland (under German rule from 1864-1920) as well as a few smaller islands and all long-distance service (international as well as between the above service areas) is handled by "Rigstelefonen", a division of the Post and Telegraph bureau of the ministry of public works. With the implementation of automatic dialing in the 1950's and 1960's, telephone numbers were standardized to 7 digits for a full number. In the Jutland areas, the number was divided into a two-digit area code (not dialed for calls within area; prefixed with 0 for calls out of area) and a 5-digit number; in the other service areas, a single-digit area code was followed by a 6-digit number. In the late 1960's the Jutland numbers were reassigned to match the 1+6 plan. I believe this was done in order to make numbers that were unused in some of the smaller areas available for new prefixes in the faster-growing Aarhus area. In the 1970's Copenhagen went through an area code split; the suburban ring of the old (01) area along with the adjoining strip of the old (03) area was turned into a new (02) area. This must have been planned long in advance, because it could be done without reassigning any prefixes. In early 1988 a switch to 8-digit number was announced. At first, the change consisted of ALWAYS DIALING THE AREA CODE, including the 0. In May 1989 the second part took effect: The 0 was replaced by new digits. Most numbers had predictable substitutions, (01 -> 31, 02 -> 42, 03 -> 53 etc.) and I think incoming calls (from overseas) to old numbers are still processed. My initial reaction to this reassignment was totally negative. I thought they could have freed up enough numbers simply by going to US-style 7-digit numbers, but after seeing how many additional numbers seem to be used up by FAXes and modems these days, I can see why they felt they needed more numbers. The alternative of adding more area codes (going back to 2-digit area codes) would have forced the trauma of simultaneous area code splits on the whole country. Dan Sahlin also suggests a universal "international selector" prefix. While this is a great idea, it would lead to much reassignment because everybody already is using the high-visibility escape sequences. I agree that "00" would be a good choice. In Denmark, 00 is used for "special services"; 0033 is directory assistance; 0034 is number-to-address lookup; 0051 is headline news; 0052 is sports news; 0053 is weather; 0055 is time; 0014 through 0019 are various overseas operators; 009 is international dial-it-yourself (I hope I remebered these right, it's been a few years). I suspect that Denmark may be preparing for 00 dialing, though, because before the recent reallocation these seemed to be available via 9900xx as well as via 00xx. / Lars Poulsen (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 17:36:14 -0700 From: David Gast Subject: The Good and Bad Points About Pac Bell In re: article > But once again, Pacific Bell seems to be the industry laggard. No > mention anywhere of CLASS features, on a trial basis or otherwise, for > customers of Pac*Bell. ... > But on the other hand, it has always seemed as though every single user > feature or convenience has become commonplace in the rest of the > country before Californians even hear about it. While 976 was going > relatively smoothly everywhere else, it has been completely botched in > California. Consumers are unhappy; providers are unhappy; even Pac*Bell > says they're unhappy (and they created the mess!) Well, John should be happy. An article in the paper a day or two ago said that PacBell would become the first RBOC to offer 900 service. I am not sure that will improve my telephone service or lower my cost of service, but perhaps it will. I personally have never called and do not intend to call any 976 or 900 number. I also think that the charges should vary with time of day. I hope that CLASS stays out of CA for a long time. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Jul 89 02:48:01 -0500 From: John G Dobnick Subject: Re: Unusual Recorded Messages >> If you know of unusual or different recorded announcements in your community >> please send them along to the Digest. [Edit the following as you wish -- maybe it will be useful to someone. Maybe it will be useful to Wisconsin Bell. :-) ] From the Milwaukee, Wisconsin white pages (Area Code 414): Dial-A-Devotion 762-8922 Dial a Jewish Story 962-8176 For more information -- 962-0566 Dial-A-Poem 372-7636 Dial-A-Prayer Calvary 372-4752 Dial-A-Prayer Lutheran-God-Love 463-5683 Kids Line 463-7446 Spanish 463-0464 Teen 463-4357 Dial-A-Prayer Unity 475-5468 Dial-a-Rambam 962-1817 I have not tried any of these -- my phone bill is large enough as it is. -- John G Dobnick Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee INTERNET: jgd@csd4.milw.wisc.edu UUCP: !uwvax!uwmcsd1!jgd "Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight." -- William Safire [Moderator's Note: Can someone please explain what a 'rambam' is; as in 'Dial A Rambam'??? Is it anything like Dial A Gay Atheist? Should I spend thirteen cents on Reach Out tonight to find out? Is it worth thirteen cents? PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Unusual Recorded Messages Date: Mon, 24 Jul 89 21:11:50 EDT From: John Boteler Many of the new 5ESS switches going up around the Washington area have plant test numbers for many of the intercept recordings. One of the neatest ones to perplex a friend with is: "We're sorry, the phone you are using is not in service at this time." Actually, as I understand it, a nummer 5 ESS issues this recording on a line which is connected to the frame but whose account is inactive. I am told you still get dial tone, but when you try to place a call you get the above recording. I wonder how many people have gotten this before. Bote uunet!cyclops!csense!bote {mimsy,sundc}!{prometheus,hqda-ai}!media!cyclops!csense!bote [Moderator's Note: One that mystified me for awhile was "The number you have dialed, abc-wxyz is a working number. Please hang up and dial again." Like, if it knew what you were dialing, and it is a working number, why didn't the call simply go through? Answer: In some places, a live operator still answers intercept and asks for the number then bubbles it in to produce the recorded answer. If you really dialed a wrong number thinking you were dialing the right number, an automated process would announce the wrong number. In a manual intercept, the operator has to take your word for what you say you *thought* you were dialing. PT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Trout Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 25 Jul 89 19:02:01 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY In article , glen@aecom.yu.edu (Glen M. Marianko) writes: > Age old answering machine problem: forget to turn off answering machine > when you get home, phone rings, answering machine picks up and you > pick up. You scream to the person on the line to hold on while you > run to shut the &#*$% thing off. I wasn't aware that my machine was anything special, but I NEVER turn it off, even when I'm home. It's a Panasonic (I can supply the model number if anybody's interested) and has adjustable two- or four-ring pickup. I keep it set on four rings (which really works out to almost five), and as long as I pick up the receiver before then, the machine doesn't kick in. Works no matter which extension I pick up (I have four active phones, plus many more jacks). Do I have a unique answering machine, or am I misunderstanding the problem? -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ From: "Otto J. Makela" Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 26 Jul 89 00:01:02 GMT Reply-To: "Otto J. Makela" Organization: Grand Hall of Justice, Mega-City One Over here in Finland, you can get a small plug-type device (we use these huge ugly phone plugs instead of modulars) which you can place between the answering machine and the wallplug. If an extension phone is lifted, the answering machine is cut off. The price is an exorbitant $20 for a 5x5cm piece of plastic with probably one relay inside it ! Otto J. Makela, University of Jyvaskyla InterNet: makela@tukki.jyu.fi, BitNet: MAKELA_OTTO_@FINJYU.BITNET BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.22bis/V.22/V.21, 24h/d), Phone: +358 41 613 847 Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 89 9:01 -0700 From: laura halliday Subject: Re: Long Distance Directory Assistance Long distance directory assistance is free here in B.C. For local information you call 411, as usual, but it will cost you 55 cents (Canadian) if the number is in the local phone book. Unless you're calling from a pay phone or are handicapped or it's an emergency, in which case there is no charge. Long distance directory assistance is free for anywhere in Canada, with no limit. You are allowed 250 calls per month to U.S. directory assistance numbers, after which you pay 50 cents per call. Overseas directory assistance varies with the country. England and France are free, while they charged me a couple of dollars to get a phone number in South Africa. South Africa? That's a story in itself. Rather than send a postcard or some- thing similarly low-tech when it was Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday last year, I decided to try phoning him. The people at Polsmoor (where he was being held at the time) were happy to take a message... ...laura ------------------------------ From: Jim Gottlieb Subject: Re: Dialing Area Codes Date: 25 Jul 89 17:24:02 GMT Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles In article malcolm@apple.com writes: >Why is it that I'm not allowed to dial the area code when I'm calling somebody >local? >This is so agravating! I have often wondered this myself, especially after living in Japan, where there is no penalty for dialing your own area code. It's true that often you don't know what area code you are in (you stop at a pay phone). Why not just ignore the area code if it is the one you are in? Bellcore, how about a change? -- Jim Gottlieb E-Mail: or or V-Mail: (213) 551-7702 Fax: 478-3060 The-Real-Me: 824-5454 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Jul 89 22:06:50 -0400 From: ficc!peter@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: When Sprint Was Part of the Railroad Those poor early SPRINT customers. The line quality on railroad phone systems has to be heard to be believed. Large sections of bare fencing wire (yes, on real fences), crosstalk from code lines, etc... --- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "...helping make the world Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | a quote-free zone..." Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | -- hjm@cernvax.cern.ch [Moderator's Note: They were long past the barbed wire on the fence post days when Sprint started. It was because they greatly modernized their system and found themselves financially embarassed as a result that they decided to sell the excess capacity. But you are correct about the old railroad phone networks. They were the pits. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Jul 89 14:35:48 edt From: Blonder Subject: What's the simplest way to find the L.D. carrier for a line? This has probably been discussed here before. If so, please reply directly to me: Is there a quick way from any given phone line to find out what the default long distance carrier is? Dial some magic test number? Call the operator? (Make a long distance call and wait for the bill? ;-) ) ----- Fred Blonder David Taylor Research Center (202) 227-1428 [Moderator's Note: Dialing 1-700-555-1212 from most phones will produce a recorded announcement giving the name of the default carrier for that line. To force the recorded announcements for other csrriers, dial 10xxx followed by 1-700-555-1212. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #255 *****************************   Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 1:10:53 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #256 Message-ID: <8907260110.aa31482@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 26 Jul 89 00:50:03 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 256 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Query: GE XR-3001 & Cellular One? (Ralph Hyre) Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? (Henry Mensch) Re: Sprint's Universal Points of Presence (John Higdon) Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned (Don Stanwyck) Re: When You Run Out of Pairs (Russell Shackelford) [Moderator's Note: My goodness, we are crabby and cranky today, full of oil and vinegar as the last three items will illustrate. Maybe it is the gawd-awful heat here or something. If you don't want to read flames and rebuttals to flames, kindly abort the Digest following the second message. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1989 15:07-EDT From: Ralph.Hyre@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu Subject: Query: GE XR-3001 & Cellular One? Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI I'm thinking of jumping into the cellular phone fray: A local electronics and appliance is offering the GE XR-3000 (or XR-3001, the label on the phone and the sign disagree) 'luggable' phone for $49.99, as long as you sign up for a year of cellular service. How would one obtain the service manual available for this device? (I want to use my AT&T (aka Plantronics SP-2) headset so I can use it hands-free while driving ... [via the DB-9 connector which is used to attach the handset/keypad to the base unit.] The service costs $14.95 month and .60peak/.15off-peak for up to 25 minutes of airtime/month. [I don't expect to use it much more than that, but if I did, I'd be bumped up to the $30.00/month level with comparable airtime charges.] Cellular One is introducing a feature (called AirShare) which means there are no airtime charges for incoming calls. The retailer said that if they service provider were to eventually impose a monthly fee for this service, that the phone would have to be brought in and re-programmed at that time. (What is the reason for this? Do they change the ESN of the phone?) In summary, does this sounds like a reasonable deal? $200/year + airtime, and the phone is basically free. I currently have two land-based phone lines, so I could drop one (saving $9.00/month) and use the cellular phone for other calls. [does any carrier offer 'hunting' or busy/NA forwaring between regular and cellular phones?] Finally, has anyone modified any cellular phone to go out of band or otherwise change it's behavior? (I'd need to be able to transmit whether a cell had picked me up or not.) I'd love to have a 902-928 Mhz. amateur transceiver that I only paid $49 for. (The repeater/trunked base system would cost a good bit, I guess, but the Japanese CB service is a trunked system.) I would obey all FCC regulations (ie never revert to cellular operation or other than amateur band operation since I assume that any modifications would presumably remove the radios type acceptance for the cellular band. [radios for the amateur bands need not be FCC type accepted.] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Jul 89 18:46:49 -0400 From: Henry Mensch Subject: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? Reply-To: henry@garp.mit.edu >PS. Isn't it about time that the world would agree on the international >access code, i.e. the code that you replace the +-sign with in your >international telephone number? In Sweden (and Denmark) we dial 009, >but many in many countries in Europe it is the more logical 00. Why is 00 more logical than 009 (or 011 in Canada and the US), or 0011 (in Australia)? # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / {ames,mit-eddie}!henry / ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Sprint's Universal Points of Presence Date: 25 Jul 89 07:03:29 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , McConnaughey@cup.portal. com writes: > > 5) I called PacBell information (411) and NPA 555-1212 to get area codes and > exchange prefixes for the rural areas you mentioned. I then called US Sprint > Customer service at (1)800-877-4646 and inquired about Sprint service in Weed, > Baker, and Los Banos. The results are as follows: > > > Location NPA NXX Equal Access Date Sprint FGD offered > ________ ___ ___ _________________ __________________ > Weed 916 938 12/10/88 yes > Baker 619 733 not PacBell area FGD not available > Los Banos 209 826 not PacBell area FGD not available Better check again, only use a source that knows something of which they speak. Having recently been to both Baker and Los Banos, I can tell you that if they are not Pac*Bell areas, then there is a serious problem with a COCOT company pirating their name and logo on the public phones! You may be partially correct about Baker's lack of equal access. The CO is very "honker step by step", but it is definately, absolutely, and completely Pacific Bell. Regarding Los Banos, you are completely wet. It is #5 crossbar equipped with CONTAC and very Pacific Bell and very equal access. As far as calling Sprint Customer service is concerned, how on earth did you get through? I usually give up after a 30 minute wait; you must be much more persistent. Oh, that's right. You work there. You have demonstrated one of my gripes with OCCs: they really don't seem to have an handle on the nitty-gritty of the business. If Sprint is unaware of what operating company serves Los Banos and Baker, what else do they not have a clue about? > 8) Lastly, it seems that you believe that AT&T has provided universal service > out of the goodness of its corporate heart. Until the recent price cap > regulation (an outgrowth of divestiture and regulatory liberalization, the > results of which seem almost painful to you) AT&T was GUARANTEED an adequate > return on its capital investment in ALL areas, rural and metropolitan. This > has never been the case with the OCCs. It took no significant financial Then WHY are OCC rates practically the same as AT&T's? Since they have not been mandated to serve rural areas (and most certainly do not) they should be able to undercut the socks off of AT&T. But no, there are nickel and dime discounts off of AT&T rates, rates you claim were guaranteed to provide a decent rate-of-return for serving high *and* low profit areas. In many cases OCCs have higher rates than AT&T for a decidedly inferior product. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: "D. Stanwyck" Subject: Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned Date: 25 Jul 89 12:24:27 GMT Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ In article , telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) says: > A while back in the Digest, I printed a schedule of seminars on the subject > of 'Understanding ISDN' (Integrated Services Digital Network). These > seminars are sponsored by Telecommunications Research Associates of > St. Marys, Kansas. > > I have recently been notified that some additional seminars have been > planned. <> I, for one, strongly object to this forum, especially as a moderated forum, becoming a place for commercial announcements. Hardly a day goes by that I don't receive yet another advertisement for an ISDN seminar someplace. Many of these seminars are given by people who have no real knowledge of ISDN or the philosophies of ISDN. I therefore beseech thee, sir moderator, to immediately and henceforth remove all commercial messages from your postings. It is a serious disservice to the Usenet community, which has in every group tried to keep the net commerical free, for you to decide to start posting commercials. Thank you. -- Don Stanwyck o o 201-957-6693 AT&T-Bell Labs || mtfmi!stanwyc Middletown, NJ USA \__/ Education Center [Sir Moderator's Note: You raise a good point regards commercialization of news groups. I began posting announcements of seminars, conferences and exhibitions related to telecommunications after a couple of notes appeared in the Digest specifically asking for information on educational programs in telecom. One criteria I use for the postings is whether or not some actual educational achievement will result, for example, by the issuance of CEU's. I recently received some interesting and worthwhile material from George Washington University regarding a series of seminars being offered this fall in telecom-related stuff, only a portion of which is ISDN. I don't think the fact that you have to pay money is relevant. I also review the background of the persons involved in the instruction being offered. It amused me to read your comment that 'many of these seminars are given by people with no real knowledge of the subject...', since the seminars about which you voiced your complaint are all being conducted by persons who are presently or previously employed by Bell Labs! I'll grant you there are bogus 'seminars', and there is commercialization of the networks which carry TELECOM Digest, but I do not sell telephone gimmicks; I do not hawk for long distance companies; nor do I sell tickets or get fees for advertising seminars conducted by Bell Labs people. The seminars are announced as a point of information for readers of the Digest and the related comp.dcom.telecom group of Usenet. I even give the same courtesy to the AT&T Education Center from time to time. If you would like to see more news about *your* organization, then send announcements to me for posting. I'll even type them in! Question to readers: Do you, or do you not enjoy/wish to read seminar/exhibition/conference announcements? Tell me, I'll summarize later. PT] ------------------------------ From: Russell Shackelford Subject: Re: When You Run Out of Pairs Date: 25 Jul 89 23:00:24 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology In article , ben@sybase.com (ben ullrich) writes: > Thanks to Patrick for another nice telecom history tidbit. I did like it. > > BUT, your sexist, female-disparaging remarks leave MUCH to be desired. > > > THE LADY INSTALLER COMES TO VISIT (OR, SHE MEANT WELL, I'M SURE...) [...] > > Brilliant deduction, lady... [...] > > I had to feel sorry for the lady. [...] > > It is interesting to me that this section is preceded by one in which a male > installer who makes a much worse ``blunder'' (disconnecting one of your phone > lines) gets nowhere near the demeaning comments that the ``lady installer'' > gets. The above (quoted) section sounds to me like this installer was > bad simply because she was a woman, and that for some reason women just > aren't as suitable for installers as men are. Or that they are, but > their blunders are blamed on different sources. Disgusting. Wait a minute, please. I agree that the word-choice of the original poster does not conform to current dogma about how one is SUPPOSED to express oneself. However, I think you were a bit quick to jump on him for being "demeaning" and "disgusting". It seems pretty obvious to me that the poster is in Senior Citizen country, recalling things that are historically interesting. His language reflects common word usage among people of his generation. I see no reason to ASSUME that he "meant to imply" x, y, or z. He talks like my father talks, and if his outlook is similar (which I have no way of knowing), he's a pretty good guy who will give people a chance. He just hasn't "hipped" his vocabulary, just as you probably won't when your 65. It seems pretty scary to me when people get jumped on because YOU don't like their pronouns or nouns. He did NOT use "dish", or "babe", or anything else suggestive or demeaning. He just referred to her as "lady". My guess is that most women of his generation find such word choice perfectly acceptable. The milkman calls my girl friend "lady" and jokes with her in a way that reflects stereotyped roles. She likes it, in that she perceives the INTENT as being friendly and neighborly. IF she perceived him as rude or insulting, she'd lay him out quick and he'd remember the confrontation. But he is well meaning and friendly and no harm is done to anyone. How do you know so much about what this guy meant or implied? You don't. YOU are the one reacting to stereotypes, not him. Lighten up. We don't need the Brain Police. There's worse crimes. -- Russell Shackelford School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332 russ@prism.gatech.edu (404) 834-4759 [A Note From Grandpa: Hey! I don't know whether to say 'thank you', or say, 'a plague on both your houses!'. I am not a senior citizen, although as you say, there are worse crimes! :) I will admit to having a limited vocabularly however. Two yeer's ugo I coodunt even spel Usenest. Now I are a Moderator and a grammpa. The heat is getting to me tonight. 12:45 AM and the temperature is still in the eighties. Your ole grammpa is having a heat stroke and besides it is past his bedtime. Both of your comments will be taken under advisement. Old Grand Dad] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #256 *****************************   Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 0:18:01 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #257 Message-ID: <8907270018.aa27592@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 Jul 89 00:00:05 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 257 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson 10288 Numbers Revisited (Don Peaslee) London Dial Codes Table, Listed by Exchange (Dave Lockwood) Prefix 666 in Two Areas (Carl Moore) Another Local Call From Pa. to Del. (Carl Moore) The Meaning of Rambam (Edward Greenberg) Dial-a-Rambam (Steve Bellovin) RaMBaM (benson@odi.com) Clarification: Internal Dialing Within Foreign Countries (Peter G. Capek) Dial-a-Rambam (Sam Cramer) Re: When Sprint Belonged to the Railroad (James W. Green) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: pnet01!pro-party!d.m.p.@trout.nosc.mil Date: Tue, 18 Jul 89 09:36:22 CST From: Don Peaslee Subject: 10288 Numbers Revisited After a San Antonio caller was billed for prefixing several _local_ calls with "10288", Patrick earlier responded: >[Moderator's Note: Baloney, baloney, baloney! Prefixing a call with >10288 does nothing except force the call to be routed via AT&T. It >does not incur extra charges other than whatever slight difference >there is between AT&T rates to the point in question and whatever >other carrier was being used. If you dial an intra-lata call (a call >within your own town, for example) using 10288 as the leading code, it >is likely the call will be rejected and you will have to dial over >again. I've tried this, and at least here in Chicago, dialing 10288 >followed by a seven digit (or ten digit, but within IBT's lata) number >and a recording says the call cannot be completed as dialed. Whether >or not you get 'cleaner' lines by forcing your call over AT&T is a >very subjective matter. But in and of itself, 10288 is a way of >routing long distance calls -- not a special feature to insure clean >lines at an added cost. PT] =-=-=- And Larry Collins, the above referenced caller, now replies (slightly edited for brevity): I take exception to Patrick's "Baloney" statement. Anybody who cares to invest potentially a nickel a minute will find that prefixing a San Antonio number with "10288" will connect with no problems. If he, or anyone else has the gall to doubt what I say, I will be happy to forward photocopies of my phone bill, showing long-distance charges from my San Antonio number to Shadow Taker's San Antonio number, and to Black Angel's number, from AT&T, just as I laid out in my first message. ...some text deleted... Furthermore, in the case of Shadow Taker BBS, whether it gives cleaner lines is not subjective. I get too much noise to even get a connect 100% of the time without it, and I get clean to mostly-clean connections 100% of the time when using it, though it seemed to make no difference on the three occasions I used it to call Black Angel BBS. =-=-=- And then another individual reading this exchange jumped in with: Better explain to Patrick that his Chicago set up with Midwest Bell or whatever definitely DOES NOT apply in the 512 area! You dial 10288 and Southwestern Bell will connect you to AT&T when you can dial ANY area code. I can dial via AT&T from the BBS machine to the other machine that way and pick up a $.05 charge for just connecting. Also, ALMOST anywhere that has PC Pursuit has 8-1-N protocol, but not San Antonio. The PCP modem here is strictly 7-1-E if you want to communicate! Don't know how many examples of working script files I have seen from other areas that flat will not work here because of the protocol difference. Larry and I had discussed 'free service' from Ma Bell and agreed there had to be some kind of catch to it. However, the ability to use another carriers lines to access a different prefix in the San Antonio does prove what I have been saying for years, Ma Bell has messed up interface between the various exchanges within San Antonio. Larry's calls most likely went from his local switch to Houston or Dallas for switching back direct to the switch serving Shadow Taker. To makes things simple, San Antonio is NOT like the rest of the world in regards to telephone service. Maybe in 2-3 years we will be caught up to where the rest of the US was last year. Vern =-=-=- (DP: I dunno, Patrick, can things be all that different in a large metropolitan area like San Antonio or is it just this heat wave we're having???) [Moderator's Note: Well, Illinois Bell definitly plugs out attempts to use 10anything for stuff within their own LATA. That's all I know. It must be the terrible heat. Grammpa almost had a heat stroke yesterday, and the combination heat/humidity is no better this morning. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: London Dial Codes Table, Listed by Exchange Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 13:18:02 BST From: Dave Lockwood There has been some chat here about the changes to dialling codes in the London, UK area. So.... Current London numbers are of the form '01-XXX-NNNN' where '01' is the (current) national area code for Greater London. Natch, if you're dialling from outside the UK, you drop the zero... From May 6, 1990, the '01' prefix disappears completely to be replaced by '071' and '081'. The 'XXX-NNNN' section remains unchanged. Here's a chart for the 'XXX' (local exchange id) to show whether '071' or '081' will be used. '071' will be used where 'XXX' is: 210-289, 320-329, 350-359, 370-389, 400-409, 430-439, 473-474, 476, 480-499, 511-512, 515, 537-538, 580-589, 600-639, 700-739, 790-799, 820-839, 920-938, 976, 978, 987. '081' will be used for all other 'XXX' combinations currently used (there are numerous unused ones). Incidentally, '071' will be Central London, and '081' Outer London. For a period after the change, recorded announcements will be made on '01' numbers. UK phone phreaks can get more detail by dialling 0800- 800873 for a rap with British Telecom Customer Service (read into that title what you will...:-). The final warning from Telecom is that subscribers who end up in the '071' area wanting to dial someone in the '081' area will need to dial the '081'....they didn't need to dial the old '01'. Disclaimer: I have no connection with BT apart from a few metallic ones. * I I Dave Lockwood These opinions are shareware. * II Technical Consultant If you like them, send $10... * I * * * ** * davel@vision.UUCP VisionWare Ltd, * * * * ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!vision!davel Leeds Business Park, ** ** +44-532-529292 X2439 Leeds, LS27 0JG, * * United Kingdom VISIONWARE DOS/UNIX Integration ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 11:12:09 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: prefix 666 in 2 areas There was a very recent note citing 215-666; that's Valley Forge, Pa. There is a 301-666 in Cockeysville, Md., north of Baltimore. I never heard any fuss about either 666. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 10:37:29 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Another Local Call From Pa. to Del. I went back to that pay phone in Kemblesville, Pa. on 215-255, and tried (without having inserted coin) 302-328-xxxx and got a recording telling me to dial the leading 1. (302-328 is New Castle, Del., and has no local service to Pa.) But then 302-451-2761 (noted in an earlier message from me) got instead the message about 25-cent deposit. And as in my earlier message, that latter number (in Newark) went thru when I dialed after 25-cent deposit (and no leading 1). ------------------------------ From: Edward Greenberg Subject: The Meaning of Rambam Date: 26 Jul 89 20:36:38 GMT Reply-To: Edward Greenberg Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest >Dial-a-Rambam 962-1817 > >... > >[Moderator's Note: Can someone please explain what a 'rambam' is; as in >'Dial A Rambam'??? Is it anything like Dial A Gay Atheist? Should I spend >thirteen cents on Reach Out tonight to find out? Is it worth thirteen >cents? PT] The RAMBAM is a Jewish Sage. RAMBAM is an acronym for "Reb Moshe Ben Maimon," known more commonly as Maimonades. Referring to "A" Rambam, refers to a lesson from the teachings of The RAMBAM. You'll note that the prefix for Dial-a-Rambam is 962, same as Dial-a-Jewish-Story. I'll bet that both are operated by the same organization, Chabad, the outreach arm of the Lubavicher Chassidim, an Ultra-Orthodox group. Call the "For More Info" number for "more info." Curiouser and curiouser, I called it. My Jewish education isn't what it could be, so I found it to be above my head. Todays message deals with the transmission of spiritual impurities from person to person. (I think :-) Our local Chabad has a Dial-A-Jewish-Story also (I don't remember the number.) It seems that some appropriately religious computer folks in Brooklyn put together a system which runs on an IBM XT with a voice board. You get the framework for offering Audiotext of a Jewish Story, a message from the Rabbi, and so forth. There's also a jewish calendar to Gregorian (regular) calendar converter that is offered in the context of birthday and death anniversary translation. (Finding out when the anniversary of your father's death falls this year is important to many observant Jews.) The local group records the messages. This system didn't have the capability to modify the menus, but it was promised in a future release. Given the fact that the authors are (by definition) more interested in Torah Study than programming, seeing this as a means to an end, I found the software and documentation to be less than it could have been. With the advent of Voice Boards for PC's, it's possible to get into the Audiotext business with a very small investment. We're going to see lots more of this as the technology gets more available. -edg P.S. Patrick, I think this is tamer than "Dial-a-Gay-Athiest" and unless you've got an appropriate Jewish Education, not much fun. -- Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg ------------------------------ From: smb@ulysses.att.com Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 07:57:25 EDT Subject: Dial-a-Rambam Equating the Rambam with a gay atheist will definitely make some folks unhappy... ``Rambam'' is the acronym for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known in English as Maimonides. Maimonides was a 12th-centry Spanish-born Egyptian physician, philosopher, and teacher. He is one of the greatest theologians in Jewish history. (Acronyms are a common method of abbreviation in Hebrew; they work better than in English because only consonants have letters, and vowel marks can be attached to any letter. You thus do not end up with unpronouncable names like DTMF.) --Steve Bellovin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 08:28:03 EDT From: benson@odi.com Subject: RaMBaM Rabeinu Moshe ben Maimon, heavy duty Jewish Sage of the 12-13 century. (I may by off by a century or 2). I imagine the line provides quotations of his. I imagine you will get some steamed mail for your flippant comparison. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 11:19:38 EDT From: "Peter G. Capek" Subject: Clarification: Internal Dialing in Foreign Countries Thank you for publishing my submission to TELECOM dated 17 July in issue 242. I fear I may have misworded it, thereby eliciting a response from you which indicated I was unclear. What I'd like is the information to complete a table in the following form: Country Country Code City Code LD Prefix Foreign Name (min-max) Prefix USA 1 3-3 1 011 Switzerland 41 1-2 0 00 (??) Finland 358 1-3 9 990 In other words, I know about the list of country codes. What I need is information about dialing rules from within a country to within it, and outside it. I did get one helpful direct response from a reader in Finland, but so far, no more. I find it hard to believe that this information isn't already collected in some place. Did I ask the wrong question? Thanks. Peter Capek ------------------------------ Subject: Dial-a-Rambam Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 09:11:56 PDT From: cramer@sun.com Rambam (also known as Maimonides), is a Jewish scholar and philosopher who was born in Spain in the Middle Ages. The Lubavitch Chassidic sect is particularly fond of his writings, and I suspect that they are the sponsors of the "Dial a Jewish Story" and "Dial a Rambam" messages. Sam ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 6:59:46 CDT From: "James W. Green" Subject: Re: When Sprint Belonged to the Railroad PT: Reference your comment on Peter da Silva's remarks in vol 9 no 255: >[Moderator's Note: They were long past the barbed wire on the fence post >days when Sprint started. It was because they greatly modernized their >system and found themselves financially embarassed as a result that they >decided to sell the excess capacity. But you are correct about the old railroad >phone networks. They were the pits. PT] Do you mean they were like today's autovon? JIM ? James W. Green (+ -) US Army Material Command -vvv--U--vvv- Systems Integration and Management Activity Opinion? When the (Attn: AMXSI-CFP) e-mail addresses: Army wants Civil PO Box 1578 green@ST-LOUIS-EMH2.ARMY.MIL Serpents to have St. Louis, MO or opinions, they will 63188-1578 grinch@ST-LOUIS-EMH2.ARMY.MIL issue me one. :-) Telephones - commerical (314) 263-5337 -autovon 693-5337 [Moderator's Note: Smile! Thanks for a chuckle to close this issue! PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #257 *****************************   Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 1:02:11 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #258 Message-ID: <8907270102.aa22238@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 Jul 89 01:00:52 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 258 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson T1 Carrier Solves Shortage of Pairs (Larry Rachman via Ed Greenberg) Re: Query: GE XR-3001 & Cellular One (Dave Fenske) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Otto J. Makela) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Steve Spearman) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Ken Thompson) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Eric Schnoebelen) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (R.A. Anonymous, Jr.) Local Area Calls in Reading, PA (R.A. Anonymous, Jr.) Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies (Andrew Boardman) [Moderator's Note: My special thanks to the many Bitnet users who have responded to the special 'for Bitnet users only' message which was transmitted Wednesday morning. Test complete, and thanks! PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Greenberg Subject: T1 Carrier Solves Shortage of Pairs Date: 26 Jul 89 20:43:14 GMT Reply-To: Edward Greenberg Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest I enjoyed the discussion of running out of pairs in Chicago, and sent it to a friend of mine who isn't on the net. His response seems appropriate for the group, so I asked, and he gave permission to post it. Larry has been doing interconnect and telephone related engineering for about ten years now. I've listed his CompuServe ID for anyone who wants to correspond with him electronically, or you can write to him care of me. >Date: 25-Jul-89 04:31 PDT >From: Larry Rachman [74066,2004] >Subj: Reply to 'pairs' 25 July Greetings... Just (*finally*) was able to read the piece you sent me. The pair situation in NYC is similar, but for other reasons, namely the proliferation of CENTREX. When a 1000-phone office is equipped with a PBX, it needs only about 100 lines, and possibly a few dozen DID (direct inward dialing) trunks. When it switches over to CENTREX, the pair count goes up to 1000. And of course, fax machines, modems, and so forth make the problem even worse. The great saviour has been T1 carrier. Its a 1.544 megabit bidirectional link used to move digitized voice. Its implemented on two twisted pairs, and will typically handle 24 standard voice channels. What happens is these two pairs from the street go into a $15,000 'channel bank' on the customer's premises, and out come 24 dialtones! Pretty neat, eh? One of the stupidities of the whole thing, though, is that many customers are equipping with digital PABXs that can take T1 directly but, since there was no tariff for T1 service, the channel was broken up by a channel bank into 24 dialtones that entered the switch via 24 trunk ports. I heard a rumour (that *surely must be mistaken) about a customer who wanted a bunch of foreign exhange lines from Jersey and put up his own microwave link to hop the river (not unheard of), with a channel bank to funnel a bunch of dialtones into the link. Sure enough, right next to his channel bank was *ANOTHER* channel bank, this one provided by NYNEX, to make the NYNEX T1 into dialtones! One rather disturbing fact about T1 is that 1.544 megabaud dry (no battery) data sounds just like *nothing* if you listen with a butt set. Its not unheard of for installers to reassign one of these 'unused' pairs when hunting for a spare, and, of course, there go 24 voice (and sometimes 64kb data) circuits. A friend of mine who works for an ELFI in NYC has seen it happen several times. Hope all is well there; say hello, etc. for me, LR =================================== -edg -- Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg [Moderator's Note: My thanks for sharing your correspondence with the Digest readers. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed Jul 26 08:42:23 1989 From: Dave Fenske Subject: Re: Query: GE XR-3001 & Cellular One? Reply-To: davef@lakesys.UUCP (Dave Fenske) Organization: Lake Systems - Milwaukee, Wisconsin In article Ralph.Hyre@ius3.ius.cs. cmu.edu writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 256, message 1 of 5 >I'm thinking of jumping into the cellular phone fray: >The service costs $14.95 month and .60peak/.15off-peak for up to 25 minutes >of airtime/month. [I don't expect to use it much more than that, but if I >did, I'd be bumped up to the $30.00/month level with comparable airtime >charges.] There was a question as to cellular phone service features. Let me start by saying in Milwaukee, Cellular One charges $10.00 per month and 40 cents per minute prime / 27 cents non-prime. Obviously, you'd be better off driving up here to make your calls. Call forwarding is offered. No answer transfer (forward call if no answer) is also available. Conference calling is also available. As far as I know, the only "ESS" feature that is not offered is speed dialing. Cellular phones are wonderful. There have been times that I couldn't have surrvied without mine. They are, however, expensive to operate. ------------------------------ From: "Otto J. Makela" Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 26 Jul 89 00:01:02 GMT Reply-To: "Otto J. Makela" Organization: Grand Hall of Justice, Mega-City One Over here in Finland, you can get a small plug-type device (we use these huge ugly phone plugs instead of modulars) which you can place between the answering machine and the wallplug. If an extension phone is lifted, the answering machine is cut off. The price is an exorbitant $20 for a 5x5cm piece of plastic with probably one relay inside it ! Otto J. Makela, University of Jyvaskyla InterNet: makela@tukki.jyu.fi, BitNet: MAKELA_OTTO_@FINJYU.BITNET BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.22bis/V.22/V.21, 24h/d), Phone: +358 41 613 847 Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE ------------------------------ From: Steve Spearman Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 26 Jul 89 14:20:05 GMT Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO In article , stiatl!john@gatech.edu (John DeArmond) says: > In article glen@aecom.yu.edu (Glen M. Marianko) writes: >>Age old answering machine problem: forget to turn off answering machine >>Anyone hear of any >>such add-on gizmo to go in-line with the answering machine and the >>telco jack? Seems doable... > I saw just such a gizmo Friday in either The Sharper Image or Brookstone. > It looked like one of these little 1-to-2 outlet splitters you can get > at radio shack except it had a couple of LEDs in it. you hook your > extension phone and answering machine in thru this thing. When you > pick up, the answering machine is cut off. Works only for that > phone, though. I have one like that described that was ordered through a small company ad in the back of Popular Mechanics or Popular Science. I suspect (though do not know) that it is the same on Sharper Image has. However, it DOES work for any phone in the house. The reason for the splitter arrangement is so your local extension will work like any other phone in cutting off the answering machine. If you plugged it into the answering machine itself (as is often done), only the answering machine could cut itself off - the device has no way to tell about the offhook. Steve Spearman spear@druco.att.com ------------------------------ From: Ken Thompson Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 26 Jul 89 21:31:15 GMT Organization: NCR Corporation, Wichita, KS I used the following circuit with my machine: ________| |________ | | | | | 10uF | | | _____________|_____/\/\/\/\_____|__________ 1Kohm Put it in series with one leg of the pair to the machine only. The cap. passes the ring signal. The resistor is the key here. With the machine off hook the line has a higher resistance, current is relatively constant. The machine thinks it is on a longer drop pair and works normally Lift any phone in the house and most of the current goes to the phone. If the machine checks the current in the loop or has a vox circuit, it does not matter, it thinks the caller has hung up and it also disconnects. -- Ken Thompson N0ITL NCR Corp. 3718 N. Rock Road Wichita,Ks. 67226 (316)636-8783 Ken.Thompson@wichita.ncr.com ------------------------------ From: Eric Schnoebelen Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 26 Jul 89 18:57:07 GMT Reply-To: u-word.k!egs@cs.utexas.edu Organization: John W. Bridges & Associates, Inc., Lewisville, Tx. In article miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) writes: -In article , glen@aecom.yu.edu (Glen M. Marianko) writes: -> Age old answering machine problem: forget to turn off answering machine -> when you get home, phone rings, answering machine picks up and you -> pick up. You scream to the person on the line to hold on while you -> run to shut the &#*$% thing off. - - I wasn't aware that my machine was anything special, but I NEVER turn it off, - even when I'm home. It's a Panasonic (I can supply the model number if - anybody's interested) and has adjustable two- or four-ring pickup. I keep it - set on four rings (which really works out to almost five), and as long as I - pick up the receiver before then, the machine doesn't kick in. Works no - matter which extension I pick up (I have four active phones, plus many more - jacks). Do I have a unique answering machine, or am I misunderstanding the - problem? I didn't think my answering machine was overly special either.. It too is a Panasonic, the dual line model ( about the only special thing about it, or so I thought ) and I too leave it on all the time, with the "toll saver" feature enabled.. If the machine answers, and I want to talk to the person ( perfect for screening calls ) it will hang up after I pick up any extension in the house.. Other features: remote control from any tone pad, complete with replacing the message, selection of which line is answered, time and day of the week stamping, and all of the other "standard" features that come on answering machines these days.. The only thing I wish it had is a way to shut up and hand the call off to a modem if it hears a carrier.. ( that wasn't on the request list when the machine was purchased... ) -- Eric Schnoebelen, JBA Incorporated, Lewisville, Tx. egs@u-word.dallas.tx.us Real Programmers: Real Programmers have trouble suppressing homicidal tendencies when asked, "Are you sure?" ------------------------------ Reply-To: pnet01!pro-sol!pro-newfrontier!pro-nfmail01!pro-harvest!pro-palace!r. a.a.@trout.nosc.mil Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 11:49:07 EST From: "R.A. Anonymous, Jr." Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin You said in your message that, through playing with your line loop resistance, that you could receive a call, while your switch was under the impression that you had not answered.. This was a method used by Phone Phreaks in the early 80's to avoid billing. A phreak would put a 'colored' 'box' (they were labeled by colors) on his/her line and receive calls from other phreaks at the phone co's expense... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rodney Amadeus Anonymous, Jr. | pro-palace!r.a.a. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------ Reply-To: pnet01!pro-sol!pro-newfrontier!pro-nfmail01!pro-harvest!pro-palace!r. a.a.@trout.nosc.mil Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 12:15:44 EST From: "R.A. Anonymous, Jr." Subject: Local Area Calls in Reading, PA In my area (Reading, PA, about one hour outside of Philadelphia), there are three plans for local calling. 'Charge per Call' costs $4.05-$4.45 a month, and all calls are metered after you spend the $.25 allowance they give you. Two-party line service is STILL AVAILABLE on all plans.. Kinda outdated, in my opinion. The second plan, 'Local Calling With Allowance' costs $6.40-$6.80 a month, and is metered after you spend your $4.00 allowance. And finally, there is the almighty 'Unlimited calling to Local Area,' costing $10.60-$11.00/month. Typically, my phone bill (minus my hundred-or-so dollars in LD charges) comes to $15.58 a month, with taxes and the hideous 'Touch Tone charge.' Not bad at all, after I read all the messages on here of people explaining their exorbitant local call charges.. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rodney Amadeus Anonymous, Jr. | pro-palace!r.a.a. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 89 11:59:34 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies Organization: Columbia University In article Patrick wrote: >[...] And how does AT&T handle fraud? Certainly not by red-lining certain >parts of cities where fraud is prevalent, as Sprint has done with NY Port >Authority or Grand Central. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If this is indeed still the case, it is exceptionally funny, as "US Sprint PublicFON Service" (or something very close to that, certainly the Sprint we all know and love) is the default carrier for all public phones in and around Grand Central. (And in the subway below, too.) If I can dig up a Sprint card I'll give it a try and see if they're still blocked. >AT&T is running some ads in Chicago right now which say it all: "You've >tried all the rest -- now come back home to the best." For about a week and a half, fairly recently, they had a series of full-page ads on the back of the first section of the NY Times. Some were very amusing; they all (rightly, IMHO) extolled the virtues of AT&T or explained 10XXX codes and such. /a ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #258 *****************************   Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 0:18:29 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #259 Message-ID: <8907280018.aa17066@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 28 Jul 89 00:00:38 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 259 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Dialling 10XXX on Intra-LATA Calls (John R. Covert) Looking Up #'s Not In The Phone Book (Kenneth Selling) 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? (Mark Brader) Request for Index (Randolph Bentson) Dial 1-(NPA)-CONFUSE (Jim Hickstein) Dial-A Services in Rochester, NY (C. E. Reid) Re: Unusual Recorded Messages (John Limpert) Re: Unusual Recorded Messages (Steven Gutfreund) Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier (Kent Borg) Re: Satanic Exchanges (Dave Smith) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "John R. Covert" Date: 27 Jul 89 10:00 Subject: Dialling 10XXX on intra-LATA calls Our moderator writes: >If you dial an intra-lata call (a call within your own town, for example) >using 10288 as the leading code, it is likely the call will be rejected and >you will have to dial over again. I've tried this, and at least here in >Chicago, dialing 10288 followed by a seven digit (or ten digit, but within >IBT's LATA) number and a recording says the call cannot be completed as >dialed. Patrick, remember that this country is formed of 50 sovereign states, each with its own PUC/PSC/DPU/CC or whatever the state chooses to call the regulatory body for intra-state calling. What applies in Chicago does not necessarily apply in other parts of the country. The situation is as follows: For each 10XXX code, intra-LATA calling can be enabled or disabled, based on whether the carrier is authorized by the proper regulatory bodies to provide intra-LATA calling. Here in Massachusetts, the carriers AT&T and ITT have not applied for the right to carry intra-LATA traffic, and calls within the LATA (all of area codes 508 and 617) do not complete if prefixed with 10288 or 10488. MCI, Sprint, and ALLnet (and others) have applied to the DPU for the right to carry intra-LATA traffic, and intra-LATA calls prefixed by 10222, 10333, and 10444 complete via the carrier, even if the call is 10XXX+7D in the local C.O. There is a "do not complete within this office bit", but it should not be set. There is not a "do not complete within the local calling area" bit. It is worth noting that it should theoretically be possible for subscribers to pick a default carrier for intra-LATA calling, either the same default as for inter-LATA or a different one, but the original order from Judge Green did not require this capability, and it was not implemented. Thus to use a carrier other than your local telco for intra-LATA calling, you will always have to use the 10XXX code. /john ------------------------------ Date: 26-JUL-1989 20:27:16.93 From: Kenneth Selling Subject: Looking Up #'s Not In The Phone Book In TELECOM Digest vol. 9, issue 255, laura halliday says: > Long distance directory assistance is free here in B.C. For local information > you call 411, as usual, but it will cost you 55 cents (Canadian) if the > number is in the local phone book. This makes a lot of sense. For a long time, I have disliked the idea of being charged for look-up of a local number which is not even in the phone book (such as new or changed listings.) I can see the rationale for charging for a *local* number already listed -- it penalizes those unwilling to look it up themselves. (Yes, I agree with those who dislike the BOC's policy of charging for directory assistance from BOC-owned payphones. If there is no phone book -- too bad. The BOC has no incentive to replace ripped or stolen phone books. In fact, they have a strong disincentive; the longer they put off putting in a book, the more revenue they get looking up numbers.) The BOC databases could surely accommodate an extra bit per listing, describing whether a number is in the current phone book or not. Am I the only one (except for those denizens of BC Tel.) who is irritated with the policy of charging for look-up of numbers which are not even in the local phone book? Ken Selling Organization: Wesleyan University Internet: kselling@eagle.wesleyan.edu BITNET: kselling%eagle@wesleyan.bitnet =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ From: Mark Brader Subject: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 19:36:57 EDT Lisa Smith (lisa@mips.com) wrote the following in an article in (the Usenet newsgroup) rec.humor.d: > That prefix, 555, isn't fictional everywhere. One of my school friends > said that his grandfather's phone number, somewhere in South Dakota, is > a 555 number. He said that it was to his knowledge the only place in > the U.S. that it was a real prefix though. Someone else said that if this was ever true it isn't now. What do the experts say? -- Mark Brader "Well, I didn't completely test it, and SoftQuad Inc., Toronto of course there was a power failure the utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com next day." -- Louis J. Judice ------------------------------ From: Randolph Bentson Subject: Request for Index Date: 27 Jul 89 18:33:13 GMT Reply-To: Randolph Bentson Organization: Computer Science Department, Colorado State University Can anyone give me a pointer to an index of articles appearing in the Bell System Technical Journal (and it's successor, the ATT Systems Technical Journal)? Of course I'd prefer that this be on-line, but if you know of a book containing such an index, I'd be still be interested. ------------------------------ From: portal!cup.portal.com!jxh@apple.com Subject: Dial 1-(NPA)-CONFUSE Date: Wed, 26-Jul-89 23:57:01 PDT Did anyone else spot this in comp.lang.postscript?: [...body deleted...] > >Call 1-88-83-FONTS to get a copy of the "Font and Function" catalog > >for more details.... > Hmmm... I only have digits on my telephone dial. How do the letters ^^^^^^ > map to digits? > Jan Michael Rynning, jmr@nada.kth.se > Department of Numerical Analysis If you can't fully handle domains: > and Computing Science, ARPA: jmr%nada.kth.se@uunet.uu.net > Royal Institute of Technology, UUCP: {uunet,mcvax,...}!nada.kth.se!jmr > S-100 44 Stockholm, BITNET: jmr@sekth > Sweden. Phone: +46-8-7906288 Surprise! The world is not the same as the USA! Personally, I find alphabetic phone numbers vexing to dial, even when the DTMF pad is labelled so nicely, as it is here in WE territory (read: WEstern hemisphere?) My index finger can't read. I admit that I have an exceptional facility with 7-digit numbers, (I memorized 50 digits of pi, 7 at a time. See .sig if you don't believe me.) so I suppose I can't say that they're generally easier to remember than names, but I find this trend disturbing and was delighted to find a pin with which to prick it, namely (apparently) lack of an international standard on a mapping of letters to digits. Just another way the rest of the world can find to become annoyed with American arrogance? BTW, I haven't read this group before, but I think I shall start. Please accept my apologies if this has all been hashed out recently. -Jim Hickstein jxh@cup.portal.com ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!jxh Nothing to do with the bozos here that get all the publicity: I'm a client, not an employee. PI to 50 digits: 3.14159 26535 8979323 84626 4338327 9502884 1971693 9937510 ^^^^^ ^^^^^ well, nobody's perfect. Has a nice metre. ^ "point" sounds like a digit ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 09:56 EDT From: "C. E. Reid" Subject: Dial-A Services in Rochester, NY According to the White Pages in Rochester, New York (area code 716): Dial-A-Dietitian 461-5590 Dial-A-Gift 328-8575 (I think this is a company) Dial-A-Jewish-Story 244-7710 Dial-A-Prayer 586-8280 Dial-A-Story 288-4211 Dial-A-Teacher 262-5000 Dial-A-Thought 473-2541 Dial-A-Torah-Thought 271-5328 Dial A Yuk 546-5233 Also, in the listing, there are two companies (I think!): Dial-A-Car & Truck Rental 423-9810 Dial-A-Tire Inc 223-9330 Lastly, there is one that I'm not sure of (excat spelling from the White Pages) is called Dial Inspiratn at 964-8060. I'm curious about a couple of them...what is a Torah-Thought or a Yuk? If you know about this, let the digest readers know. Curtis CER2520@RITVAX.Bitnet CER2520%RITVAX.Bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu DISCLAIMER: I HAVEN'T TRIED ANY OF THESE NUMBERS SO DON'T FLAME ME OR REFER ME TO THEM. This list is purely for your information and if you attempt to call these numbers, I disclaim any responsibility or contact with them. [Moderator's Note: I refuse to ask what a Yuk is. I refuse to ask! What do I care? So don't tell me. When I guess at these things I wind up either offending the Orthodox Jews or the gay athiests. I won't guess at it. PT] ------------------------------ From: John Limpert Subject: Re: Unusual Recorded Messages Date: 26 Jul 89 18:48:18 GMT Reply-To: John Limpert Organization: BFEC/GSFC Greenbelt, Maryland In article jgd@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (John G Dobnick) writes: >[Moderator's Note: Can someone please explain what a 'rambam' is; as in >'Dial A Rambam'??? Is it anything like Dial A Gay Atheist? Should I spend >thirteen cents on Reach Out tonight to find out? Is it worth thirteen >cents? PT] RAMBAM is an acronym for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides. He is a well known commentator on the Torah and Talmud. This recording is probably produced by the same folks who run the "Dial a Jewish Story" line, it's on the same exchange. -- John Limpert johnl@gronk.UUCP uunet!n3dmc!gronk!johnl ------------------------------ From: Steven Gutfreund Subject: Re: Unusual Recorded Messages Date: 27 Jul 89 13:47:39 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA > [Moderator's Note: Can someone please explain what a 'rambam' is; as in > 'Dial A Rambam'??? Is it anything like Dial A Gay Atheist? Should I spend > thirteen cents on Reach Out tonight to find out? Is it worth thirteen > cents? PT] RaMbaM is an ancronym for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (the Maimonedes) (approx 11th century). He was a major Jewish scholar, and also a philosopher and doctor. He wrote "The Mishna Torah" (a complete compedium of Jewish Laws) and "The Guide to the Perplexed" (the title is a bit misleading to contemporary readers, they think this is a psychological self-help book, in fact it is a scholarly refutation of Aristotelean philosophy). Many have a custom of learning several chapters a day of the Mishna Torah according to a yearly cycle, and the concepts can be difficult to grasp (plus the fact that there are no acceptable translations). Therefore, there some towns provide a taped telephone message with explanations of the daily portion. No, this does not have anything to do with TELECOM, but since you asked :-). -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Yechezkal Shimon Gutfreund sgutfreund@gte.com GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA ..!husc6!bunny!sgutfreund -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [Moderator's Note: Yes, unfortunatly, since I asked.... I'm now waiting for the Yuk explanations to arrive. As in, 'oh, yuck! why did I bring this subject up?' PT] ------------------------------ From: Kent Borg Subject: Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier Date: 24 Jul 89 18:07:02 GMT Reply-To: Kent Borg Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA If I remember correctly, the original poster (who wrote about trying 10666 as a long distance access code) was from Somerville, MA, which *has* a 666 exchange, in fact I had a 666 number for a year. It seemed to act much like any other line. I could make calls, I could receive calls. I got billed. Nothing unusual ever came to my attention. Ever since I moved to a different Somerville exchange, 776, which is no where near as interesting, I have kinda' missed having a 666 number. Yes, this line acts about the same. Sometimes more noise than other times, but my modem can usually handle it. Take it from someone who has tried one, 666 numbers act about like any other. Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uucp or ...!husc6!lloyd!kent P.S. Don't even remember any harrasing calls... [Moderator's Note: Chicago's '666' is a prefix located on the west side of the city in a very poor, ghetto neighborhood. It is a mix of residence and business numbers. PT] ------------------------------ From: celerity!celit!root@ucsd.edu Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 16:15:22 PDT Subject: Re: Satanic Exchanges Reply-To: dave@celerity.uucp (Dave Smith) Organization: FPS Computing Inc., San Diego CA University of San Francisco has the 666 prefix in SF. Funny thing is, they're a Jesuit university. David L. Smith FPS Computing, San Diego ucsd!celerity!dave "Repent, Harlequin!," said the TickTock Man ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #259 *****************************   Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 1:31:19 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #260 Message-ID: <8907280131.aa19131@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 28 Jul 89 01:00:18 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 260 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Thank you for using AT&T (Edward Greenberg) Re: New Product Review: FAXJACK III (Vance Shipley) Re: Dialing Area Codes (Daniel M. Rosenberg) Re: What's the simplest way to find the L.D. carrier? (Andrew Boardman) Re: Sony Answering Machines Hanging Up (Dave Levenson) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Ray Spalding) Re: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? (Torsten Dahlkvist) Re: How Do I Obtain A Phone Calling Card? (Andrew Boardman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Greenberg Subject: Thank you for using AT&T Date: 27 Jul 89 17:03:26 GMT Reply-To: Edward Greenberg Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest Since the beginning of this week, I've been hearing radio ads from AT&T introducing a new feature of AT&T Long Distance. Specifically, when you dial 0+ (or 102880+) you'll get the Bong and then a little chime followed by the words "Ay, Tee and Tee". This will let you know that you've indeed reached mom (or what's left of her.) Having dealt with AOS's and now with Pac Bell allowing the premises owner the choice of LD carrier, I think it's a good idea. Part of the ad suggests that when you connect to AT&T they'll play the Hallelujah Chorus. A good giggle. -e -- Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg ------------------------------ Date: Wed Jul 26 00:05:28 1989 From: Vance Shipley Subject: Re: New Product Review: FAXJACK III Reply-To: vances@xenitec.UUCP (Vance Shipley) Organization: Linton Technology - SwitchView In article gwang@berlioz.nsc.com (George Wang) writes: >about a product called FAXJACK III which supposedly automatically >determines whether a FAX, Modem, or Voice call is being made >on a single line... This product would be very useful for people >who are limited to one phone line (IE, Dorm room) but want to use >the line for incoming Modem and/or Voice calls.... (name of manufacturer deleted...) > >Question: > Is this too good to be true?? Does this really work?? *HOW* does >it work... Is it reliable.... I am VERY interested in purchasing >this if I get some positive feedback... > first the way it works: when the line it is attached to is rung it "answers" the call and either provides a fake 'ring back' tone or plays an outgoing message telling the caller to dial a touch tone digit for which service they want (say fax, answer machine, modem). the device listens to the line to determine where to route the call. most (emphasis on the _most_) fax machines output a tone every so often when calling out to another fax, this tone is reffered to as 'CNG' tone. if the device detects this tone it sends a "ring" signal on the 'fax' port and connects the tel line audio to it when the fax answeres. one of the other ports is the default line, when no 'CNG' is detected and no digits are dialled the call is connected to this port. a caller for the other port must dial the right digit(s) to be switched to it. now the caveats: -the 'fake ring back' tones that the thing outputs are fine to convince callers to hang on (until the box decides if you are a fax [recieves 'CNG' tone] or gets a routing code [you dial a digit(s)]) but it does not fool the long distance provider who charges you for the call as soon as the 'thing' answers. -not all fax machines give a reliable 'CNG' tone, some give it out every few seconds on an outgoing call and others will provide it far less frequently. some will not provide it at all. this seems to be true of the smaller, cheaper machines mostly but i am told that NO pitney-bowes machines have it at all! -the "ring" signal that this 'box' provides to your equipment is usually a crude aproximation of what it should be. it is very square and not of the proper frequencey. this may not be a problem _or_ it may mean that the equipment will not recognize it. Vance Shipley uucp: ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!vances Linton Technology - SwitchView INTERNET: vances@egvideo.uucp 180 Columbia Street West (soon) vances@xenitec.uucp Waterloo, Ontario CANADA tel: (519)746-4460 N2L 3L3 fax: (519)746-6884 # "Twenty-Five pins in a D shell does not RS-232C make!" # ------------------------------ From: "Daniel M. Rosenberg" Subject: Re: Dialing Area Codes Date: 26 Jul 89 18:38:15 GMT Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. jimmy@denwa.uucp (Jim Gottlieb) writes: >In article malcolm@apple.com writes: >>Why is it that I'm not allowed to dial the area code when I'm calling >>somebody local? >I have often wondered this myself, especially after living in Japan, >where there is no penalty for dialing your own area code. This works in some places, like 201 New Jersey, and, I believe, 415 Northern California. Dan -- # Daniel M. Rosenberg // Stanford CSLI // Opinions are my own only. # dmr@csli.stanford.edu // decwrl!csli!dmr // dmr%csli@stanford.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 18:42:28 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Re: What's the simplest way to find the L.D. carrier for a line? Organization: Columbia University In article our beloved moderator quoth: >[Moderator's Note: Dialing 1-700-555-1212 from most phones will produce >a recorded announcement giving the name of the default carrier for that >line. Not on my XBAR it won't. :-) I've always used 1-700-555-4141... are they just alternate routes to the same thing, or is that a typo, or what? (I can't check myself because every phone within a huge radius is connected to a ROLM 9751 CBX (production #2!) which chokes on just about any non-standard number. In fact, it chokes on a whole lot of things... like people making phone calls...) Andrew Boardman now located at amb@heathcliff.cs.columbia.edu, which I'll be mailing from too as soon as I move all my news stuff... [Moderator's Note: I think in any case in which 1-700-555-something will work for this purpose, 1212 and 4141 are interchangeable. If it will not work in your x-bar office, then it may be likely that your x-bar office is not yet equal access either, rendering 1-700-555-anything moot. PT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Sony Answering Machines Hanging Up Date: 27 Jul 89 02:44:47 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA A recent article asks about an answering machine that sometimes hangs up on callers who speak softly when they're leaving messages. Because the loop-current interruption from the central office is not available on every subscriber line, most answering machines are forced to implement some kind of silence detection, as well as loop current sensing and timing, to decide when to stop recording an incoming message. Silence detection in the telephone network is tricky. The background noise level on some calls will be greater than the speech level on others, making absolute level measurements useless. In some older switching systems, the called party hears dial-tone when the calling party disconnects. What the answering machine tries to do is listen for variations in the audio level. Any steady-state level that doesn't change for some number of seconds is considered to be silence. If the level changes from time to time, it probably means someone is speaking. On some calls, the speech is at the same level as the background noise. (A signal-to-noise ratio of about 1:1 !) This is where the machine is most likely to be fooled. A more sophisticated design uses not only variations in the level but also in the frequency distribution of the incoming audio signal, to distinguish between speech and 'silence'. My ancient Code-A-Phone from the 1960's used to emit a "talk-down" tone for four seconds after it had detected silence. If the caller heard this tone and spoke up a bit, the tone would go away, and the recording would continue. If the inbound signal did not change during the "talk-down" tone, the tone would be followed by a slightly louder tone, and then a disconnection. Callers who were still talking would tend to "shout down" the tone, and thus keep the machine listening. Perhaps they don't build them like they used to! -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 07:12:24 edt From: Ray Spalding Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter The summer '89 catalog for DAK Industries Inc. lists a device that sounds identical to the one described previously as offered by Sharper Image. The copy claims that picking up any extension will cut your answering machine off. In an interesting twist, it points out that you could install one of these devices on each extension phone. Then, whenever your fax or modem is on line, every other extension is automatically dead, preventing a communications interruption by someone picking up a phone. Order No. 5135, $9.90 + $2 P&H, from DAK, 8200 Remmet Ave., Canoga Park, CA 91304. Credit card orders: 1-800-DAK-0800. Disclaimer: I have no connection with DAK. Caveat emptor. -- Ray Spalding Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!cc100aa Internet: cc100aa@prism.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: Torsten Dahlkvist Subject: Re: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? Date: 27 Jul 89 11:30:54 GMT Reply-To: Torsten Dahlkvist Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden In article henry@garp.mit.edu writes: >Why is 00 more logical than 009 (or 011 in Canada and the US), or 0011 >(in Australia)? Because in most countries (outside Northern America), all area codes begin with a 0, indicating the start of "national" dialling. Another 0 would (logically) imply an even larger numbering plan - "international". Simlpe? If/when we get interplanetary dialling the logical prefix would be 000. I shudder to think what four zeroes would mean... /Torsten Torsten Dahlkvist ! "I am not now, nor have I ever ELLEMTEL Telecommunication Laboratories ! been, intimately related to P.O. Box 1505, S-125 25 ALVSJO, SWEDEN ! Dweezil Zappa!" Tel: +46 8 727 3788 ! - "Wierd" Al Yankowitz [Moderator's Note: I don't think too many countries have our penchant here in the USA for pulling zero to get the operator either. Right/wrong?? PT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 10:45:45 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? In-Reply-To: Organization: Columbia University In article msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu writes: >I know for a fact that MCI does NOT require that they be your home >default carrier. I talked to an MCI rep yesterday about my (soon to be former) MCI calling card; I was told that because of a recent policy decision, they would let anyone hold a card for a maximum of a month without associated "dial 1" service (MCI marketing-talk for being the default carrier) on my line. The original purpose of my call had been to register another address change with them; the actual exchange for the number on the card (212-280) died last year and I have moved a few times since with no problem, but this time I was told that any new address/phone number I gave them for billing *would* be assigned MCI. (I had been using them for one high-volume area in which they were marginally cheaper than ATT; I have no wish to deal with the three-ring circus that is MCI's version of billing on my NYTel bill.) I would not be suprised, though, if two MCI operators had entirely different ideas of what "standard MCI policy" was, considering their past level of service. Andrew Boardman, yet another disgruntled (and soon to be former) MCI customer. ab4@cunixc.columbia.edu ab4@cunixc.bitnet {backbone}!columbia!cunixc!ab4 [as of the retransmission, amb@heathcliff.cs.columbia.edu wil wrok better, or simply amb@cs.columbia.edu] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #260 *****************************   Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 0:05:32 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #261 Message-ID: <8907290005.aa27064@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 29 Jul 89 00:00:27 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 261 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson National Views of Access Codes (Mark Brader) Dialing Codes in the Netherlands (Richard P. Gruen) Re: Why We Have Seven Digit Numbers (Mike Trout) Re: London (UK) New Area Codes (Chris Johnston) Dial-A-Numbers in Rochester NY (Mike Koziol) Re: Unusual Recorded Messages (John Cowan) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Brader Subject: National Views of Access Codes Date: Tue, 25 Jul 89 19:57:06 EDT Several people have mentioned points related to this lately, but I'm going to begin by restating for overseas readers some things that are well known to most people reading this. In most of North America, to make a basic long distance call, one dials a digit-sequence formed by concatenating (a) an access code, (b) an area code [usually], and (c) the number called. The access code is 1 in most places but there have been, and may still be, some places where it is 112 and some places where no access code is needed. Because of this, and now because of the appearance of 0 as a second access code denoting customer-dialed, operator-assisted calls, it is clear that North Americans do not consider the access code as part of the number. (At least, those who are careful about such things don't. Advertisements usually say things like "dial 1-416-393-4636", so the general public may have other ideas. But tables of phone numbers, as in hotel directories, are normally written without the access code.) People dialing to North America from elsewhere, on the other hand, dial a number consisting of some prefix dependent on their own phone system but usually ending in the North American "country code" of 1, followed directly by parts (b) and (c) of what we dial. From England, for instance, the above number would be dialed as 010-1-416-393-4636. Here the -1- is the country code for North America and it is only a coincidence that it is the same as the access code most commonly used from here. On the other hand, in many other countries, the digit-sequence that one dials to make a basic long-distance call is formed by concatenating (a) a city or area code, and (b) a number. But the city or area codes always begin with the same digit, most often 0, and this digit is *omitted* when dialing into the country from elsewhere. For instance, the number dialed in England as 01-222-1234 would be dialed from here as 011-44-1-222-1234. Here the 011- is an access code for calls outside North America, -44- is the country code, and -1- is the city code which corresponds to the 01- in the British number. From a Briton's point of view, what we dial is 011-44- followed by all but the first digit of their area code and phone number. From a North American's point of view, what they call the first digit of their area code isn't really part of it at all but is an access code. Personally I think the North American view is superior, but it's not an important point except if it causes misunderstandings. And now finally to my questions. 1. Are there any other countries that take what I have called the "North American" point of view above? *All* the countries that I've been to outside North America use the other system. 2. Are there any other countries that allow customer-dialed, operator- assisted calls? If so, how are they dialed? 3. Are there any countries outside North America that use 1 as an access code (interpreting the numbers in North American style)? So far all the ones we've heard about use 0, except for Finland which uses 9. 4. Is there any correlation between unusual access codes and unusual dials? I remember that where the standard dial has 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0, there are two nonstandard dials that have 0-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 and 9-8-7-6-5- 4-3-2-1-0, but I don't remember which are the few countries that use them, except for New Zealand which uses the latter one. Could Finland be one of these? -- I know that New Zealand uses an access code of 0. On the other hand, their emergency number is 111, which is dialed the same as the British 999! -- Mark Brader "'A matter of opinion'[?] I have to say you are SoftQuad Inc., Toronto right. There['s] your opinion, which is wrong, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com and mine, which is right." -- Gene Ward Smith ------------------------------ Date: Fri 28 Jul 89 11:26:48-PDT From: "Richard P. Gruen" Subject: Dialing Codes in the Netherlands In the Netherlands (AKA Holland), country code 31, city codes consist of the number 0 followed by either two or four digits (but not three). major cities have codes like 070 or 020 (The Hague and Amsterdam) and smaller cities have the longer codes where the digit after the leading 0 is usually the same as the similar digit of the nearest large city. Calls to other countries are prefixed with 09. Most special services begin with 00 followed by one or two other digits to select the service. For example, 009 gets you a telegram operator, 0014 gets you the marine oiperator. 000 (which you thought was the interplanetary dialling code) gets you an operator who explains how to place calls within Holland; 0010 gets you the foreign operator for the rest of Europe; and 0016 gets you the foreign operator for the rest of the world. Direct dial service is available to most countries (via 09) except for calls to Italy which must be operator handled. apparently there were too many wrong numbers when direct dialling into Italy. -Richard P. Gruen N6HKU rpg@heap.cisco.com ------------------------------ From: Mike Trout Subject: Re: Why We Have Seven Digit Numbers Date: 25 Jul 89 20:01:08 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY In article , goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) writes: > From what I understand, the Bell study was the reason that the current > 7-digit system was set up in the first place. There was no American > parochialism before then, because there was no standard telephone > number length or format in use at the time; there was a only mish-mash > of different setups. From what I remember reading, the study tested > people to discover the longest number-length that could be easily > remembered, and the best format for such numbers. The optimal answer > they came up with was 7 digits, arranged in a 3-4 split. (Correct > me if I'm wrong, you other Telecom readers who remember this better.) The above got me thinking about the history of the USA telephone numbering system. When was the above study done? When were all numbers standardized at seven digits? What other systems were used before that? What were the last non-seven-digit systems? A little personal experience: My family has owned a camp in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York since 1954. When we bought the camp, its phone number there was "Eagle Bay 3268." Not EB2-3268 or anything like that; just Eagle Bay 3268. You could dial locally just by using the last four digits, but any other calls required an operator. At the time I lived in Tulsa, and a long-distance call to our camp also required an operator. Our Tulsa number was TE8-7438 for as far back as I could remember, way before the 918 Area Code was established, so it was always obvious that the New York number was "weird". The strangest thing was that the New York number lasted a LONG time--even well AFTER the 315 Area Code was created. I'm not sure of the exact date when it finally went to a seven-digit number, but it couldn't have been before the late 1960s and may have not been until the mid-1970s. After the 315 Area Code had been established, making a call from Tulsa to our camp became a real adventure. My approximate remembrance (let's say this is about 1968): Me in Tulsa: I'd like to make a long-distance call to upstate New York, in Area Code 315. Operator: You can dial that directly, you know. What's the number there, please? T: Eagle Bay 3268. That's why I can't dial directly. O: I'm sorry, I didn't understand you. What was that local number again? T: Eagle Bay 3268. O: Letter prefixes were replaced by numbers some time ago. What's the complete number you wish to reach? T: Eagle Bay 3268. That's the entire number. It's a tiny rural community, and hasn't switched to seven digits yet. O: You don't understand me. I need the full number you are trying to reach. T: Eagle Bay 3268. Eagle Bay is the name of the telephone exchange there. All the numbers in the exchange have only four digits. O: There haven't been numbers like that for many years. You must have a VERY old directory or something. T: Trust me. I made this same call just a few weeks ago. O: That's impossible. T: I'm not sure how they do it, but the other operators I've used dial the Eagle Bay operator, who then connects me with 3268. There must be a way for you to do that. O: Of course not. I could understand if you were trying to call Africa or someplace like that, but you're telling me this number is in New York. T: Yup. About 50 miles north of Utica. In Area Code 315. O: I'm sorry, but what you're asking we just can't do. We don't have the ability to make such a call, and we never have. I'm sure you must be mistaken about something. [hang up, repeat procedure with three or four different operators, until:] O: OH, YES!!! EAGLE BAY!!! I handled a call to there last month! Strangest set-up I've ever seen. I had no idea such a place existed. We were talking about it the other day, and somebody said it was the last place in the country that didn't have normal numbers. Where in the world is it, anyway? Here, I'll connect you with the Eagle Bay operator... T: Thanks...(whew!) When the connection was finally made, conversations sounded like low-power transmissions from Pluto. On many occasions, static and interference were so bad that I had to hang up and start with Step 1 again. Today, the Eagle Bay exchange is no more, the four-digit numbers are all different, and the whole area is 357-XXXX. Unfortunately, since Continental Telephone is in charge, conversations now sound like low-power transmissions from Neptune. Anybody have similar war stories? I'm interested in finding out more about historical telephone aberrations. Any explanation for the Bay of Eagle fiasco? -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson [Moderator's Note: I'll have more examples of this in the Digest in the next day or two. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 14:19:45 198 From: Chris Johnston Subject: Re: London (UK) New Area Codes. Organization: U. Chicago Computer Science Dept. When dialing into a country from outside, the leading zero must be stripped off the area code. For example dialing from Switzerland to within Switzerland one might dial 056 XX-XX-XX but from Italy to Switzerland one would dial +41 56 XX-XX-XX. (41 is the country code.) (When I was in Europe in June it took me more than a week to successfully place an International pay phone call. Quite a culture shock. On a preious trip I found Scandinavian pay phones were similarly traumatizing.) cj ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 04:06:00 EDT From: Mike Koziol Subject: Dial-A-Numbers in Rochester NY C.E. Reid (in Digest 259) listed a few Dial-A-Numbers in the Rochester NY area in a recent posting. A couple of the numbers Dial A YUK and Dial a Torah Thought got my (and our Moderator's) curiosity stirred up. So, all in all it being a very boring night at work I tried them to see what that were. - Dial-A-Yuk: a recording giving the names of the comics scheduled to to appear at a local comedy club, Yuk-Yuks. - Dial-A-Torah-Thought: seems to be the same as Dial-A-RAMBAM that has been discussed recently in the Digest. - Dial-A-Tire: no, it doesn't give you the most recent happenings in the on going discussion of radial vs bias ply, but, it was a local tire distributor. I think they went "belly up" recently, something to do with a warehouse fire. ------------------------------ From: John Cowan Subject: Re: Unusual Recorded Messages Reply-To: John Cowan Organization: ESCC, New York City Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 17:39:32 GMT In article jgd@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (John G Dobnick) writes: [various numbers omitted] >Dial-a-Rambam 962-1817 > >[Moderator's Note: Can someone please explain what a 'rambam' is; as in >'Dial A Rambam'??? Is it anything like Dial A Gay Atheist? Should I spend >thirteen cents on Reach Out tonight to find out? Is it worth thirteen >cents? PT] RaMBaM is a Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon", otherwise known as Moses Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish scholar. The a's are inserted for pronounceability. See >Encyclopedia Judaica< or any decent reference work, s.v. "Maimonides". I would assume that "Dial-A-Rambam" gives you a quotation from Maimonides' works, probably changed daily or weekly. -- Internet/Smail: cowan@marob.masa.com Dumb: uunet!hombre!marob!cowan Fidonet: JOHN COWAN of 1:107/711 Magpie: JOHN COWAN, (212) 420-0527 Charles li reis, nostre emperesdre magnes Set anz toz pleins at estet in Espagne. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #261 *****************************   Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 1:10:26 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #262 Message-ID: <8907290110.aa30482@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 29 Jul 89 01:00:36 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 262 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson MCI Announces VISA-Phone (TELECOM Moderator) Answering Machine Questions (Ed Archibald) Answering Machine Muzzle (Debra Hisle) Making External Connections to Merlin (Richard Tobier) Cellular Reception (Christopher Chung) This Is a Recorded Ripoff (Dave Horsfall) Inward Calling (Jeffrey James Bryan Carpenter) Chicago Area 'Dial-A' Services (TELECOM Moderator) Society of Telecommunications Consultants (Thomas I. M. Ho) Re: T1 Carrier Solves Shortage of Pairs (Chip Rosenthal) Re: T1 Carrier Solves Shortage of Pairs (John H. Haller) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 0:04:35 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: MCI Announces VISA-Phone On Friday, MCI Communications Corp. announced a new long distance billing arrangement in cooperation with VISA, U.S.A, Inc. Under this new arrangement, long distance phone callers will be able to use their VISA card and associated Pin to call anywhere on the MCI Network from any phone equipped with Equal Access. The caller will dial the call zero plus in the usual way, inserting a VISA card number and Pin when requested to 'enter the card number now'. Charges will be billed by VISA on a monthly basis, entitled (in most cases) VISA-Phone, or in a few cases as MCI. It is unclear to me at this time if prior arrangements are required with MCI to use VISA billing, or if those numbers are somehow now being installed right into a data base of acceptable cards/pins. Call MCI Customer Service for more information. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: mtxinu!sybase!apricot!ed@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Answering Machine Questions Date: 27 Jul 89 23:51:45 GMT Reply-To: Organization: Sybase, Inc. I'm building a project which is essentially a microprocessor based phone answering machine. I have completed all of the basic hardware and firmware and am currently using a device that is manufactured by Cermetek (CH1813) which provides a DAA for my device. It also provides ring-detect, off-hook detect, audio coupling to the phone line and a means for forcing the line off-hook and on-hook using a TTL level signal. However, this thing is expensive and there are number of other things that I would like to do. I don't really have the experience to know how to proceed. Any tips on these things would be appreciated. Also, any tips that indicate the reasons why any of these things could not be done, or would be expensive to do would be very useful. Are there any books available whose subject is exclusively telephone electronics, and includes sample circuits etc.? 1) First off, I would like to duplicate the functions that the Cermetek device provides at a lower cost (< $26.00) 2) Let's say that I have a telephone hooked up to my phone answering device that has a ringer that cannot be turned off. How can I inhibit ringing on this phone while still being able to detect things like the phone going off-hook etc.. I would like to be able to control this with the microprocessor so ideally a good answer would include a TTL level interface. 3) I would like to be able to use the DTMF keypad of a phone that is connected to my device without causing the phone switching equipment to take notice. Is this possible? Maybe there is a sequence of tones that can be dialed to disable further interpretation? 4) How can I detect that a calling party has hung up before the telco finally disables the connection? How about when the telco finally drops the connection? 5) Let's say that I have two phone type devices hooked to my device. I would like to be able to discriminate which of the two devices has gone off hook. Ed Archibald ed@sybase.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 10:18:28 EDT From: "Hisle, Debra" Subject: Answering Machine Muzzle I've been following the queries about the device to cut off an answering machine with much amusement. I actually have and use one, and they are very simple. I got mine at K-MART or Target, in the telephone/electronics area. These thingies look just like a simple modular jack splitter, with a red LED over one side, and a green LED over the other. One side is labeled "TEL" and one is labeled "ANS." If a device is plugged into the "TEL" side, it will cut off ALL OTHER EXTENSIONS, when off-hook. If a device is plugged into the "ANS" side, it will be cut off BY ANY OTHER EXTENSION going off-hook. I found that plugging my cordless phone into the TEL side was a bad idea. It seems to disable other phones regardless. But the ANS side is quite handy for stopping the answering machine -- or the fax, if it's been left on accidentally. Why do people find these appealing? We have a 5000 square foot house, and even with the currently 8 (soon to be 12) phones punched down, I can't always reach the phone before the answering machine picks up (on the second ring, if there are already messages; fourth otherwise). And the fax machine doesn't wait at all, rude thing. Lifting the receiver now automatically takes the answering machine or fax off the line, and gives me a nice QUIET background to say I'm actually home. The smallish price (must have been less than $10; I don't recall) surely beats a $96 fax switch, if all you really want is to stop that awful screaming from the dummy box upstairs. :-) I don't use the "TEL" feature, but I see that it would be nice to assure uninterrupted modem or fax operation. I wrote because of the letter which implied that these splitters were necessary all over the house to provide the protection. NOT SO. ONE splitter will cut off all other extensions, if a device plugged into its TEL side goes off-hook. - Deb I just USE telephones -- it's my husband who makes a living telling people which ones to buy... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 15:13:36 EDT From: Richard Tobier Subject: Making External Connections to Merlin In response to Nomad who asked : >I would like to connect a modem to the Merlin system at work but need a bit >of help. The phones that we use have an extra jack on the bottom for use (I >am told) with a speakerphone or a "universal device interface". The people >from AT$T are quite willing to sell me a little box to plug into it for a sum >over $250.00 (which seems a bit high for what is undoubtedly a very simple >little box). When I was a installer, I discovered a way to hook up analog devices (Modems, Fax) to electronic systems. The parts may cost you $15 - $20. Disclaimers: 1. The Electronic Phone system must use a dedicated voice pair (tip and ring). 2. The analog devise is only good for originating calls. Parts: 1. One RJ 31x 2. 12 inches of cross connect wire Installation: 1. Mount the RJ 31x within 12 inches of the jack of the station where the devise is to be installed. 2. Connect the cross connect wire to terminals 1 and 8. 3. Connect the tip and ring from the station wiring to terminals 4 and 5. 4. Connect the other end of the cross connect wire to where the station wire was terminated. How to use: 1. Plug analog devise into the RJ 31x. 2. Select the line on your electronic phone. 3. a. MODEM - from your computer type ATDT ect. b. FAX - using your monitor function on your electronic phone dial the number, listen for the tone, hit the connect button on the machine and away you go. You can buy a RJ 31x at any Graybar or even Radio Shack. It is also know as an alarm interface. If you have questions call me at (305) 797-5713 or email encore.encore.com!gould!rtobier Richard Tobier Telecommunications Analyst Encore Computer Corp. (AKA Gould Inc, CSD) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 13:28:10 EDT From: Christopher Chung Subject: Cellular Reception I have a Panasonic transportable phone (EB-362W). I would like to be able to use it in the basement of a building but the signal strength is greatly reduced to the point where you cannot make a call. What is the best way to increase the signal strength. I currently have a 5" rubber ducky antenna attached to it (this is what came with the phone). Would getting a longer antenna help or would it be better to put an antenna in a closet on the first floor and run a 25' cable down to the basement and attach it to that? In terms of portability, it is better to get a longer antenna if possible but would it really help? Thanks for any suggestions you can give. Chris CHRIS%BROWNVM.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU ------------------------------ From: Dave Horsfall Subject: This Is a Recorded Ripoff... Date: 28 Jul 89 06:39:26 GMT Reply-To: Dave Horsfall Organization: Alcatel STC Australia, North Sydney, AUSTRALIA Printed in the Sydney Morning Herald, 11/7/89 (that's 11 July 89 :-) ``Paying her bill at an otherwise-satisfactory motel on the Southern Highlands, a Fairy Meadow reader found she was charged 60c for a local phone call from her room. She pointed out that the call she made had not been answered, but was shown a computer print-out showing she had spoken for 30 seconds. She protested that when she dialled, all she got ws a recorded Telecom service saying she couldn't dial STD on that phone. "Ah," said the manager triumphantly, "but you listened to the message."'' --- I know that you do get gouged by hotels for phone calls, but don't they even check for call supervision? Is it possible there is no indication that the call failed, and a recorded announcement is mistaken for the called party answering? -- Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU), Alcatel STC Australia, dave@stcns3.stc.oz dave%stcns3.stc.oz.AU@uunet.UU.NET, ...munnari!stcns3.stc.oz.AU!dave ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey James Bryan Carpenter Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 20:40:59 EDT Subject: Inward Calling Hi, I've seen people talk about the operator calling "inward" and have an idea what this is, but what is the technical description of what it is? Thanks, droopy ------------ Jeffrey J. B. Carpenter Computing and Information Services (Computer Center), Systems and Networks University of Pittsburgh JJC@VMS.CIS.PITTSBURGH.EDU 600 Epsilon Drive jjc@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania 15238 JJC@PITTVMS.BITNET (412) 624-6424, FAX (412) 624-6436 jjc@cisunx.UUCP [Moderator's Note: 'Inward' is simply the operators' positions in a given location. Operators in other cities, or 'Inward', can be dialed by another operator, but not by a subscriber. Typically, 'Inward' has a three digit number of the form 121. For example, to reach Miami, Florida Inward, your operator would dial 305-121. Your telephone is blocked from dialling codes of this sort, or 141, which is Directory Assistance, or 131 and 181, which are operators performing miscellaneous functions. Why would an operator in one place call an operator in another city? The most common reason is to seek assistance in getting through to a number in the distant community which appears to be out of order, or unreachable for some reason. The operator in one town may wish to have the verifying operator in another town check on these conditions. Another reason would be to seek assistance in coin collection on a collect call to a payphone. The distant operator cannot control the collection or return of coins, so she would call the local operator there, get the connection to the payphone and have the operator on that end supervise the collection. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 1:29:46 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Chicago Area 'Dial-A' Services Dial A -- Jewish Story 312-973-7700 Lift For Living 312-332-6080 Medic 312-933-1100 Mitzvah 312-338-8877 New Thought 312-568-1789 Poem 312-346-3478 Prayer 312-328-6123 Prayer 312-736-1166 Stock Report 312-939-1600 Survivalist 312-821-5483 Unity Blessing 312-383-4655 Unity Message 312-488-5129 Dial -- An Atheist 312-506-9200 An Atheist 312-227-3322 A Gay Atheist 312-255-2960 Gay & Lesbian News 312-975-1212 Guideposts 312-670-0466 Harmony 312-HARMONY Lawyers 312-529-9377 Meditation 312-445-7898 Pets 312-342-5738 Conspiracy Theory 312-731-1100 (a/k/a Sherman Skolnick's Hotline News) Time & Temperature 312-549-8463 Time/Temp Espanol 312-280-4799 There are dozens of others, but they are not listed under the "Dial-A" category. In addition, there are about fifty 976 programs, available only in the 312/708/815 areas. For information and an index of available 976 programs, call 1-800-922-2976 from within the Illiois Bell LATA. Some of these services, particularly the free ones listed above, have a very regular clientele of listeners -- people who call daily without fail to listen to the messages. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 13:41:24 EST From: "Thomas I. M. Ho" Subject: Society of Telecommunications Consultants What are the address and phone/fax number of the Society? Are they on any e-mail networks and if so, what is (are) the address? +-----------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Thomas I. M. Ho, Ph.D. | Professor of Computer Technology | | Purdue University | Bitnet: TOMHO @ PURCCVM | | Dept. of Computer Technology| Internet: TOMHO @ VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU | | KNOY 213 | TOMHO%PURCCVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU | | WEST LAFAYETTE, IN 47907 | AppleLink: TOMHO@PURCCVM.BITNET@DASNET#| | work: 317+494-9525/0486(fax)| CompuServe: >INET: TOMHO@PURCCVM.BITNET| | home: 317+463-6666 | | | Hi-tech nostalgia: do you remember when "laptop" was a place for a | | child to sit? | +-----------------------------+----------------------------------------+ Acknowledge-To: ------------------------------ From: Chip Rosenthal Subject: Re: T1 Carrier Solves Shortage of Pairs Date: 28 Jul 89 15:40:20 GMT Reply-To: chip@vector.dallas.tx.us Organization: Dallas Semiconductor Edward Greenberg writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 258, message 1 of 9 > One rather disturbing fact about T1 is that 1.544 megabaud >dry (no battery) data sounds just like *nothing* if you listen >with a butt set. What is a "butt set?" I would think an active line would be pretty noticable if the T1 pulse density requirements were met. -- Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337 "I wish you'd put that starvation box down and go to bed" - Albert Collins' Mom [Moderator's Note: A 'butt set' is simply a telephone handset with a dial built in (and other nifty switches), ala Trimline. It has aligator clips on the wires running from it, which can be conveniently clipped on various wires in a terminal box. They are used by technicians to get an audible indication of what line(s) they are on at the time. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 14:56:56 CDT From: John H Haller Subject: Re: T1 Carrier Solves Shortage of Pairs Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article , claris!apple!netcom!edg@ ames.arc.nasa.gov (Edward Greenberg) writes: > >From: Larry Rachman [74066,2004] > The pair situation in NYC is similar, but for other reasons, > namely the proliferation of CENTREX. When a 1000-phone office is > equipped with a PBX, it needs only about 100 lines, and possibly > a few dozen DID (direct inward dialing) trunks. When it switches > over to CENTREX, the pair count goes up to 1000. And of course, > fax machines, modems, and so forth make the problem even worse. It is interesting how the marketing of Centrex has changed. Shortly before divestiture, it was very rare that a local operating company would want to sell Centrex service, probably because of the expense of all of those lines. They would rather sell a Dimension(r) plus a service contract. After divestiture, since they could not sell PBX's any more, suddenly Centrex marketing took a very large jump. Should the Bell companies get permission to start manufacturing, I wonder if Centrex services would become a pariah again. John Haller att!ihlpl!jhh ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #262 *****************************   Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 10:21:58 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #263 Message-ID: <8907291021.aa02319@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 29 Jul 89 10:05:57 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 263 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Re: DA calls for unlisted #s (Will Martin) Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (Mike Trout) Re: Thank you for using AT&T (Rich Wales) Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (Lars J Poulsen) Re: Dial 1-(NPA)-CONFUSE (Lars J Poulsen) Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? (Kevin Blatter) Re: Long Distance Directory Assistance (Dave Levenson) Re: Dialing Area Codes (Dave Levenson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 8:17:17 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Re: DA calls for unlisted #s I am in total agreement with you on this. I posted some traffic to Telecom on this subject back when DA calls first began being charged for. It amazed me that the system was not implemented in the first place to accomodate *necessary* DA calls -- those for numbers not in the book. I could not understand why the charging mechanism would not depend on that -- if the customer could have looked it up but was too lazy, they should pay. If they couldn't look it up because it wasn't there to be looked up, there is no justification for charging for the DA call. In fact, if I spent time and effort trying to look up a number that isn't in the book, I can see justification in *my* charging the telco for *my* wasted time and effort! :-) Maybe we should devise a "customer bill" form that we'd send to the telco along with our monthly payments, detailing *our* charges to them, based on what they did, or failed to do, and deduct that total from what we pay the telco! Let's see -- every time you try to use a payphone and find no phone books there, a "frustration & annoyance" charge of $2.00; attempting to use a payphone and find it isn't working is a $5.00 "F&A" charge. Fighting a COCOT overcharge is $15.00 per hour F&A... $1.00 for digging thru a phone book and not finding a listing (it should be higher than what the telco charges us for a DA lookup, because they have consoles and databases to make the retrieval quick and easy, whilst we have to juggle heavy paper books and cope with fine print)... :-) I'm sure others on the list can devise many other appropriate charges! When I brought up this subject years ago, I recall some respondents came back with an argument that the DA operators had no way to signal that the current DA call in progress was to be charged or not. I had figured that they could just hit some button on their consoles to indicate that the current call was regarding a number not in the book (that being coded in their database like you mentioned) and so the call was free. People on the list claimed that wasn't possible. But now they DO have the capability to not charge handicapped people who cannot look up numbers due to some disability -- that exemption is fairly generally implemented, I believe. If they can discriminate the charging based on that, they certainly can do so based on other criteria! Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ From: Mike Trout Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? Date: 28 Jul 89 16:26:40 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY In article , nobody@nowhere.UUCP writes: > (I had been using them for one high-volume > area in which they were marginally cheaper than ATT; I have no wish to > deal with the three-ring circus that is MCI's version of billing on my NYTel > bill.) MCI allows the option of adding their charges to the standard NYTel bill, as you have, or to a separate MCI bill, as I have. I started out several years ago with the MCI+NYTel bill and also found it to be rather messy, whereupon I switched to separate bills and have been happy ever since. You might consider the same; I think all it took was a phone call to MCI customer service. I've had MCI as my default carrier for several years and have never had a complaint. Audio quality is excellent, rates have usually been nicely below AT&T's, and I've never had the billing/customer service fiascos that seem to plague Sprint. I even changed addresses and phone numbers about a year ago, and MCI put the changes through instantly and flawlessly; frankly I had been expecting a major hassle. -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ From: Rich Wales Subject: Re: Thank you for using AT&T Date: 28 Jul 89 18:18:57 GMT Reply-To: Rich Wales Organization: UCLA CS Department, Los Angeles In article Edward Greenberg writes: Since the beginning of this week, I've been hearing radio ads from AT&T introducing a new feature of AT&T Long Distance. Specifically, when you dial 0+ (or 102880+) you'll get the Bong and then a little chime followed by the words "Ay, Tee and Tee". This will let you know that you've indeed reached mom (or what's left of her.) Yes, I've heard the same commercial -- and felt it was very confusing. At first, I thought they were saying that the "Bong", all by itself, was AT&T's new unique identifier (!). What they should have done, I think, is that the "new sound" (the Bong, a multi-toned chime, and the voice saying "AT&T") should have been done at least *twice* -- with a bit of silence at the beginning and the end, and a few wise words from the announcer in between (to make sure people didn't think the "new sound" had to be repeated twice to be genuine). Actually, they could just take their current ad, and stick the follow- ing on the end: "*BONG* *chime* AT&T" -- the right choice. :-} I wonder, though: If, as has been reported here previously, some less- than-scrupulous AOS's have been falsely claiming to be AT&T (with hotel customers and the like), what is there to prevent such folks from using AT&T's "new sound"? -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales "What's a knockout like you doing in a computer-generated gin joint like this?" ------------------------------ From: Lars J Poulsen Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? Date: 28 Jul 89 17:26:19 GMT Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California In article > msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu writes: >>I know for a fact that MCI does NOT require that they be your home >>default carrier. In article Andrew Boardman, ab4@nowhere.UUCP writes: >I talked to an MCI rep yesterday about my (soon to be former) MCI calling >card; I was told that because of a recent policy decision, they would let >anyone hold a card for a maximum of a month without associated "dial 1" >service (MCI marketing-talk for being the default carrier) on my line. The original question was about which long-distance carriers would issue a card to somebody WHO DID NOT HAVE A HOME PHONE NUMBER at all. This still has not been addressed. My home service is two lines. One has 1+ via ATT. The other has 1+ dialing disabled. (Took quite a bit of talking to convince the GTE salesperson that this was even possible !). I have an account with MCI which I use for 10222-1+ dialing from home and for card calling from work. When I recently added the American Airlines bonus mileage option to my MCI account, they sent me a new pair of cards, which I promptly (cut up and) threw out, because I like the MCI logo better than the airline logo, and I would not want to confuse the MCI card with the AAdvantage card. And the numbers were all the same. When I signed up with MCI they asked my permission to become my default carrier, but I said no. They have never brought the issue up again. I am considering taking them on as my default carrier to become eligible for a discount plan, but I'll be d**ned if I'll be railroaded. If they try to force me, I'll probably cancel my account. I don't think they will try to force me. On the other hand, I'm perfectly willing to believe that a customer service representative may have been misinformed. In the year that I have used MCI, I have never had a billing error; on the other hand, I have had several false billings on the ATT page of my GTE bill. / Lars Poulsen (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !! ------------------------------ From: Lars J Poulsen Subject: Re: Dial 1-(NPA)-CONFUSE Date: 28 Jul 89 17:00:00 GMT Reply-To: Lars J Poulsen Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California In a message in comp.lang.postscript, Jan Michael Rynning (in Stockholm) writes: >> >Call 1-88-83-FONTS to get a copy of the "Font and Function" catalog >> >for more details.... >> Hmmm... I only have digits on my telephone dial. How do the letters > ^^^^^^ >> map to digits? In article portal!cup.portal.com!jxh@apple.com writes: >Surprise! The world is not the same as the USA! Personally, I find >alphabetic phone numbers vexing to dial, even when the DTMF pad is labelled >so nicely, my index finger can't read. The mapping of letetrs to digits differs in various countries. While it was originally introduced to aid in the transition from exchange names to all-digit dialling, it took on new life with the introduction of vanity 800-numbers. For the record of overseas readers, the US mapping is: 1 ABC -> 2 DEF -> 3 GHI -> 4 JKL -> 5 MNO -> 6 PRS -> 7 TUV -> 8 WXY -> 9 star = * "oper"=0 hash = # (some phones have QZ on the 0 key) I cannot remember the Danish mapping, except that "C" was on the "1"; a remnant from when the original Copenhangen exchange became "CEntral". What may be even more surprising to insular Americans is that the allocation of dial pulses to digits is not universal. There are a total of 4 different mappings (counterclockwise from 3-o'clock): (a) 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 (Used in UK, I think) (b) 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 (Used in Denmark) (c) 0-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 (d) 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 Obviously, this created a lot of technical problems for international connectivity until the better standardized DTMF signaling became universal. And to my embarrassment, I can't even remember which way the US rotary dial is laid out. It's been so long since I last saw one. / Lars Poulsen (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !! ------------------------------ From: "K.BLATTER" Subject: Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? Date: 28 Jul 89 20:18:01 GMT Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA In article , msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > Lisa Smith (lisa@mips.com) wrote the following in an article in > (the Usenet newsgroup) rec.humor.d: > > > That prefix, 555, isn't fictional everywhere. One of my school friends > > said that his grandfather's phone number, somewhere in South Dakota, is > > a 555 number. He said that it was to his knowledge the only place in > > the U.S. that it was a real prefix though. > > Someone else said that if this was ever true it isn't now. > What do the experts say? I don't know if I would qualify myself as an expert, but I have a listing of every prefix in the North American Dialing Area and there is no exchange which uses 555 as a prefix. (Some parts of the listing are a couple of years old, so I guess that it's not really complete. Other parts, however, are very much up to date.) Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Disclaimer - This information has absolutely nothing to do with my position with AT&T. [Moderator's Note: On a hunch, after the first message on this topic appeared, I tried dialing 701-555-various in North Dakota. Most combinations other than '1212' were answered 'Northwestern Bell, may I help you?' PT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: long distance directory assistance Date: 29 Jul 89 13:19:14 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , 940se@mather1.af.mil (Pete Brown) writes: > This, too, is probably old news, but I have *just* discovered that > one can call long distance information (1-415-555-1212, for example) > *without charge* when the call is made from a Pac Bell coin phone (which > also speaks to AT&T as its default carrier... maybe a coincidence?) Perhaps that is true where you live! Here in NJ, if we dial 1-NPA-555-1212 from a coin telephone, we get a recording telling us to please depost 50 cents. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Dialing Area Codes Date: 29 Jul 89 13:41:20 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , jimmy@denwa.uucp (Jim Gottlieb) writes: >In article malcolm@apple.com writes: > >Why is it that I'm not allowed to dial the area code when I'm calling > >somebody local? This is so agravating! Sometimes you can. In NJ, I can dial local calls with or without the home area code. The price is the same, but the call-handling is apparently different. In particular, I can dial another line in the same central office and watch the incoming calling number show up on the Caller*Id display. Placing the same call (from and to the same numbers) but dialing 1+201+the number results in a Caller*Id display of "Out of Area". The call-setup seems to take a few seconds longer, too. Apparently the home area causes the local switch to route the call up the tree a node or two and back down again. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [Moderator's Note: Dave, in your .signature, you used to say "if you don't wish to eye-dee your number, don't bother calling me", or words to that effect. Did you give up trying to get people to do it? Or was it just the still relatively few number of phones equipped to give it to you? PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #263 *****************************   Date: Sun, 30 Jul 89 9:52:56 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #264 Message-ID: <8907300952.aa11952@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 30 Jul 89 09:37:26 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 264 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson AT&T Gets Green Light for Info Services! (TELECOM Moderator) Busy Signal After Other Party Hangs Up (Michael A. Moore) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Dave Levenson) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Stephen G. Tell) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Epsilon) Various Ways of Handling 555-1212 (Miguel Cruz) Re: CO programming errors & Ill (pun intended) payphones (Charles Rader) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 16:42:48 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: AT&T Gets Green Light for Info Services! On Friday, Judge Greene gave AT&T the green light to start selling their own information services products, effective August 24. Readers will recall that I alluded to this some time ago in the Digest, saying that it was only a matter of days before AT&T would be given permission to begin their own information services network. Although AT&T has not yet announced the exact components of the new offering, knowledgeable insiders tell me that it will quickly evolve into a service which combines many of the best features of Dow Jones News Retrieval and Compuserve. It will offer the standard fare of news, stock reports, travel reservations, games, newsletters and SIGS. We also know at this point that in addition to frequent meetings with Dow Jones, AT&T has been talking to Nintendo, the game people. We also know that AT&T Mail will provide the email function for the new service when it gets underway this fall. Although AT&T has carefully avoided any discussion (which has reached my snooping ears!) regards pricing, the word is it will definitly provide some stiff competition for Compuserve, Genie, and Plink. One of the nicer parts of the new service will be its convenience in use. I'm told there will be no special sign up required except for having an AT&T Calling Card, the Pin on which will serve as your login i.d. Charges will be billed to your AT&T account, meaning they will come right on the phone bill if AT&T is presently billing you that way. As soon as I hear more, I'll post another message. The competition among the Information Providers should become fierce this fall once AT&T gets their thing going. I'm excited about it, and plan to try it out as soon as it becomes available this fall. August 24 is the day they can begin officially offering it; I'd expect things to begin falling in place during September. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 15:22 CDT From: MME4FF16@swtexas.bitnet Subject: Busy Signal After Other Party Hangs Up Here in scenic, downtown, San Marcos, Texas, the local telephone system (SM TELCOM, a.k.a, the San Marcos Telephone Company) has the annoying habit of immediately generating a busy signal on your phone line when someone hangs up before you do. Is there any technical reason for this? It's really irritating, particularly since you sometimes get to listen to five to ten seconds worth of busy signal after each message left on your answering machine. :-(. ========================================================================== ___ __ __ _____ ___ _ _ Michael A. Moore ( _\ \ \/\/ / |_ _| ( _\ | || | SouthWest BITNET: MME4FF16@SWTEXAS _\ \ \ / | | _\ \ | || | Texas State THENET: SWT::MME4FF16 \___) \/\/ |_| \___) |____| University =================== "Cosmic thoughts, gentlemen?" -- Spock =============== ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 29 Jul 89 16:20:28 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , egs@u-word.dallas.tx.us (Eric Schnoebelen) writes: > I didn't think my answering machine was overly special either.. > It too is a Panasonic, the dual line model ( about the only special > thing about it, or so I thought ) and I too leave it on all the time, > with the "toll saver" feature enabled.. If the machine answers, and I > want to talk to the person ( perfect for screening calls ) it will hang > up after I pick up any extension in the house.. > > Other features: remote control from any tone pad, complete with > replacing the message, selection of which line is answered, time and day > of the week stamping, and all of the other "standard" features that come > on answering machines these days.. The only thing I wish it had is a > way to shut up and hand the call off to a modem if it hears a carrier.. > ( that wasn't on the request list when the machine was purchased... ) Many machines work that way. Others do not. Some require that you use an extension plugged into the answering machine to make it disconnect after it has answered. One question Re: the Panasonic 2-line model described above: I bought one recently and discovered that when playing back a message, there is no obvious way to listen to it again. I can pause and resume the playback, but if I missed something and want to back up and replay the message (either remotely or from the control panel of the machine) there didn't seem to be a way. I re-read TFM several times, and then went back to the dealer (Sears) and asked the salesman. He replied that a number of customers had complained about the lack of a back-space and replay feature. He then refunded my money, and I bought another answering machine. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: sgt@dukeac.UUCP (Stephen G. Tell) Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter Date: 30 Jul 89 03:12:02 GMT Reply-To: sgt@dukeac.UUCP (Stephen G. Tell) Organization: Academic Computing, Duke University, Durham, NC One of the features of my answering machine, (the Phone-Mate top of the line phone/dialer/answerer, with time/day stamping) handles this problem: Lifting the handset built-in to the machine cuts it off, of course. Press "*" from any other extension in the house to kill it. The model number on the thing is 4 digits beginning with 76... If anyone is interested, I can mail you the exact number. Other useful features are 3-digit programable security code, and voice prompts for "beeperless-remote" operation. -- Steve Tell: senior, Duke University school of Engineering (please hire me). Former Chief Engineer, Cable 13 / Duke Union Community Television. sgt@dukeac.ac.duke.edu; !mcnc!ecsgate!dukeac!sgt ------------------------------ From: claris!wet!epsilon@ames.arc.nasa.gov Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 23:44:54 PDT Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin In-Reply-To: Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco >You said in your message that, through playing with your line loop resistance, >that you could receive a call, while your switch was under the impression that >you had not answered.. This was a method used by Phone Phreaks in the early >80's to avoid billing. A phreak would put a 'colored' 'box' (they were >labeled by colors) on his/her line and receive calls from other phreaks at the >phone co's expense... 80's? Try 70s! Remember the stink when _Ramparts_ published details of how to build one of those? -=EPS=- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 89 04:37:14 EDT From: Miguel_Cruz@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: Various Ways of Handling 555-1212 Dave Levenson writes: > Perhaps that is true where you live! Here in NJ, if we dial > 1-NPA-555-1212 from a coin telephone, we get a recording telling us > to please depost 50 cents. That happens to me in Michigan, too. But I've discovered that walking over to the slotless "Charge-A-Call" phone next to the payphone will allow me to place DA calls for free. Likewise, I seem to be able to place limitless free DA calls within my area code by dialing 1-555-5555 instead of 1-555-1212. That doesn't seem to work out-of-area. P.S. Moderator: in response to something a few digests ago: 1-700-555-4141 works in a lot more places than just 1-700-555-xxxx for determining the current carrier. Not sure why, but it's definitely the case. Miguel_Cruz@ub.cc.umich.edu [Moderator's Note: Someone else remarked on this to me in a recent letter not for publication. Apparently 555-anything is interchangeable with 4141 at present, but sooner or later as those numbers begin to be used for other purposes, only 4141 will be available, and it is considered the 'official' number for the purpose at hand. So I stand corrected in my earlier report; let's begin using 4141 as the standard. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri Jul 28 06:19:05 1989 From: Charles Rader Subject: Re: CO programming errors & Ill (pun intended) payphones In Telecom volume 9, number 241, the moderator said: Programming errors abound. For a laugh, try 312-922-4600. For about seventy years, that was the main number for Sears, Roebuck & Company at their downtown store and offices. They've been gone for years, and now dialing the number results in a recording, "you must dial one before calling this number". No matter how I dial it, with a one or not, that recording still comes on the line. I had a similar experience this week calling from my hotel room at Indian Lakes Resort in Bloomingdale, Illinois to another number in the Chicago suburbs. The recording said that calls within the area code should be dialed without a one and calls to other area codes should be dialed with a one. I got the same recording with or without dialing a one and with or without the area code. I finally gave up and used a calling card from an Illinois Bell payphone and chalked it up to either hotel PBX programming or another fly-by-night carrier. The hotel also blocked 10288 access from the room phone. Ironically, the number I was trying to reach was at AT&T Bell Labs. There happened to be an AT&T meeting in the hotel at the same time as my Unisys users' conference, so I wonder if the folks at the AT&T meeting experienced this problem too? Those of us from Michigan also found the Ill Bell payphones a bit confusing. One of them gave back my quarter then asked me to deposit *13* cents. I didn't have exact change, so I re-deposited the quarter, which the phone kept even when no one answered. What's really supposed to happen? Does Ill Bell really expect customers to deposit pennies on local calls? --- Charles Rader, Systems Manager I don't worry 'bout a thing University of Detroit Computer Services 'cause I know cmr%carpix@cardiology.ummc.umich.edu Nuthin's gonna be all right. voice: 313-927-1349 fax: 927-1011 Splunge is a trademark of 20th Century Vole [Moderator's Note: No, you certainly are not expected to deposit pennies in our payphones. We work in five cent increments like everyone else. There was obviously some error in the transaction, but you might have tried depositing *15 cents* to see if that would be acceptable to the machine. Thanks for sharing your experience while visiting with us. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #264 *****************************   Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 0:12:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #265 Message-ID: <8907310012.aa31529@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 Jul 89 00:00:06 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 265 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Non-Standard Exchanges in the Past (TELECOM Moderator) Re: Why we ALL have seven digit numbers (David Lesher) Proper Usage of Units of Measurement (Mark L. Milliman) 2nd Line Color Codes (Ken Levitt) The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number (Gary Kremen) The First Radio Commercial (TELECOM Moderator) Re: AT&T Gets Green Light for Info Services! (Frank J. Wancho) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 17:55:54 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Non-Standard Exchanges in the Past The discussion recently in the Digest regarding 'standardized' seven digit dialing has been accompanied by users telling of experiences in the past when they found non-standard systems. From the time area codes were introduced in the late fifties until just a few years ago, non-standard numbering systems were around. Actually, until about 1965 or so, the majority of the United States, although perhaps using seven digit numbers was still disconnected from DDD, or direct-distance- dialing for one reason or another. Gradually each telco made the necessary changes to enable them to be part of the direct dial network. Officially, exchanges were NOT considered part of the area code in which they were geographically situated until such time as they were direct dialable. One correspondent discussed the summer camp served by the Eagle Bay exchange, and the confusion resulting when he attempted to place a call through the operator. Part of the confusion resulted from telling the operator that the place was in 'area 315'...when in fact it was not part of that area, but merely surrounded by it! The way to pass a call to the operator under those circumstances would have been to dial the operator and simply ask for 'Eagle Bay, New York, 3815'. Let the operator look up the routing. When he said it was in area 315, then she immediatly assumed he could dial it. When the operator called Rate and Route, in Morris, IL (815 + 131 if you are interested), she would be told the route to Eagle Bay was 315 plus 068 plus 121 or similar. On dialing that code, she would be answered by the operator in Eagle Bay, and she would simply pass 'three eight one five' verbally to that person. The old time operators who were around before and after the DDD conversion got underway would have known this; but newer operators who had no experience with the old system would quite obviously be confused at first. There were also systems where your operator could dial into them, although you could not. One place in Minnesota which comes to mind had four digit dialing. A call to Rate and Route by your operator would produce a reply, 'mark ticket 218-447, dial 218 plus 054 plus 447 plus'. This told the operator to dial the four digits you passed verbally to her after dialing the 'pseudo' (in this case) area code, and the prefix that would eventually be assigned. Lafayette, Indiana and lots of other GTE places were peculiar in their resistance to standardized numbering. In the case of Lafayette, which sits in area 317, they went undialable by the masses for many years because they would not force Purdue University to come into compliance with a seven digit number. Everyone in Lafayette had a seven digit number except Purdue University, which was 'conveniently dialable' from all over Lafayette with just two digits: 90. You had your choice, actually. Nine-Oh would fetch the Purdue operator, while nine-two, followed by five digits would directly ring the desired extension on campus. If you wanted to call Lafayette anything from Chicago -- although you could call nearby towns with 317-xxx-yyyy -- you dialed 211, which was our old code for the long distance operator, and asked for Lafayette and the desired *seven digit* number (everyone else in town was 7D), or you asked for 90 (or just 'Purdue') if that was who you were calling. The operator went on a ring down line, jerked her ringing key a couple times and waited till whenever the Lafayette operator came on, anywhere from three seconds to three minutes later, then verbally passed the number. The military bases were another strange setup. All large military posts had their own phone system, replete with three or four digit extension numbers, no actual assigned phone number in the town where they were located, and a bunch of ring down lines on the board going to half a dozen or so major cities. Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana was one such example. The Great Lakes, Illinois Naval Training Center was another. None of those people would budge an inch to bring themselves into compliance with the mandates of DDD, and for years, AT&T and the local telcos kept accomodating them anyway. Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii were two others that were not actually part of area 808 until a few years ago for this reason. Schofield had ring downs to Honolulu and to San Fransisco. From anywhere on the Islands, your operator called Honolulu and they in turn passed you to Schofield. From the mainland, a call to Rate and Route asking for Schofield Barracks produced the response, 'mark ticket 808-054, dial 415 plus 054 plus 181' and sure enough, a San Fransisco operator would answer, connect to the cable and wait for Schofield or Pearl Harbor to answer, eventually, so your operator could verbally pass the desired number. The real holdouts were the ones -- that sometimes still to this day -- would not share their directory listings with 555-1212. Even in the era when the standardization was far from complete, you could usually get information even from the communities still on manual service from the appropriate 555-1212. But sometimes the operator would say -- and still says -- "I'll have to connect you there," and they would ring that exchange, always with an admonition to the other end, "Operator! Information only for this party please! Do not connect him to anything!!". This was necessary since phone phreaks in the 1950's and 1960's knew they could call the appropriate 555-1212, get passed to an independent telco allegedly for information and sweet-talk the little old lady on the other end into putting the call right on through. Some telcos still don't share their directory with the folks who run 555-1212 in their state, which is why you'll occassionally get passed along to someone else when you call asking for a number. Ah yes, then there was, and still is to some extent, northern Quebec. Radio links from a little town called Val-d'Or, Quebec on VHF frequencies. We used to blow the local operator's mind by calling for someone in Ivujivik, Quebec. Local operator would go to R&R for counsel, and get told, 'mark ticket Other Place, dial 809 plus 181. That produced an operator in Montreal who in turn connected us to Val-d'Or, who in turn answered in French to begin with, always prompting the local operator to say, "Speak English!" and after a certain amount of confusion, Val-d'Or would tell us just a minute while she tried to raise Ivujivik on the radio, but she highly doubted they would answer because it was 2:00 AM and they only listen in the evenings between around 9 and midnight. But she would go on the air, leaving the key open on our end while she was calling, (in French, sorry I cannot quote it exactly), "Hello Ivujivik, hello! Val-d'Or calling on channel two! Val-d-'Or here! Come on, are you there? Val-d'Or has a call for you on channel two." And she would repeat herself several times before finally saying to us, "Oh, I am *so* sorry, Chicago! The operator is asleep now and has the radio off. Why don't you try in a few hours, maybe about 8 AM, eh? He listens for us starting at 8 AM until about 10 AM. And Sudberry, Ontario had an *actual wire* running to Moosonee, a few hundred miles to the north, again a ring down point, but if you called in the middle of the night, the operator in Sudberry would always tell you, "If it is not an emergency, she will get mad at us for calling at this time of night. We are not supposed to call until **we give her a wake up call at 7 AM**. Anytime after that until midnight is okay. Of course, *we* knew ahead of time the responses we'd get from both Val-d'Or and Sudberry. The local operators in Chicago were rather blown away by the whole thing, to say the least. By sometime in the early seventies, I suppose, all that stuff was gone. Talk to a very old, retired circa 1950's phone operator sometime if you want to hear some amazing bits of phone history. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: Re: Why we ALL have seven digit numbers Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 9:19:18 EDT Reply-To: wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu Reply-To: David Lesher > When we bought the camp, its phone number there was "Eagle Bay 3268." In 1980, I drove a car out to the left coast. About 40 miles west of Salt Lake City, I stopped to get the oil changed. There was a Chevron station and some kind of tourist restaurant. That is ALL. The rest is all sand, or salt I guess. I noticed the Utah Bell coin slot, one of the new style (i.e. 1 slot) had a dial blank. The label on the bottom said "lift receiver, ask operator" on some such. The number on the center of the dial blank was Timparie {sp} 2 I asked the pump jockey, and he said something like "Oh, yeh, EVERYTHING is LD from here" I walked over to the greasy spoon, and the coin slot outside it said Timparie 1 on it. Now, I said, this is the 1980's- ALL telephones have numbers in the United States. So I looked up the Teddy Bear Chevron in the book there, and sure enough, Ask Operator for Timparie 2 -- Flash! Murphy gets copyright on sendmail.cf {gatech!} wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 89 11:44:39 EDT From: Mark L Milliman Subject: Proper Usage of Units of Measurement Organization: AT&T-Bell Laboratories For the past year or so I have noticed a trend that disturbs me and could confuse others. I first saw this happen in our company's sales and marketing departments, but then I saw it in our technical organization a couple times! Now I see it used in industry publications and on the net. I am talking about how we are misusing our units of measurement. More specifically, dropping the "per second" from Megabits/second. Most of us deduce that the "per second" should be appended to the Megabits when we see it missing, but novice readers could be confused by the omission. Can I connect a T1 line to my PC and use it to store 1.544 Mb of data? I can think of some more ridiculous examples, but I am sure that you understand. Can anyone explain why this is happening? Are we just too lazy to type an extra two letters or is the "per second" meaningless? I am curious to know why this is proliferating. I am waiting to see it in advertising. I'm not picky, just an engineer, Mark L. Milliman Internet: mlm@homxc.att.com AT&T Bell Labs UUCP: att!homxc!mlm Holmdel, NJ 07733 (201)949-0796 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 89 22:07:19 EDT From: Ken Levitt Subject: 2nd Line Color Codes I have two phone lines in my house. Both lines appear on the same quad cable. Line one is on the red and green wires and line two is on the black and yellow wires. Things work just fine when I plug in a two line phone. However, in some locations I use a wall plate with two modular outlets. I run the red/green wires to the top outlet and the black/yellow to the bottom outlet connecting to the terminals marked red and green. I know that the colors don't matter as long as I am consistant and my polatity tester shows all is OK, but I would like to know what the standard is in color coding. Should the yellow wire go to the terminal marked red or should the black wire go to the terminal marked red? -- Ken Levitt - via FidoNet node 1:16/390 UUCP: ...harvard!talcott!zorro9!levitt INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.edu [Moderator's Note: Green and red/yellow and black/blue and white... who can go further? Once I heard a phone man name all twenty five pairs in a cable and their associated partner.....purple and gray/??? and ???..... then we get into the slates (stripes)...can anyone reading this name all twenty five pairs (fifty wires) and the 'proper' color combinations? PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun 30 Jul 89 13:45:56-PDT From: Gary Kremen (The Arb) <89.KREMEN@gsb-how.stanford.edu> Subject: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number I am wondering about the "special tone" that one hears when making a telephone credit card call using AT&T. Does anyone out know at what frequency the tone is or is there even a standard? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 89 23:18:20 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: The First Radio Commercial I know, this is TELECOM Digest, so what is a message about radio commercials doing here. There is only one excuse, really: The first sale of time on a radio station for commercial purposes occurred 67 years ago this week when radio station WEAF, New York City, sold the first commercial to a Jackson Heights apartment-house builder. WEAF, one of the first broadcast radio stations in America belonged to a very large organization: AT&T to be exact. Yes, among other things, AT&T used to own a commercial radio station in the early days of broadcasting. WEAF was designed primarily as an experimental station, used to test out the latest developments from Bell Labs and Western Electric Company. The majority of the time they played jazz music and/or symphonies, with occasional speeches of interest by important people in New York City. They only operated the station a short time, and decided it was not worth the time or money to continue operating it. This was just a little telecom trivia to start the week for you! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 1989 10:46 MDT From: "Frank J. Wancho" Subject: Re: AT&T Gets Green Light for Info Services! > I'm told there will be no special sign up required except for > having an AT&T Calling Card, the Pin on which will serve as your > login i.d. Oh, I hope not. Considering that many card numbers are based on your phone number, and the only thing which attempts to protect it is your PIN, you may very well be giving away the farm if this is true and if login IDs are conventionally public knowledge... --Frank ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #265 *****************************   Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 0:01:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #266 Message-ID: <8908010001.aa14756@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Aug 89 00:00:23 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 266 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson AT&T Call Manager Service (John Gilmore) MCI and Northwest Airlines (Ken Jongsma) Rotary-dial Encoding (Torsten Dahlkvist) Twisted Pair Color Coding (Kenneth H. Lee) Color Codes (William C. DenBesten) Re: 2nd Line Color Codes (Bob Felderman) Re: Cable Colors (Mike Richichi) Re: Reach Out and Tap Someone (TELECOM Moderator) Re: The First Radio Commercial (Russell Shackelford) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 19:41:32 PDT From: John Gilmore Subject: AT&T Call Manager Service I recently got a little booklet from AT&T entitled "The AT&T Guide for New, Moving, and Growing Businesses" (you can get one from AT&T, POB 7401, London, KY 40742). It includes half a page on every service you can get from AT&T (as well as an ad for PBX's and their 386 boxes!). One service I'd never heard of was Call Manager. The service is simple and great. When dialing a long distance call, if you follow the phone number with 1 to 4 digits, the call will be billed to that 'account'. On your phone bill, the calls are sorted by accounts. The service is free to all AT&T long distance customers. This is perfect for shared households, of course. If you remember to dial the account number, it goes on your part of the shared bill. If you forget, it goes in the section that gets looked over by everybody. I haven't seen the bill that results, but I presume it subtotals the calls by account number as well as sorting them, making it easy to figure what you owe. I'm planning to use the service for my uucp calls too. I can just assign an account number to each uucp site my machine calls. The calls will be sorted and subtotaled by site, making it easy to see what sites hoptoad is burning the most money calling. The service is available now in the Pacific Northwest and they're turning it on all around the US; call +1 800 782 8801, the "Call Manager Hotline", to find out when it works in your state. Unfortunately, the recording does not list California, so I called AT&T to find out when I could get the service. Apparently there is some problem with the Cal PUC, though the AT&T publication said "AT&T Call Manager service will be available nationwide by the end of 1989" in large type. If anyone knows more about the California problem, please let me know. ------------------------------ Subject: MCI and Northwest Airlines Date: Sun Jul 30 21:47:57 1989 From: Ken Jongsma Do you have large MCI bills? Do you want a "free" ticket on Northwest? According to the ticket envelope I received this week, MCI is offering 5 miles in NW's frequent flyer program for every $1 you spend on MCI. There are some restrictions. You can only use it one free award. No multiple awards allowed. You must have MCI as your Dial 1 carrier. If you are interested, there was a number to call: 1-800-288-5847 Ken@cup.portal.com {All Disclaimers apply. I use Sprint myself!} ------------------------------ From: Torsten Dahlkvist Subject: Rotary-dial Encoding Date: 31 Jul 89 08:57:31 GMT Reply-To: Torsten Dahlkvist Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden Talking about which numbers to dial for operator and so on, how many different designs of rotary-dials were there? I'm not talking about "fashion" phones whith strange looks, I mean the encoding of "digit" to "number-of-pulses". I know of at least three patterns and I'm curious as to whether there are more or not and exactly where the different systems have been used. If the subject has been handled before I would appreiciate E-mail with copies of the relevant articles. First of all: the "normal" - the Bell-system, used _practically_ everywhere (n)-dialling; the digit "1" sends one pulse and so on up 'til 9. "0"=>10. Secondly: "Swedish" dialling. Does anyone else use this? (n+1)-dialling; "0" sends one pulse, "1" sends two... "9" sends 10 pulses. Third: "Oslo" dialling (the Norwegian Capital is different from the rest of the country. Historical reasons?): (10-n)-dialling (or is it (10-(n+1))?); The dial works "backwards" and looks quite funny to the newcomer. I'm not sure if the coding is 1=>10, 2=>9...0=>1 or 0=>10, 1=>9... 9=>1. Somebody out there to fill me in? One possible explanation for the "Oslo" system would be that the digits could be located like the hours on a clock face - more familiar to the user. Is this true or just another modern myth? Has this scheme been used elsewhere? (I have an unverified source saying it's been found somewhere in New Zeeland. Correct?) When Sweden went automatic, starting in the 40's I think and finishing in the 60's, the (n+1) scheme was chosen. Two possible reasons have been told to me. Since they are in no way contradictory, they _may_ both be valid and/or just unplanned spin-offs. Or myths. First: The zero was deemed the most "important" digit, beeing (at the time) used to call the operator and already destined to prefix long-distance calls. Also, the zero is (marginally) more frequent than the nine in any set of numbers. If you have a local exchange with (for example) a three digit numbering plan, you'd start by giving the first subscriber number 100 (or 101). You then go on to fill the numbers, but you (probably) never reach 999 until it's time to expand the entire system. This way, the one through (whichever hundreds you reach) will be most frequent followed by the zero and finally by the "remaining" digits. There _may_ be advantages to having a more frequent digit sending a shorter code. Second: By having zero (a single pulse) to reach the operator, a user on a newly converted line could use his old phone (lacking a dial) to reach the operator by tapping the hook briefly. This is probably mythical since phones were at this time telco property and they presumably changed them all at the time of converting the line. There's been a lot of talk about the different small US local admins of early years. Did any of them go automatic or were they all manual? If any went automatic, did they all choose the Bell dialling codes? /Torsten Torsten Dahlkvist ! "I am not now, nor have I ever ELLEMTEL Telecommunication Laboratories ! been, intimately related to P.O. Box 1505, S-125 25 ALVSJO, SWEDEN ! Dweezil Zappa!" Tel: +46 8 727 3788 ! - "Wierd" Al Yankowitz ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 9:34:55 EDT From: "Kenneth H. Lee" Subject: Twisted Pair Color Coding W (hite), R (ed), B (lack), Y (ellow), V (iolet) Bl (ue), Or (ange), Gr (een), Br (own), Sl (ate) W/Bl, Bl/W W/Or, Or/W W/Gr, Gr/W W/Br, Br/W W/Sl, Sl/W R/Bl, Bl/R R/Or, Or/R R/Gr, Gr/R R/Br, Br/R R/Sl, Sl/R B/Bl, Bl/B B/Or, Or/B B/Gr, Gr/B B/Br, Br/B B/Sl, Sl/B Y/Bl, Bl/Y Y/Or, Or/Y Y/Gr, Gr/Y Y/Br, Br/Y Y/Sl, Sl/Y V/Bl, Bl/V V/Or, Or/V V/Gr, Gr/V V/Br, Br/V V/Sl, Sl/V Each bundle of 25 pairs is coded in this manner. To distinguish a wire, you need to look at both wires in the pair. W/Bl, which is White/Blue, is a wire with a wide spiral of white and narrow of blue. Whereas Bl/W, Blue/White has a wide spiral of Blue with a narrow spiral of white. In our installation, the term used for each bundle was a 'bin'. I'm not sure if this is what is used out in the rest of the industry. If you have more than one bin of 25 pairs in a cable, each bin of is surrounded by tracers which use a color scheme similar to the wires. For example, if you had a 200 pair cable, you would have 8 bins of 25 pairs each. bin tracer color 1 W/Bl 2 W/Or 3 W/Gr 4 W/Br 5 W/Sl 6 R/Bl 7 R/Or 8 R/Gr I hope this is useful. This is all from the back of my memory and some old notes I have. I haven't worked for the Data Communication group in a while so I can't vouch for the accuracy this information. Kenneth H. Lee khl@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu Columbia University ...{topaz|rutgers}!columbia!cunixc!khl 209 Watson, 612 West 115 Street khlcu@cuvmc.bitnet New York, NY 10025 (212) 854-8230 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 11:48:26 -0400 From: "William C. DenBesten" Subject: Color Codes > [Moderator's Note: Green and red/yellow and black/blue and white... who > can go further? Once I heard a phone man name all twenty five pairs in > a cable and their associated partner.....purple and gray/??? and ???..... > then we get into the slates (stripes)... I thought that the order was: Pair Tip Ring 1 RED GRN 2 YEL BLK 3 BLU WHT, and that the 1st pair was backwards in a modular connector compared to the rest. > can anyone reading this name all > twenty five pairs (fifty wires) and the 'proper' color combinations? PT] *** Schedule 0 *** ------ T I P ------ | BLU ORG GRN BRN SLT R WHT 1 2 3 4 5 I RED 6 7 8 9 10 N BLK 11 12 13 14 15 G YEL 16 17 18 19 20 | VLT 21 22 23 24 25 The ring wire in each pair is has a wide band that is the ring color and a thin stripe that is the tip color. The tip wire has a wide band that is the tip color and a narrow stripe that is the ring color. Is this what you were looking for? I culled this from staring at telephone wiring and looking at advertisements for mod-tap connectors, so I may be all hosed. -- William C. DenBesten is denbeste@bgsu.edu or denbesten@bgsuopie.bitnet ------------------------------ From: Bob Felderman Subject: Re: 2nd Line Color Codes Date: 31 Jul 89 17:49:49 GMT Reply-To: Bob Felderman Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department >[Moderator's Note: Green and red/yellow and black/blue and white... who >can go further? Once I heard a phone man name all twenty five pairs in >a cable and their associated partner.....purple and gray/??? and ???..... >then we get into the slates (stripes)...can anyone reading this name all >twenty five pairs (fifty wires) and the 'proper' color combinations? PT] It's really pretty simple: There are 5 color groups white,red,black,yellow,violet In each group there are 5 pairs blue, orange, green, brown, slate For each pair, the wire that is mostly the color of the group goes first. For example the 1st pair is White/Blue then Blue/White. Here's the list: white/blue blue/white white/orange orange/white white/green green/white white/brown brown/white white/slate slate/white red/blue blue/red red/orange orange/red red/green green/red red/brown brown/red red/slate slate/red black... yellow... violet... That will give you 25 pairs (50 wires). To get more than that, for instance in a 1200 pair cable. Each set of 25 (colored as above) is wrapped with a colored ribbon. The 1st 25 pairs get a blue ribbon wrapped around them. The 2nd get an orange, the 3rd get a green ... and so on. I've never installed a cable with more than 100 pairs, so I don't know how the coding goes after 125 pairs. I'd assume it's fairly straightforward. Bob Felderman feldy@cs.ucla.edu UCLA Computer Science ...!{rutgers,ucbvax}!cs.ucla.edu!feldy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 21:42 EDT From: Mike Richichi Subject: Re: Cable colors > [Moderator's Note: Green and red/yellow and black/blue and white... who > can go further? Once I heard a phone man name all twenty five pairs in > a cable and their associated partner.....purple and gray/??? and ???..... > then we get into the slates (stripes)...can anyone reading this name all > twenty five pairs (fifty wires) and the 'proper' color combinations? PT] > Hmm... I just learned this a few days ago when I had to punch down a 25 pair cable... Basically, they're grouped in sets of 5 pairs. The pairs are colored blue, orange, green, brown, gray. Each set of 5 pairs has one pair of each color. The sets are colored white, red, yellow, black and purple (I think that's the order at least). Wires in a pair are first the first color dominant and then the second (they're all striped wires...) So, it goes like this... blue-white, white-blue (first color being the dominant one) orange-white, white-orange green-white, white-green brown-white, white-brown gray-white, white-gray and then blue-red, red-blue green-red, red-green... and so on through all 25 pairs. For 50,100,125... pairs, I was told this same thing was repeated for each 25 pairs and the whole thing was wrapped in still different colors. That scheme I don't know though.... --Mike Richichi, Student Telecom Support Specialist, Drew University, Madison, NJ, USA. MRICHICH@DRUNIVAC.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 89 23:38:12 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Reach Out and Tap Someone In a previous issue of the Digest (Vol 9, issue 120: April 3, 1989) I wrote that two former security people of Cincinnati Bell were claiming they had had engaged in numerous illegal taps over a 12 year period at the request of their supervisors at Cincinnati Bell and the Cincinnati Police Department. Cincinnati Bell filed suit against the two men, Leonard Gates and Robert Draize, claiming both were liars out to get even with the company after they had been fired for other reasons. 'Taint necessarily so, said a judge who agreed the charges may have some merit, and permitted the class action suit against Cincinnati Bell to continue this past week. The class action suit claims that Cincinnati Bell routinely invaded the privacy of thousands of people in the area by secretly tapping their phones at the request of police or FBI officials over a twelve year period from 1972 - 1984. The taps were mainly applied against political dissidents during the Viet Nam era, and in more recent years, against persons under investigation by the United States Attorney for southern Ohio, without the permission of a court. Now says the court, depending on the outcome of the class action suit, the criminal trials of *everyone* in the past decade in southern Ohio may have to be re-examined in light of illegal evidence gained by the US Attorney, via the FBI, as a result of the complicity of Cincinnati Bell with that agency, courtesy of Robert Draize and Leonard Gates. The testimony this past week got *very messy* at times. Gates and Draize seem detirmined to tell every dirty thing they know about Cincinnati Bell's security department over the dozen years they worked there. It is a very sad story indeed. See TELECOM Digest V9 #120 dated April 3, 1989 for the full background, and hold your breath, because the stink is going to get worse than ever before it is over and done with. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 12:40:08 edt From: Russell Shackelford Subject: Re: The First Radio Commercial Glad you didn't make any disparaging sexist remarks about the radio station's female employees :-) russ [Moderator's Note: Well look, no one is perfect. I am bound to miss a few details now and then. :) But seriously, I doubt sincerely that they even had any female employees at the radio station in 1922, except probably the receptionist/secretary. That's just the way things were back then. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #266 *****************************   Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 1:09:34 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #267 Message-ID: <8908010109.aa00650@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Aug 89 01:00:20 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 267 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson A New Concept in Numbering Plans (Smitty) Re: Is Europe Going to Get 8 Digit Numbers? (Timo Kiravuo) Re: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? (Torsten Dahlkvist) Re: Why we ALL have seven digit numbers (Edward Greenberg) What's an NPA? (Jeff Wasilko) ATT Chimes (Kenneth R. Jongsma) Re: This Is a Recorded Ripoff (Kevin Blatter) Re: Correction of Telco Name (TK0GRM2@NIU.BITNET) Re: Satanic Exchanges (Kevin Blatter) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: A New Concept in Numbering Plans Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 09:57:15 PDT From: Smitty Two questions: 1. Wouldn't the present North American numbering plan work better if there were a variable number of digits in local numbers and area codes, so that the total number of digits remained 10? For example, California currently has 10 area codes and may soon go to 11. Surely some of these areas have many unused exchange codes. Wouldn't it make sense for California to have 8 digit local numbers and a two digit area code? This would permit many of the unused exchange codes to be used in areas where they are needed. One might consider the first four digits as defining the exchange (this would determine geographical location for charging purposes). Such a numbering system would remove the need for many of us to dial 11 digits for regions just a few miles from our homes. A similar system could be used in New York. At the same time, states like Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah, etc. each tie up an area code. Wouldn't it make sense for them to have 6 digit local numbers and 4 digit area codes (with more than one 4 digit area code for some states)? Mixed versions could be used in some of the other Eastern States, if appropriate. For example, a state like New Jersey might use two 3 digit area codes and a few four digit area codes. All told, this could hold the total number of digits in telephone down to 10 for years to come, instead of the soon-to-be 11. 2. Much more generally, given the availability of nation-wide data bases (currently used, e.g., for 800 numbers) couldn't these be extended to all numbers. If that were the case, then one's telephone number need not be related to his or her physical location. This is, of course, true to some extent, in cellular telephone systems. smitty ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 89 16:03:48 GMT From: kiravuo@kampi.hut.fi (Timo Kiravuo) Subject: Re: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Center In article dan@sics.se (Dan Sahlin) writes: >Are there more countries going to get 8 digit numbers in the near >future? Not Finland, at least, we still have varying lengths all over the country. My home number is 676 076 and work number 451 4328, even though they both are in the same (local) company. In some other places you can have numbers of only four digits. This is partly because we still have many private phone co-operatives. >PS. Isn't it about time that the world would agree on the international >access code, i.e. the code that you replace the +-sign with in your >international telephone number? In Sweden (and Denmark) we dial 009, >but many in many countries in Europe it is the more logical 00. Good idea. In Finland it is 990 to get out. Would you care to swap that 9 for one 0, would be easier for us both. :-) A trivia bit. In many companies with local switches you have to dial 0 to get out. In Finland at least. But on a pulse system the 0 is the longest number, so that a 1 would make more sense, to save time. The story goes that this comes from the Italy, where the inpatient Italians would start to hit the phone hook and accidentally get a 0, when they could not get an line out right away. -- Timo Kiravuo Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Center kiravuo@hut.fi sorvi::kiravuo kiravuo%hut.fi@uunet.uu.net work: 90-451 4328 home: 90-676 076 ------------------------------ From: Torsten Dahlkvist Subject: Re: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? Date: 31 Jul 89 07:59:26 GMT Reply-To: Torsten Dahlkvist Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden >[Moderator's Note: I don't think too many countries have our penchant here >in the USA for pulling zero to get the operator either. Right/wrong?? PT] Quite right. As far as I know, the zero-prefix for non-local dialling is by far the most common one. That means that dialling a single zero and waiting will just get you a "non-complete" error, whichever way the local admin handles that. The number in Sweden to get operator service is "000" for domestic calls. (We'll have to give that up when we get phones on other planets :-) There may be some connection between the numbers chosen for certain common services (like "operator" or "non-local dialling" and the actual design of the old rotary-switch dial of ancient days. See my next posting for more on that subject! /Torsten Torsten Dahlkvist ! "I am not now, nor have I ever ELLEMTEL Telecommunication Laboratories ! been, intimately related to P.O. Box 1505, S-125 25 ALVSJO, SWEDEN ! Dweezil Zappa!" Tel: +46 8 727 3788 ! - "Wierd" Al Yankowitz ------------------------------ From: Edward Greenberg Subject: Re: Why we ALL have seven digit numbers Date: 31 Jul 89 22:33:31 GMT Reply-To: Edward Greenberg Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest In article wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu writes: >... >some such. The number on the center of the dial blank was > Timparie {sp} 2 >I asked the pump jockey, and he said something like >"Oh, yeh, EVERYTHING is LD from here" >I walked over to the greasy spoon, and the coin slot >outside it said > Timparie 1 >on it. > >Now, I said, this is the 1980's- ALL telephones have >numbers in the United States. So I looked up the >Teddy Bear Chevron in the book there, and sure enough, > > Ask Operator for Timparie 2 >-- I've been there... in 1982, and they seem to have connected those phones to the DDD network. We made a call from there, and I'm sure I would have remembered the setup you described. The Salt Lake is actually a historical place. West of the Chevron Station was a rest area which commemorated the golden spike of telephony -- the meeting of the first transcontinental telephone cable. There are also a bunch of "Toll Stations" in the Nevada Bell telephone book that have to be reached by calling the operator. I'm looking forward to visiting some of those areas someday, when I get the time to do some motorcycling in Nevada. I've also been to Moosonee. It's about an 8 hour train ride north of Cochrane Ontario on the southern tip of Hudson's Bay. No roads up that far, and the cars that they have were brought in on the train. There are people living along the rail line and the train brings them their newpapers, groceries, drugs, hardware, etc. They also seem to be hanging on the phone line that parallels the railroad. Once in Moosonee, the phones don't seem to stand out in my memory. We received an incoming call at the motel (although the caller has passed away and I can't ask her how she made it) and we returned the call successfully. There were pay phones. They were not direct dial. I believe that they HAD dials though, and that local switching was automatic. -e [Note to moderator and Mike Trout: The stories of reaching Eagle Bay, and the moderators posting of other barely reachable locations were yummy. I encourage the moderator (and all of us) to reminisce further.] -- Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg ------------------------------ From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: What's an NPA Date: 30 Jul 89 22:17:30 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Wasilko Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest I'm new to the digest and was wondering if someone could explain what valid numbers are represented by: NPA NNX etc... Thanks, Jeff Wasilko wasilko@netcom.uucp netcom!wasilko@apple.com [Moderator's Note: Would some of you readers please correspond direct with Mr. Wasilko and give him a brief introduction to the terms which are common here in the Digest? Thanks! PT] ------------------------------ From: Kenneth_R_Jongsma@cup.portal.com Subject: ATT Chimes Date: Sun, 30-Jul-89 16:18:56 PDT Just got back from a trip when I spent some time in US West territory. When I made some calls from the Minneapolis airport, I got the chimes and the word "ATT" after the bong. Interestingly enough, at another US West phone a few days later, I did not chear the chimes, but did get the usual message after entering my card number. For some reason, it hasn't been implemented nationwide yet. By the way, the US West payphones at MSP are interesting. SOrt of a cross between the AT&T Darth Vader phones and a stainless steel vending machine. Takes credit cards and allows selection of carrier by pressing a button (similar to the way some of the Ill Bell phones at O'Hare work), and also has a LCD window with status messages displayed. ken@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ From: "K.BLATTER" Subject: Re: This Is a Recorded Ripoff... Date: 31 Jul 89 02:39:51 GMT Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA > for 30 seconds. She protested that when she dialled, all she got ws a > recorded Telecom service saying she couldn't dial STD on that phone. > "Ah," said the manager triumphantly, "but you listened to the message."'' > > I know that you do get gouged by hotels for phone calls, but don't they > even check for call supervision? Is it possible there is no indication > that the call failed, and a recorded announcement is mistaken for the > called party answering? Nope, traditional PBX's like those used in Hotels have no idea if a call was completed. A PBX only knows when the caller picked up the phone and the digits that he/she dialed and when the caller hangs up. PBX's use a timeout feature to assume when a call would possibly be completed. Then they start billing from that time -- usually about 45 seconds. When I travel and I want to call home, I pick up the handset, dial the number quickly, when the other end answers, I spout off the hotel and room number quickly and then hang up. I have done this several times and haven't been billed for one of these calls yet. -- A nice way to get back at the slimeball hotel operators that choose AOS's! Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Disclaimer - I don't know what my employer thinks of such practices, so I can't very well speak for them. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 10:54 CDT From: TK0GRM2%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu Subject: Correction of Telco Name Patrick - just to clarify a message that somebody posted about a non-numeric phone number in Utah (sorry I don't know who..old digests are auto-purged after they are read). The BOC for Utah is Mountain Bell. (not Utah Bell). -=->G<-=- [Moderator's Note: You're right. Sorry, I missed that one myself. PT] ------------------------------ From: "K.BLATTER" Subject: Re: Satanic Exchanges Date: 31 Jul 89 02:20:22 GMT Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA Since this discussion of 666 exchanges is still alive, I decided to list all of the 666 exchanges in the US and Canada (at least according to the list that I have). They are: 201666 Westwood, NJ 202666 Washington, DC 203666 Newington, CT 205666 Mobile, AL 207666 Bowdoinham, ME 208666 Coeur d'Alene, ID 212666 New York, NY 213666 Los Angeles, CA 214666 Bristol, TX 215666 Philadelphia, PA 216666 Montrose s, OH 217666 West dana, IL 218666 Cook, MN 301666 Cockeysville, MD 303666 Lafayette/Louisville, CO 305666 Miami, FL 306666 Fox Valley, SK 312666 Chicago, IL 313666 Drayton Plains, MI 318666 Reeves, LA 402666 Linwood/Morse Bluff, NE 403666 Etzikom, AB 405666 Rocky, OK 406666 Fort Smith, MT 415666 San Francisco, CA 416666 Whitby, ON 418666 Quebec, PQ 419666 Toledo, OH 501666 Little Rock, AR 503666 Gresham, OR 505666 Wagonmound, NM 513666 E liberty, OH 514666 Laval, PQ 516666 Bay Shore, NY 519666 Ilderton, ON 603666 Manchester, NH 604666 Vancouver, BC 605666 Keystone, SD 606666 Jackson, KY 608666 Lyndon Station, WI 614666 Ostrander, OH 615666 Lafayette, TN 617666 Somerville, MA 703666 Martinsville, VA 713666 Houston, TX 714666 Anaheim, CA 803666 Shaw AFB, SC Apologies to everyone for misspelling any of the destinations listed above or omitting any exchange. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Disclaimer - The above represents personal knowledge and has nothing to do my employer. [Moderator's Note: However, the astute reader will note that the town of Hell, Michigan is not included in the above. The area code for Hell is 313, and they share the CO with Hamburg (313-231) or Pinckney (313-878) depending where in Hell you happen to be located; it being a rural area, with a tiny population spread over several miles. The zip code for Hell is 48169, which it shares with nearby Pinckney, about twenty miles northwest of Ann Arbor, on State Route D-19. About the only industry or business in the little town is a company which makes and sells T-shirts and other souveniers for tourists which quite appropriatly say, "I've been through Hell..." And with that, we close the topic of 'Satanic Exchanges'. I hope you've gotten as many laughs from it as I have, what with government agencies, Jesuit Universities and the devilish IRS, all with 666 numbers. In Wednesday's Digest, another round of Sprint-bashing coming up. See you tomorrow! PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #267 *****************************   Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 0:13:36 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #268 Message-ID: <8908020013.aa09439@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Aug 89 00:01:06 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 268 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Sprint Service in the Hinterlands (J. G. Black) Sprint's Free FO(O)N Service (John Higdon) Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number (Edward Greenberg) Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number (Tom Wiencko) Re: MCI and Northwest Airlines (Lars J. Poulsen) Re: MCI and Northwest Airlines (John Levine) Re: National Views of Access Codes (Tom Hofmann) Re: Intelligent Network: Service Interactions (Anthony Lee) Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant (Alexander Dupuy) Weird Phone Dials (Henry Mensch) Re: Rotary-dial Encoding (Mark James) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 08:34:58 EDT From: @vlsi.ll.mit.edu:black@micro Subject: Sprint Service in the Hinterlands Reply-To: @vlsi.ll.mit.edu:black@micro I've just returned from a relaxing trip to a friend's cabin in central Maine, where there are still 'cottage industry' local TELCOs. This particular one, called Community Telephone Co, served a 10-mi-radius region about 20 mi W of the state capital, Augusta. Their phone directory gives the usual blather about what equal access is, but then states that only AT&T serves the region. I then called back to the Boston and Phila. areas, using my Sprint 800-877-8000 FON card method, which ordinarily gives the excellent sound quality which seems to rankle some of the AT&T hounds in the audience. Well, in this case the call did go through, but the sound quality was TERRIBLE, garbled, hissy, almost inaudible. Repeated same on AT&T, using calling card , and sound quality was very good. My question is, who carries the calls to the nearest Sprint line (in Portland?) when you originate a call in a region which they do not serve? JG Black, consultant at MIT Lincoln Lab "The real tragedy of the AT&T breakup has yet to occur, the dismantling of the finest research establishment in the USA" ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Sprint's Free FO(O)N Service Date: 1 Aug 89 02:30:14 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team All of this commentary concerning Sprint's ultra-cautious handling of its accounts and security measures and redlining, etc., has reminded me of the first days of the FO(O)NCARD service. As soon as the 800 877 8000 number was working in southern California it didn't take some people long to find out that the cheapest long distance rates were currently being provided by Sprint. This is how it worked: Dial 800 887 8000. Dial 0 plus the telephone number. When you hear the tone dial 14 digits. Oh, any digits, even all 1s if you like. "Beep-beep" and the call goes through. This "service" lasted for many, many weeks. The more enlightened users of this arrangement only used pay phones, realizing that the number of the calling phone was being transmitted to Sprint, but for a while it was indeed the cheapest long distance anywhere. That's progress. From having the biggest hole in all of telephony to turning off legitimate subscribers because too many (or not enough) calls are being made. Are they learning on our nickel? -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Edward Greenberg Subject: Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number Date: 31 Jul 89 22:16:21 GMT Reply-To: Edward Greenberg Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest My understanding is that this is octothorpe (pound) followed by a decaying volume dialtone. The octothorpe unlocks the touchtone pad in certain cases. The dialtone is just a cue to the human to go ahead and dial. -e -- Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg ------------------------------ From: Tom Wiencko Subject: Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number Date: 1 Aug 89 18:45:31 GMT Reply-To: Tom Wiencko Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product" In article 89.KREMEN@gsb-how.stanford .edu (The Arb) writes: >I am wondering about the "special tone" that one hears when >making a telephone credit card call using AT&T. Does anyone out know >at what frequency the tone is or is there even a standard? As a matter of fact, yes, there is a standard. My copy of the 1980 "Notes on the Network" tells it like this: A 941Hz plus 1477Hz tone for 60 msec at -10dBm/-3TLP followed by a 440Hz plus 350Hz tone for 940 msec exponentially decayed from -10dBm per frequency at -3TLP at time constant of 200 msec. This tone is affectionately known in some circles as the "bong." I believe that this is still the standard. Tom ------------------------------ From: Lars J Poulsen Subject: Re: MCI and Northwest Airlines Date: 1 Aug 89 18:58:40 GMT Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California In article kenj%wybbs.UUCP@mailgw.cc.umich.edu (Ken Jongsma) writes: >According to the ticket envelope I received this week, MCI is offering >5 miles in NW's frequent flyer program for every $1 you spend on MCI. >There are some restrictions. You can only use it one free award. No >multiple awards allowed. You must have MCI as your Dial 1 carrier. MCI is signing these agreements with all the major frequent flyer programs. I have mine posted to AAdvantage (American Airlines). The MCI miles are regular bonus miles, that count towards any award you care to apply them to. Last week, I got a promotion from Mileage Plus (United Airlines) offering the same deal. And MCI is NOT my dial-1 carrier. (ATT is). / Lars Poulsen (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !! ------------------------------ From: John Levine Subject: Re: MCI and Northwest Airlines Reply-To: John Levine Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 01:58:44 GMT In article kenj%wybbs.UUCP@mailgw.cc.umich.edu (Ken Jongsma) writes: >MCI is offering 5 miles in Northwest's frequent flyer program for every $1 >you spend on MCI. ... You must have MCI as your Dial 1 carrier. >If you are interested, there was a number to call: 1-800-288-5847 MCI has the same deal with American. You just call the 800 number, give them your MCI account number and your AA or NW account number, and you're all set up. (Only one airline allowed, I asked.) In theory you have to have MCI as your default carrier, but I have them as a 10222 alternate carrier, and they didn't complain. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 {ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, johnl@ima.isc.com, Levine@YALE.something Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old. -The Globe ------------------------------ From: Tom Hofmann Subject: Re: National Views of Access Codes Date: 31 Jul 89 07:33:51 GMT Organization: WRZ, CIBA-GEIGY Ltd, Basel, Switzerland From article , by msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader): | 1. Are there any other countries that take what I have called the "North | American" point of view above? *All* the countries that I've been to | outside North America use the other system. | 2. Are there any other countries that allow customer-dialed, operator- | assisted calls? If so, how are they dialed? | 3. Are there any countries outside North America that use 1 as an access | code (interpreting the numbers in North American style)? So far all | the ones we've heard about use 0, except for Finland which uses 9. | 4. Is there any correlation between unusual access codes and unusual dials? | I remember that where the standard dial has 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0, there | are two nonstandard dials that have 0-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 and 9-8-7-6-5- | 4-3-2-1-0, but I don't remember which are the few countries that use | them, except for New Zealand which uses the latter one. Could Finland | be one of these? -- I know that New Zealand uses an access code of 0. | On the other hand, their emergency number is 111, which is dialed the | same as the British 999! 1. France is an example---they have only two area codes, however: "1" for Paris and "" (none) for the rest of the country. French telephone numbers are always written without the access code "16". 4. I have seen 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 in Norway (among "normal" ones) and 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 in Sweden (both more than 10 years ago). Tom Hofmann wtho@cgch.UUCP ------------------------------ From: Anthony Lee Subject: Re: Intelligent Network: Service Interactions. Date: 1 Aug 89 00:26:20 GMT Reply-To: anthony%batserver.cs.uq.OZ@uunet.uu.net I posted an earlier article asking about service interactions in an Intelligent Network environment. Since then I was away for two weeks for a conference in Singapore (SICON'89) and to visit my parents in Hong Kong. Naturally while I was away I didn't get to read any responses to my question on comp.dcom.telecom. However I did receive email from David G Lewis from Bellcore. He said that he would tell me more if I can reply to his mail. So I did but my mail bounced at either University of Texas or Bellcore. I am really annoyed at this because I try mailing to someone else before in Bellcore and the same thing happened. I heard from someone else that Bellcore's email system is very flaky, can anybody confirm that. And David Lewis, if you are reading this then please send me either your phone number or SNAIL address. I would really be grateful if someone from BNR send me some responses too on any information about service interactions. Anthony Lee (Humble PhD student) (alias Doctor(Time Lord)) ACSnet: anthony@batserver.cs.uq.oz TEL:(+617) 3712651 Internet: anthony@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (+617) 3774139 (w) SNAIL: 243 Carmody Rd, St Lucia, 4067 Australia ------------------------------ From: Alexander Dupuy Subject: Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant Date: 31 Jul 89 15:36:26 GMT Reply-To: dupuy@cs.columbia.edu Organization: Columbia University Computer Science Department In article John Boteler writes: Office Tone Plant ------ ---------- Rolm PBX lucky to get anything! Actually, with Rolm PBX's anything means just that! We have one of these monsters at Columbia now, and it has happened that someone calling me got a busy signal which changed to a ringback after I hung up on the previous call! What I'm curious to know is whether called party answer supervision works correctly in these cases, i.e. if someone calling long distance were to get a busy and hang on the line until I hung up on the previous call, would they only be billed after I had answered (assuming they were using an LD carrier which could detect answer supervision)? @alex inet: dupuy@cs.columbia.edu uucp: ...!rutgers!cs.columbia.edu!dupuy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 10:21:50 -0400 From: Henry Mensch Subject: Weird Phone Dials Reply-To: henry@garp.mit.edu New Zealand has their dial oriented "backwards" (from a north american perspective). Thus, zero (or is it nine?) is closest to the finger stop, etc. # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 19:20:02 +0200 From: mark@motown.altair.fr Subject: Re: Rotary-dial Encoding euatdt@euas11g.ericsson.se (Torsten Dahlkvist) writes of "Oslo" dialling: > (10-n)-dialling (or is it (10-(n+1))?); The dial works "backwards" and > looks quite funny to the newcomer. I'm not sure if the coding is 1=>10, > 2=>9...0=>1 or 0=>10, 1=>9... 9=>1. . . . > (I have an unverified source saying it's been found somewhere in New > Zealand. Correct?) That is correct; not only "somewhere" but all of New Zealand uses a 10-n pulse code: 9 gives 1 pulse, 8=>2 ... 0=>10. Most emergency numbers end in 999. I believe Australia uses the same system. Now, of course, most new phones use tones, but even here the tone codes are different from those used elsewhere. New Zealand Telecom did this on purpose, of course. When international pressure forced the government to abrogate Telecom's monopoly of telecommunications equipment manufacture, the bureaucrats made sure that few competitors would bother making their phones or modems work with the weird local standard. For this reason, even 300-baud modems still cost the equivalent of over $100 US. ####### Mark James ######### opinions, errors etc are my own ####### ####### mark@bdblues.inria.fr ######### +33 (1) 39 63 53 93 ######## ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #268 *****************************   Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 1:17:21 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #269 Message-ID: <8908020117.aa15178@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Aug 89 01:00:40 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 269 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Standards For Color Coding of Phone Cables (Vance Shipley) Problems with calls to 401 area (Roy Smith) Being "Unlisted" in a Listing (Carl Moore) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Sandy47@ucsco.ucsc.edu) Re: 2nd Line Color Codes (Chuck Huffington) Re: Proper Usage of Units of Measurement (Tom Gardner) Re: Long Distance Directory Assistance (Wilson Chan) Re: This Is a Recorded Ripoff... (Lars J. Poulsen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Aug 1 19:06:36 1989 From: Vance Shipley Subject: Standards For Color Coding of Phone Cables Reply-To: vances@xenitec.UUCP (Vance Shipley) Organization: Xenitec Consulting Services, Kitchener, ON In article levitt@zorro9.fidonet.org (Ken Levitt) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 265, message 4 of 7 >I know that the colors don't matter as long as I am consistant and my polatity >tester shows all is OK, but I would like to know what the standard is in >color coding. Should the yellow wire go to the terminal marked red or >should the black wire go to the terminal marked red? Telephone circuits are paired as 'tip' and 'ring' wires. On POTS (plain old telephone service) tip is 0 volts and ring is -48 volts (tip is not 'ground' though as it is a blanced line). The pairs must be distinguishable from one another easily so they are colour coded. The colour of the wire indicates whether it is tip or ring. In a quad wire green and black are tip while red and yellow are ring. >[Moderator's Note: Green and red/yellow and black/blue and white... who >can go further? Once I heard a phone man name all twenty five pairs in >a cable and their associated partner.....purple and gray/??? and ???..... >then we get into the slates (stripes)...can anyone reading this name all >twenty five pairs (fifty wires) and the 'proper' color combinations? PT] pair# tip colour ring colour _____ __________ ___________ 1 white blue 2 white orange 3 white green 4 white brown 5 white slate (silver) 6 red blue 7 red orange 8 red green 9 red brown 10 red slate 11 black blue 12 black orange 13 black green 14 black brown 15 black slate 16 yellow blue 17 yellow orange 18 yellow green 19 yellow brown 20 yellow slate 21 violet (purple) blue 22 violet orange 23 violet green 24 violet brown 25 violet slate An individual wire is identified by it's colour and the colour of it's stripe. The main colour determines whether it is tip or ring while the stripe identifies it's pair (i.e. a black wire with a blue stripe is tip of pair 11). In many cables the stripe is missing in which case the pairs are distinguished by the way they are twisted, by pulling back the sheath pairs are more obvious. As you can see there are only 5 tip colors and 5 ring colours (5 x 5 = 25). a 100 pair cable is made up of four of these 25 pair bundles. The first bundle is wrapped by a white/blue binder string, the second by a white/orange binder, the third by a white/green and the fourth by a white/brown. This scheme can be extended infinitum. In article denbeste@andy.bgsu.edu (William C. DenBesten) writes: >I thought that the order was: > Pair Tip Ring > 1 RED GRN > 2 YEL BLK > 3 BLU WHT, >and that the 1st pair was backwards in a modular connector compared to the >rest. Your polarity is off. Modular connectors reverse the polarity so they make the issue pretty confusing. A modular line cord (that is a properly made _telephone_ line cord) has a flat topology such that when laid on a table the top of both connectors is up. This means that a reversal (polarity wise) takes place. Tip becomes ring on all pairs (the wire is a ribbon in theory). the top of both connectors is up. A 'set' jack (the one inside the telephone) is wired backwards to compensate. >Is this what you were looking for? I culled this from staring at >telephone wiring and looking at advertisements for mod-tap connectors, >so I may be all hosed. The mod-tap connectors got ya! They don't always (read 'often') get the polarity straight from a telephone standards point of view. A standard for using modular connectors with rs-232c is in the works that should clear up much of the mess caused by adhoc "standards" made up by people in need of one! Vance Shipley uucp: ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!vances Linton Technology - SwitchView INTERNET: vances@egvideo.uucp 180 Columbia Street West (soon) vances@xenitec.uucp Waterloo, Ontario CANADA tel: (519)746-4460 N2L 3L3 fax: (519)746-6884 ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: Problems With Calls to 401 Area Date: 1 Aug 89 15:53:20 GMT Organization: Public Health Research Institute, NYC, NY This morning, I've placed a few calls to 401-847 and 401-849 numbers (actually, two different lines to the same company). To be honest, I'm not sure which long distance carrier we use here at work. About 3 out of 4 times I get one of two recordings, either "-ry your call again" (it sounds like the recording cuts in on the middle of a "please try your call again" message, every time at exactly the same place) or "this number is not in service at this time". When I called the AT&T operator, she said one number was busy (possible, I guess) and put me right through to the other number. Another time, the operator told me I should try it with 10288 first, which I did and it worked. My question is, what exactly does an operator do when you call and ask for help making a call. Most times when I have to call an operator because I can't get through myself and suspect something is wrong, the operator makes the call no sweat. Do they do anything special? Manual routing? Priority routing? Or is it just luck? Hmm... I just noticed on a recent Digest that either 1-700-555-1212 or 1-700-555-4141 should get you a recording telling you what LD carrier you have. I tried the first and got a recording saying "We're sorry, your long distance carrier cannot complete your call at this time. Please check with your long distance carrier for more information. 13282." or something to that effect. A call to the later got a recording welcoming me to the "Totaltel network". Sounds like fly-by-night phone company to me. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu "The connector is the network" [Moderator's Note: The AT&T operator has some options not presently available to operators of Sprint and MCI, who mostly are limited to handling special billing requests on calls, such as collect, third number or credit card billings. AT&T operators will assist in dialing by (1) attempting to reach the number themselves to see if the problem you were experiencing was temporary and has now corrected itself, and (2) to seek the assistance of the local operator in the called community to detirmine if the requested number is out of order, abandoned off-hook, or whatever. By dialing to 'Inward' in the desired community via a number the operators can dial but subscribers cannot, the operator has her counterpart in the distant city 'verify' the number; that is, go on the line momentarily to listen for conversation or some indication of trouble. What sometimes happens when AT&T can complete a call but some other OCC bounces it back through intercept is that no one has yet told the OCC the desired office code (AC plus prefix) is a working combination. Or if the OCC was made aware, they have not yet programmed their switch to accomodate calls to that office. The OCC's not have a sufficient working arrangement with the local telcos *yet* that they can 'borrow' an operator in the distant city to verify troubles on the line. The reason you have Bumstench Telecom, or whatever they call it is perhaps they managed to convince some executive in your firm -- a know nothing where telecom is concerned -- that the rates would be so much better than the 'overpriced' service offered by AT&T. It happens that way, a lot. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 10:38:11 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Being "Unlisted" in a Listing I thought I saw a reference to unlisted number(s) in a very recent digest. Anyway, I was recently in New Market, Va. (Shenandoah County), and the local phone book (the first one to do so in my recollection) listed people who had unlisted numbers! No address was supplied for such people except for town (or exchange?) place name. Making up a name (I don't recall any actual name anyway), here's a sample: Smith, John -- Edinburg -- Unlisted ("Unlisted" appears where the phone number would be.) ------------------------------ From: 90784000 Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Date: 31 Jul 89 14:53:43 GMT Reply-To: /dev/null Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz In article pnet01!pro-sol!pro- newfrontier!pro-nfmail01!pro-harvest!pro-palace!r. writes: >You said in your message that, through playing with your line loop resistance, >that you could receive a call, while your switch was under the impression that >you had not answered.. This was a method used by Phone Phreaks in the early >80's to avoid billing. A phreak would put a 'colored' 'box' (they were >labeled by colors) on his/her line and receive calls from other phreaks at the >phone co's expense... > >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Actually started in the late '60s. There was an article in Ramparts Magazine which gave actual details, including Radio Shack part numbers for building a "Yellow" box. Basically a resistor to be switched in at time of ring receipt to disable call charging (since the telephone had never been answered). "Blue" box details were worked out from the Bell Systems Technical Journal article published in the '60s which explained the inner workings of the new DTMF and MF systems. In the '70s "Captain Crunch" popularized this and added the computer twist. Go to your local US Government Depository Library (many public libraries and most university libraries fall into this category) and look up the Code of Federal Regulations for Telecommunications (several volumes). Part 68 has an interesting section on "Billing Protection" which deals with both the MF tones generated by "Blue" boxes and the impedance shifting done by "Yellow" boxes. But don't USE the information illegally or you'll be placed in a "Gray" box with steel bars :-). ------------------------------ From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Date: Tue Aug 1 18:38:18 1989 Subject: Re: 2nd Line Color Codes Organization: Apex Computer Co., Redmond WA >[Moderator's Note: Green and red/yellow and black/blue and white... who >can go further? Once I heard a phone man name all twenty five pairs in >a cable and their associated partner.....purple and gray/??? and ???..... >then we get into the slates (stripes)...can anyone reading this name all >twenty five pairs (fifty wires) and the 'proper' color combinations? PT] Here, is the order of the 25 pair color code. This is from memory and I don't use it often anymore, but I pretty sure its correct. I don't know of any relationship between red/green/yellow/black quad cable and this code. w/bl bl/w w = white bl = blue w/o o/w r = red o = orange w/g g/w bk = black g = green w/br br/w y = yellow br = brown w/s s/w v = violet s = slate r/bl bl/r r/o o/r r/g g/r r/br br/r r/s s/r bk/bl bl/bk bk/o o/bk bk/g g/bk bk/br br/bk bk/s s/bk y/bl bl/y y/o o/y y/g g/y y/br br/y y/s s/y v/bl bl/v v/o o/v v/g g/v v/br br/v v/s s/v Chuck Huffington uunet!apex!chuckh ------------------------------ From: Tom Gardner Subject: Re: Proper Usage of Units of Measurement Date: 1 Aug 89 08:59:11 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK. Mark Williams comments about the new "habit" of dropping the "per second" from "Megabits per second". I agree that it's lazy, sloppy and (unforgivably) potentially confusing/ambiguous. My own pet peeve on this subject is authors who think "nS" is a unit of time. It isn't. The Siemen (S) is a unit of conductance, i.e. the reciprocal of resistance, units amps per volt. You most often come across Siemens as the unit of transconductance in semiconductors. The unit of time, seconds, is written as "s". N.B. lower case. When I see, for example, a RAM access time written as 100nS, I note that the author does not have a particularly wide or deep understanding of this subject area. HENCE I TEND TO DISCOUNT ANYTHING ELSE THE AUTHOR WRITES, unless it is, in all other respects, clear concise and comprehensible. Moral: using incorrect units makes you appear ignorant. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 15:46 EDT From: w0chan01@ULKYVX.BITNET Organization: University of Louisville Subject: Re: Long Distance Directory Assistance In article 940se@mather1.af.mil (Pete Brown) writes: >>this is probably old news to many readers, but you can save a dime on >>your 1***5551212 calls by prefixing with 10ATT. ATT still charges 50 cents >>per directory assistance calls... does anyone know of another carrier >>which matches ATTs rate for directory assistance? [stuff deleted] In relation to this issue, I would like to present my experiences with AT&T long distance operator for International calls. Several months ago, the Hong Kong Telecom had converted all their 6-digit telephone numbers to 7-digit numbers. Therefore, all telephone customers in Hong Kong now have 7-digit numbers. I called home right after HK Telecom switched my parents' telephone number, of course, I got the usual message saying that the number was wrong or disconnected. Therefore, I called up the AT&T operator (dialing "00") and asked him whats the problem since I didn't know the change at that time. He tried the number for me but got bounced! Therefore, he called the directory assistance from HK Telecom and requested the my parents' new phone number. The new phone number worked! And I did not get a bill from AT&T at all for the following month! There wasn't any charge when someone request a International directory assistance service through the AT&T operator. I think the reason behind was that there isn't any way for AT&T to get billings from Telephone companies in other countries. It is probably very expensive to implement this billing system I think. Any comments or corrections will be appreciated! Wilson Chan, Student Consultant | UUCP: wchan@cup.portal.com (UUCP only) Health Sciences Computing Center | BITNET: w0chan01@ulkyvx.bitnet University of Louisville | ARPA: w0chan01%ulkyvx.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu Louisville, KY 40292, U.S.A. | CIS: 74030,2713 GEnie: W.CHAN ------------------------------ From: Lars J Poulsen Subject: Re: This Is a Recorded Ripoff... Date: 1 Aug 89 19:11:42 GMT Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California In article klb@lzaz.att.com (K.BLATTER) writes: >-- A nice way to get back at the slimeball hotel operators that choose AOS's! On a recent visit to Phoenix, I stayed at an otherwise very nice hotel that had AOS (NTS, I think). When it was time to call my wife, I called the receptionist and asked how to access ATT and MCI. She told me to dial 9-10288+ for ATT (9 was the access code for (free) local calls). In a flash of inspiration, I dialed 9-950-1022+ and the call went through. No billing on the room bill. Serves them right. / Lars Poulsen (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #269 *****************************   Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 0:20:02 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #270 Message-ID: <8908030020.aa06023@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Aug 89 00:11:20 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 270 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson The Demise of Inward (John R. Covert) NOVELL: Problem Using DBASE III Multiuser Program (Phillip M. Immordino) RS-232 Standards for phone wire (Ken Levitt) Special Ring Detection (Orville Weyrich) Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? (John Wheeler) Re: AT&T Gets Green Light for Info Services! (Peter da Silva) Re: Twisted Pair Color Coding (James Harvey) Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant (goldstein@delni.dec.com) Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons (Amanda Walker) Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number (Dave Levenson) Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Peter da Silva) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "John R. Covert" Date: 2 Aug 89 23:51 Subject: The Demise of Inward The concept of Inward is one of the things that modernization of the network has essentially ended. Back in the days when lots of calls were operator handled, the Inward operator was the operator who answered jacks labelled "Inward" on her position. In some towns, this might be the same operator as the "Coin Collect" operator, who would answer jacks labelled "Coin Collect" or as any other operator. In larger towns, there would be switchboards explicitly allocated to these specialized services. In smaller towns, these services would appear on some or all of the positions occupied by other operators. The "numbers" route for non-dialable ring-downs would also have its own set of jacks. But now that modernization has arrived, and operators sit at computer consoles rather than cord boards and are located hundreds of miles from the areas they serve, the whole concept has essentially gone away. For example, New England Telephone serves Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine with operators connected to switching systems in Springfield MA, Cambridge MA, Framingham MA, Hanover MA, Lawrence MA, and Manchester NH. Most operators are not near these switching systems. They are in Fall River MA, Brockton MA, Quincy MA, Keene MA, Newburyport MA, Springfield MA, Marlboro MA, E. Providence RI, Portland ME, Dover NH, Keene NH, and Brattleboro VT. The long distance carriers are also drastically reducing the ubiquity of operators. In testimony before the Mass DPU, a competitor of AT&T claimed that AT&T planned to concentrate its operators in five nationwide operating centers. The operators don't really have any special sort of connection to the central offices except when they are performing coin collect functions or busy number verification. Some reasons a call might go through when placed through an operator when it didn't work when dialled are: 1. You dialled via one carrier and then used an operator from a different carrier. 2. Your local central office has a problem translating the area code or area code and first three digits. 3. Your local operating company has a translation problem in its access tandem. 4. The long distance carrier has a translation problem in the toll switching machine serving your central office, but when you're connected to an operator, you end up using a different toll switching machine for the call. Basically, the only reason the operator gets through when you don't is that the call may be placed through different switching systems along the way. Inward almost doesn't exist any more. Except when calling an area served by one of a very few independent telcos with their own operators, AT&T operators who call Inward are going to reach another AT&T operator. In no case will an AT&T operator calling Inward reach a local Baby Bell operator. Only in the case of the completing calls to non-diallable points (and there are thousands of them left, especially in California), will an AT&T operator end up on a Baby Bell toll board, but this isn't Inward. The Inward route (rather than the proper "numbers" route) for such places would end up on an AT&T board which would have to call the "numbers" route. This means that if I make a call from Boston via the AT&T operator for help in calling Montpelier VT, and the operator tries Inward, this means the AT&T (not New England Telephone) operator for Montpelier, who might be sitting at the operator position right next to her! It also means that if I want to call a pay phone in Montpelier collect, AT&T can't do it anymore, because they can't reach a telco operator. AT&T will call the pay phone and say that someone's trying to call collect and ask the party to call back 1+. /john ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Aug 89 11:12:12 EDT From: Phillip M Immordino Subject: NOVELL: Problem Using DBASE III Multiuser Program Does anybody out there in netland have a working NOVELL LAN that can run a Multiuser DBASE III compatible program? We are having trouble running our program at Princeton. Our NOVELL loaded server has been set to standard defaults. Must these defaults be changed? Our program has worked on SUN's PC-NFS with only occasional corruption of data. We want to switch to NOVELL because it supposed to be better. Reply directly to the above netid. Phil Immordino Princeton University Computing and Information Technology ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Aug 89 11:48:25 EDT From: Ken Levitt Subject: RS-232 Standards for phone wire In article vances@xenitec.uucp (Vance Shipley) writes: > The mod-tap connectors got ya! They don't always (read 'often') get the > polarity straight from a telephone standards point of view. A standard for > using modular connectors with rs-232c is in the works that should clear up > much of the mess caused by adhoc "standards" made up by people in need > of one! I would interested in any proposed standards for passing RS-232 over 6 wire phone connectors. If you or anyone else have this information, would you please post it or send it directly to me. -- Ken Levitt - via FidoNet node 1:16/390 UUCP: ...harvard!talcott!zorro9!levitt INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 19:08:59 EDT From: Orville Weyrich Subject: Special Ring Detection Some phone exchanges now have an option in which a phone line may generate two different ring signals depending on who the caller is (or is it done with a special secondary phone number?) Does anyone know of the specifications for the ring signals which I could use to automatically detect which type of ring signal is present and switch it to the appropriate place? [yes, I am looking for a way to avoid installing and paying for a second phone line]. E-mail responses please, and I will post a summary if response merits. -- Orville R. Weyrich, Jr. | UUCP : ...gatech!csun1!weyrich Department of Computer Science | INTERNET: weyrich@csun1.cs.uga.edu University of Georgia | Athens, GA 30602 USA | MA BELL : (404) 542-1082 ------------------------------ From: John Wheeler Subject: Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? Date: 2 Aug 89 01:43:33 GMT Reply-To: John Wheeler Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta in reference to: >[Moderator's Note: On a hunch, after the first message on this topic appeared, >I tried dialing 701-555-various in North Dakota. Most combinations other >than '1212' were answered 'Northwestern Bell, may I help you?' PT] This is the kind of thing that peaks my now-mostly-dormant-hacker's- curiosity as to: Is there an assignment, internally, of 555- numbers to inward operators or some such? Or, do they all rollover to 555-1212... what a waste of numbers if they do... -- Turner John Wheeler E N T E R T A I N M E N T ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw Networks Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 21:38:44 -0400 From: ficc!peter@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: AT&T Gets Green Light for Info Services! I can see wholesale abuse of the system if your user id is your calling card number. New subject... Regarding railroad phone systems... some railroads _still_ run voice and code over fencing. Doing SCADA over these lines is... um... interesting. --- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | writing is the sentence Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | you are now reading" ------------------------------ From: James Harvey Subject: Re: Twisted Pair Color Coding Date: 2 Aug 89 16:21:53 GMT Organization: Michigan Bell Telephone Company In article , khl@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Kenneth H. Lee) writes: > > In our installation, the term used for each bundle was a 'bin'. I'm > not sure if this is what is used out in the rest of the industry. That would be short for Binder Group, which is the Bell term. > > Kenneth H. Lee khl@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu > Columbia University ...{topaz|rutgers}!columbia!cunixc!khl > 209 Watson, 612 West 115 Street khlcu@cuvmc.bitnet > New York, NY 10025 (212) 854-8230 -- Jim Harvey | "Ask not for whom the bell Michigan Bell Telephone | tolls and you will only pay 29777 Telegraph | Station-to-Station rates." Southfield, Mich. 48034 | ulysses!gamma!mibte!jbh ------------------------------ From: goldstein@delni.dec.com Subject: Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant Date: 2 Aug 89 15:47:11 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation In article , dupuy@cs.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) writes... >In article John Boteler writes: > Office Tone Plant > ------ ---------- > Rolm PBX lucky to get anything! > >Actually, with Rolm PBX's anything means just that! We have one of these >monsters at Columbia now, and it has happened that someone calling me got a >busy signal which changed to a ringback after I hung up on the previous call! While I work for a company that's the largest competitor to Rolm's parent company (until the sale of Rolm to Siemens goes through...), I still don't like to see gratuitous Rolm-bashing. I spent quite a long time specializing in the care and feeding of Rolm switches (as a large customer) and while they certainly aren't perfect, they're generally predictable once you know the score. In the case above, Alexander Dupuy is reporting on "autopark", one of the nicest Rolm features that never caught on elsewhere! Autopark allows a caller to dial in to a DID extension and, if the line is busy, hear a PBX-generated busy signal. This is not supervised, so it's free. BUT if the caller knows about this feature, and listens to it long enough (the default is 10 seconds), then (if I remember) the busy signal is replaced by "music on hold" (still free) and the called party gets a call waiting tone. When the called party hangs up, the call rings through. Supervision occurs when it's answered. This is legal because PBXs are allowed to provide audible signaling to a DID caller without returning supervision; supervision is required only when a two-way path is opened. It should, however, be obvious that PBX manufacturers affiliated with long distance carriers (be they AT&T or Bell Canada) would not be particularly anxious to implement this feature! It's one of the widest loopholes in the supervision rules. Kudos to Rolm for taking advantage of it. (It's been around for over a decade.) Of course, not many end-users even know about it. Like many Rolm features, it's a bit hard to explain. ------------------------------ From: Amanda Walker Subject: Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons Date: 2 Aug 89 15:36:04 GMT Reply-To: Amanda Walker Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation In article , jimmy%denwa.uucp@eecs.nwu.edu (Jim Gottlieb) writes: > And I would be willing to pay a little more for that service. But AT&T > LD is not a little more, and they are decidedly inflexible. I agree on the inflexibility point, but AT&T LD rates are still regulated, and every time AT&T proposes a LD rate decrease, MCI, US Sprint, and National Telecom protest it, saying it's "predatory," or "unfair competition." I think that if the market is going to be opened to competition, AT&T should be allowed to compete too. You can't have it both ways... -- Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation -- amanda@intercon.uu.net | ...!uunet!intercon!amanda ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number Date: 1 Aug 89 04:21:58 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , 89.KREMEN@gsb-how. stanford.edu (The Arb) writes: > I am wondering about the "special tone" that one hears when > making a telephone credit card call using AT&T. Does anyone out know > at what frequency the tone is or is there even a standard? The tone that prompts the caller for the Calling Card number is the MCCS (mechanized calling card service) logo tone. It is usually called BONG. It consists of approximately 50 milliseconds of the touch-tone # symbol (two tones) followed by a frequency and amplitude shift that makes it appear to fade away. The # is used because the calling party may be using a tone phone behind a pulse PBX with a tone-to-pulse converter. Many such converters are disabled by the #, thus allowing the subscriber to dial the card number with touch-tones, and avoid having them translated into dial pulse. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 21:33:38 -0400 From: ficc!peter@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public > Equity requires that 20 ordinary phone lines should not cost simply 20 > times the cost of one phone line, since there are economies of scale. So why do I have to pay 2 times the cost of one line for 2 residential phone lines? What's sauce for the goose... --- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | writing is the sentence Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | you are now reading" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #270 *****************************   Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 1:13:11 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #271 Message-ID: <8908030113.aa06523@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Aug 89 00:55:48 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 271 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson New AT&T Products Available (TELECOM Moderator) New Area Code Directory Available (TELECOM Moderator) Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Scott Barman) Re: Answering Machine Interrupter (Rodney Amadeus) Re: Proper Usage of Units of Measurement (Tom Gardner) Re: Why we ALL have seven digit numbers (Dave Levenson) New 800 Service Working Well (TELECOM Moderator) [Moderator's Note: I've received quite a few replies to the question about having seminar announcements in the Digest. Watch for a special edition of the Digest this weekend with the replies. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 0:46:50 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: New AT&T Products Available PagePac 6 and PagePac 6 Plus ============================ Two new paging systems from AT&T. The PagePac 6 is a single zone 6 watt system that can be used with background music. It works well in office environments of up to 9000 square feet, or in factories/warehouses of 7000 - 15,000 square feet where only one paging zone is required. It is compatible with all AT&T phone systems and can be accessed by all users by simply dialing an access code. PagePac 6 Plus is a multizone system, handling three zones and two paging lines. Talkback is part of this package, which allows two way communications between the person making the page and the person answering. The person answering simply speaks into the nearest speaker. Merlin Plus Release 2 Call Forwarding ===================================== Traditionally, to have calls forwarded to another number involves paying a monthly fee to the central office for custom calling features. In the Merlin Plus Release 2, call forwarding is included in the feature module. To further enhance call forwarding, the Merlin Plus Release 2 has a synthesized voice message that acts somewhat like an automated attendant letting the caller know that the call is being forwarded. If desired, the voice message can be turned off and the number of rings set to zero so that the forwarding is transparent to the caller. The call forwarding destination number can also be changed remotely from any touch tone phone. The Merlin Plus Release 2 will ask for your password and the new call forward number. After entering the new number, the voice message unit will repeat the number back to you and ask you to confirm by dialing a * to confirm or a 00 to deny it. After receiving the confirmation, the voice will repeat the number once more, and identify it as the new call forward number. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 0:53:25 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: New Area Code Directory Available AT&T has announced the new, completely revised 1989 edition of its Area Code Directory. This book contains a comprehensive listing of area codes for thousands of towns across the United States and Canada. It also includes a numerical listing of area codes, as well as a map of the United States showing the location of each area code, and the related time zone. Price is $2.00, plus applicable state tax. Publication number 999-600-111. When you order your copy, ask for your FREE copy of AT&T's newly revised International Guide to Telecommunications, publication number 1-WB-952. This book is a comprehensive listing of international dialing codes for other countries. It includes time zones, dialing instructions and other items of interest. Send check or money order, or VISA/MC number to: AT&T Customer Information Center Box 19901 Indianapolis, IN 46219 Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 19:10:41 EDT From: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public Reply-To: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) Organization: Digital Transmission Systems (a subsidiary of DCA), Duluth, GA X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 202, message 2 of 9 > [ ... problems with long distance dialing in Atlanta ... ] > >Seemingly, every time I dialed 0 I got an operator from a different system. >Certainly, the responses weren't consistent with a single training program. >So, I had to field questions of "what LD service do you want to use?". Dammit, >I just want to call home! I eventually succeeded, but I vowed to fight any >similar efforts to deregulate Canada's telecommunications industry. I think about a year ago, Southern Bell (and I wish someone would confirm this) "standardized" their access to long distance operators. When I would visit my parents in Charlotte, NC, I had to dial two ones (11) to get the operator of the long distance company (at least that's what the SoBell operator told me). When I visited a relative in Ft. Lauderdale, I had to ask the SoBell operator to get the LD operator. Here in Atlanta, I had no problems so I don't know. Now, I can reach the LD operator using two zeros (00) from all places. I do not know if this is standard, but about eight months ago I tried to place a call with my AT&T card from the airport here and had problems, I used the 00 to find they were not AT&T (this was before the publicity about the LD problems problems at Hartsfield). Now I do not know if 00 will work for all areas--even within the Southern Bell area--but it would be nice if it did and became a "standard." -- scott barman {gatech, emory}!dtscp1!scott ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 12:11:58 EST From: "R.A. Anonymous, Jr." Subject: Re: Answering Machine Interrupter I had a Phone-Mate cordless phone (poor thing bought the farm in a thunderstorm) that had a modular jack for an answering machine in the back. The phone handset itself had a three-position switch, labeled off, screen, and on. Off, was, of course, to turn it off (guess what on was for.. :). But the screen switch was neat, as the handset would ring (whereas it did not when turned off), plus, if the phone was answered from the jack on the back of the base unit, you could hear the calling party and your supposed answering machine. Kind of handy, being able to decide who you want to talk to anywhere in your yard..... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rodney Amadeus Anonymous, Jr. | Wyomissing, PA pro-palace!r.a.a. | pro-harvest!r.a.a. pro-palace checked daily | pro-harvest checked weekly - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 20:31:35 PST From: tgg@otter.hpl.hp.com (Tom Gardner) Subject: Re: Proper Usage of Units of Measurement Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK. Mark Williams comments about the new "habit" of dropping the "per second" from "Megabits per second". I agree that it's lazy, sloppy and (unforgivably) potentially confusing/ambiguous. My own pet peeve on this subject is authors who think "nS" is a unit of time. It isn't. The Siemen (S) is a unit of conductance, i.e. the reciprocal of resistance, units amps per volt. You most often come across Siemens as the unit of transconductance in semiconductors. The unit of time, seconds, is written as "s". N.B. lower case. When I see, for example, a RAM access time written as 100nS, I note that the author does not have a particularly wide or deep understanding of this subject area. HENCE I TEND TO DISCOUNT ANYTHING ELSE THE AUTHOR WRITES, unless it is, in all other respects, clear concise and comprehensible. Moral: using incorrect units makes you appear ignorant. ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Why we ALL have seven digit numbers Date: 2 Aug 89 02:07:23 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA > [Note to moderator and Mike Trout: The stories of reaching Eagle Bay, > and the moderators posting of other barely reachable locations were > yummy. I encourage the moderator (and all of us) to reminisce > further.] When I was a student at what is now called Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, back in 1966 or so, I worked part time as a PBX attendant on the campus switchboard. (It was an old wooden board with six operator positions, and fifteen cord circuits per position. A room full of step-by-step switching machines completed the intra-campus calls, and we did the incoming trunks.) We used to place all outgoing toll calls for university employees as operator-assisted calls, so that we could get a call-back with time and charges, and fill in the toll ticket for the university accountants. One day, I was asked to place a call to Purdue University. The number we called was Lafayette, Indiana, 6. We then asked for extension 2454. I was really fascinated that a PBX with a four-digit dial plan stood behind a local DN of a single digit. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 0:31:26 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: New 800 Service Working Well I decided to sign up for the Residential 800 service offered by Teleconnect* USA. Thus far in my limited experience, it seems to be working okay. The transmission quality is good, and the calls come through reasonably fast, but they are not processed quite as fast as other similar services. I have noticed maybe a fifteen second delay from the time dialing is complete until the ringing starts. The 800 number works from anywhere in the continental USA. The cost is $2.75 per month to maintain the number, and 29/22 cents per minute day/night rate. The best use of the system is to receive short (one or two minute) calls, then call back dial direct for continued conversation. For calls of one or two minutes, it is less expensive than the surcharge added to AT&T cards. But if you have the Call Me option tied into Reach Out, then the Call Me option becomes less expensive on calls of longer duration, since the price would only be 13 cents per minute at night (once you have absorbed the surcharge per month into the total cost.) There is no limit to the number of 800 calls which can be received at one time except for whatever limit there is on your incoming calls. For more information on obtaining a personal 800 number, call Teleconnect* USA at 1-800-728-7000. They charge ten dollars to set up the account. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #271 *****************************   Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 0:02:15 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #272 Message-ID: <8908040002.aa02999@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Aug 89 00:00:31 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 272 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Rival Claims PacBell Gave It A 'Virus' (Jeff Wasilko) New Cellular Emergency Number in Chicago (TELECOM Moderator) Sabotage in New Jersey (Mark Robert Smith) The Old Days in Oil City, LA (Neal Woodall) 1 (708) NXX-XXXX is Working. (David W. Tamkin) Volume 9 Issue 202 Returns! (Patrick A. Townson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: Rival Claims PacBell Gave It A 'Virus' Date: 3 Aug 89 05:52:20 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Wasilko Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest The following article is from the L.A. Times. It describes a claim by an operator of a local 'talking yellow pages' that Pacific Bell is intentionally disrupting his Centrex service. There have been other claims against PacBell, such as a telephone installer who claims PacBell intentionally botched his company's ad that was placed in the yellow pages for the past two or three years. Rival Claims PacBell Gave It A 'Virus' Owner of Talking Yellow Pages Says Phones Often Go Dead By Bruce Keppel, Times Staff Writer To Michael Amin, it seemed a natural: A 'talking' phone book for people who would rather deal with the operator than finger through the yellow pages. So, Amin set up a Los Angeles-based firm, Primex Talking Yellow Pages, to provide callers a choice of whatever category of company or service the request--for example, a selection of physicians of a given specialty and working in a particular area. The Primex operator can connect the caller with the doctor he or she wants. But the hang-up for Amin has been Pacific Bell. The phone company says it has been unable to find the electronic 'virus' that, for 18 months, has bedeviled Primex. The result for Primex has been to have many of its 36 telephone lines go dead at crucial moments--such as right after broadcast of television and radio commercials inviting the audience to call for a trial. Don't Know the Cause -------------------- At other times, Amin said, conversations are cut off in mid-sentence. And sometimes callers hear ringing while Primex operators hear nothing or, answering a ring, find no one on the line. Despite extensive testing by Pacific Bell technicians, who say they don't know the cause of Primex's problems, the company's phone troubles have persisted for 18 months. Amin said they now threaten Primex's pioneering venture, which competes with Pacific Bell's yellow page directories. He noted that Pacific Bell and other former Bell companies have repeatedly--and vainly--sought court permission to enter the talking phone book business. Last month, Amin lodged a formal complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission, whose consumer division expects to compete its evaluation this month. Meanwhile, the PUC's five members held a final in San Francisco on Monday to hear from businesses such as Primex before deciding to accept proposals submitted separately by Pacific Bell and GTE California, to change telecommunications regulation in the state. Amin and other telephone industry entrepreneurs have complained that giving the big phone companies more flexibility might clear the way for Pacific Bell and GTE to use dirty tricks and other unfair practices to drive competitors out of business. For instance, Dennis Love has testified before the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce that his Marin County telephone-equipment repair service failed after advertisements bought in Pacific Bell's local phone books were botched in two of the last three years. In Amin's case, the business is still running, although the number of employees has plunged to 30 from a high of 70 when the company moved to larger quarters near Los Angeles International Airport. That day, Feb. 1, 1988, the young company's local telephone service unaccountably went haywire, Amin said. Deliberate Tampering -------------------- In it's complaint, Primex accuses Pacific Bell of indulging in 'illegal harassment' and 'deliberate tampering' with the company's phone lines, most of which are attached to a Pacific Bell Centrex control unit. The goal, the complaint charges, is to destroy the company's business. Amin attached several pages of single-spaced entries chronicling scores of service irregularities and said he has many more on file. Pacific Bell spokeswomen Kathleen Flynn confirmed the existence of repeated complaints by Primex but said that 2400 tests have so far turned up no glitch in the phone company's equipment. Flynn said 99.8% of Pacific Bell's test calls went through without a hitch. 'There's no reason for us at any time and at any case to disrupt a customer's business,' she said. 'That's just not the way we do business.' But Amin disputed the validity of that finding. When he asked Pacific Bell last month to monitor one day's phone traffic for his firm, he said, the utility found that 41% of the calls lasted less than 15 seconds--too brief, he said, to be completed business calls. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 20:28:48 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: New Cellular Emergency Number in Chicago On Wednesday, Ameritech and Cellular One announced 'Cellular Express Line', a new emergency phone service for cellular customers of the two companies. 'Cellular Express Line' will provide operators 24 hours per day to answer emergency calls from persons with cellular phones. In cooperation with Illinois Bell Telephone, those calls will then be routed to the proper Police or other Emergency Services provider. In the past, one problem with the use of 911 by cellular customers was that calls were likely to go to an emergency center serving the phone exchange where the cellular call gatewayed to land-line, rather than the emergency service in the area of the distressed motorist. Much confusion resulted and valuable minutes were lost as the service providers attempted to transfer calls to one another, only to sometimes transfer the call to still the wrong place. Then too, a number of Illinois suburban communities still do not offer '911' service, largely because two or more small communities may share the same telephone central office and they have been to date unable to agree on *who* should answer police and fire calls. So motorists dialing '911' on their cellular phones were unable to predict who they would reach, and many simply gave up trying to report accidents or other matters for the police. Effective at this time, any cellular customer of Ameritech or Cellular One in the Chicago area can dial *999 and receive a professional response from a trained operator who will immediatly ascertain the location of the caller and patch the call through to the appropriate agency. Some discussion is now underway about actually using the code 911, since this is so well known by everyone. Illinois Bell is looking into the possibility of having calls to 911 from prefixes devoted to cellular service automatically routed into Cellular Express Line, completely transparent to the person using the phone. The actual geographic territory for Cellular Express Line is from the Wisconsin border on the north, including a couple of exchanges in the 414 area code actually served by Illinois Bell because they serve communities on the state line, south to Joliet, IL and Chicago Heights, IL on the south. From the Indiana State line (including a few exchanges in the far northwest corner of Indiana) and Lake Michigan on the east, the service area extends west to Aurora, IL and Crystal Lake/Fox Lake, IL on the northwest. In all, some 254 miles of expressways are included. The service coverage area is essentially the same as the 'old' (or present, until November) 312 area, with bits and pieces of 815/219/414 included. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 08:12:53 EDT From: Mark Robert Smith Subject: Sabotage in New Jersey The IBEW and CWA unions are preparing for a strike against NJ Bell this weekend. At the same time, there have been many acts of sabotage against NJ Bell. The first occured on Monday, July 31. Two fiber optic cables were cut, resulting in a loss of phone service for a large number of customers in Warren, Sussex, Somerset, and one other county. This cut also resulted in a loss of network connection for Rutgers and other parts of JVNCnet. Last night (Wed, 8/2), 26 individual subscriber lines were cut in the Englewood, NJ CO. These lines were apparently all residential, and quickly repaired. Now, I understand that health care benefits are important, but is sabotage really necessary? The FBI is investigating, so hopefully the perpetrators will be caught. Mark ---- Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 21:29:31 PDT From: Neal Woodall Subject: The Old Days in Oil City, LA In article (Mike Trout) writes: >The above got me thinking about the history of the USA telephone numbering >system. When was the above study done? When were all numbers standardized at >seven digits? What other systems were used before that? What were the last >non-seven-digit systems? >A little personal experience: My family has owned a camp in the Adirondack >Mountains of upstate New York since 1954. When we bought the camp, its phone >number there was "Eagle Bay 3268." Not EB2-3268 or anything like that; just >Eagle Bay 3268. You could dial locally just by using the last four digits, >any other calls required an operator..... >...until the late 1960s and may have not been until the mid-1970s. I grew up in Shreveport, LA, and until about the late 1960's you had to use an operator to call Oil City, LA which is only about 30 miles away. Shreveport numbers were direct dialable even at this time, and was at that time (as in the present) in area code 318. My father worked in Oil City, and to call him at work, one called the operator, and asked for "Oil City XXXX" (where XXXX is the number, I will not post it). Unitl the late 1960's or early 1970's this was the only way. Then Oil City finally got direct-dial service, and all of the four-digit numbers stayed the same, just prefixed by 995. Today, Oil City is still completely served by the 995 prefix (only about 2500 phones in that town total). All of the service in this area code (Shreveport and Oil City included) are handled by South Central Bell, so the quality is good. It is interesting to note that Shreveport has cellular service now, and that the Oil City cell (yes, there is only one!, actually in Mooringsport, LA) is tied directly to the Shreveport MTSO.....to call a cellular phone in Oil City (or just about anywhere in Northwest LA) is a local call from Shreveport. However, if one strays too far to the west of Oil City, then you loose coverage from the Mooringsport cell, and must dial through the Marshall, TX system. Actually, I kind of miss the "old days" of operator assisted calls to places where you had to use the name of the town and some number of digits....it is kind of a nostalgic feeling. It gave a place some feeling and character. Now, everything is just numbers.....oh well. Neal ------------------------------ Subject: 1 (708) NXX-XXXX Is Working. Date: Wed, 2 Aug 89 2:34:40 CDT From: "David W. Tamkin" As of Wednesday (I didn't try on Tuesday) I found I could dial from my local Centel service in Chicago to suburban locations with 1-708 or without. (The official split date is November 11, 1989.) Just 708 alone does not work; perhaps 815 alone doesn't work any more either. [Previously I had noticed that I could dial the parts of area code 815 that are within the Chicago LATA without the leading 1.] Calls within Chicago require seven digits; putting 312, 1-312, 708, and 1-708 in front all fail. This might have gone into effect Tuesday, August 1; I'm not sure. -- David W. Tamkin Post Office Box 813 Rosemont, Illinois 60018-0813 dwtamkin@chinet.chi.il.us BIX: dattier CIS: 73720,1570 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN [Moderator's Note: However, it does NOT yet work in Chicago-Rogers Park. After first seeing your message in the queue, you know I tried it immediatly from home. At this point here, 708 or 1-708 go immediatly to intercept. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Volume 9 Issue 202 Returns! Date: 3 Aug 89 01:57:37 CDT (Thu) From: "Patrick A. Townson" For some reason, Volume 9, Issue 202 got re-entered into the Usenet gateway on August 1. I am checking with Chip Rosenthal to see what may have caused this strange aberation. I apologize for any confusion caused by those old messages coming back. None of them were re-circulated to the names on the mailing list; only the Usenet people saw them. Unlike television, I do not re-run the old issues of the Digest in case you missed it the first time around. Maybe we should have summer re-runs, and I could go to Hell (Michigan) for a nice summer vacation this year. Whatever. Maybe someday I'll understand these things. Someone owes me an answer. I didn't even like issue 202 all that well myself! Of all the ones to come back from the Archives to haunt me! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #272 *****************************   Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 1:05:22 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #273 Message-ID: <8908040105.aa05050@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Aug 89 01:00:19 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 273 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson A Bell of PA Technician Explains Color Coding (John Dearing) Rolm -- the PBX with a "conscience"? (Rich Wales) Best choice for multi-line home phone wiring? (Rich Wales) Dial-back Modems (Ron Watkins) Re: New 800 Service Working Well (Dave Rand) Re: New 800 Service Working Well (Bill Huttig) Re: New Area Code Directory Available (Henry Mensch) Re: Rotary-dial Encoding (Tom Hofmann) [Moderator's Note: I received quite a few responses to my request for suggestions about seminar announcements in the Digest. I am now working on a special edition of the Digest, which you will receive over the weekend on this topic. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Dearing Date: August 4, 1989 01:00 CDT Subject: A Bell of PA Technician Explains Color Coding [Moderator's Note: I am sorry to advise that the original subject title and header info was lost in transit between chinet and here. I reconstructed the header, however the body of his letter made it here intact, and follows below. PT] Patrick, I hope that this reply gets thru to you (email is sometimes flaky). In a recent Telecom Digest article you asked what the color code was for telephone wiring. As a Services Technician with over 14 years of service with Bell of Pennsylvania, I thought I'd reply. The system employed throughout the (used-to-be) Bell System was actually very simple. There wer five colors assigned to "tip" and five colors assigned to "ring". This gives a total combination of twenty-five pairs (very convenient!). The colors assigned to the "tip" are; white wt red rd black bk yellow yl violet vi The colors assigned to the "ring" are; blue bl orange or green gr brown br slate sl (sometimes mistakenly called gray) Standard phone convention is to identify the "tip" first and then the "ring" when referring to a pair. Thus, the first five pairs of a telephone cable are the "white" pairs; white/blue wt/bl white/orange wt/or white/green wt/gr white/brown wt/bn white/slate wt/sl The next five are the "red" pairs: red/blue rd/bl red/orange rd/or red/green rd/gr red/brown rd/bn red/slate rd/sl And so on, until all twenty five pairs are identified. What happens when there are more than twenty-five pairs in a cable? Simple, enclose each twenty-five pair group in a color coded binder. And guess what the color coding is for the binder. Yep, the same as the wires in the binder. The first binder group is the "white/blue" binder the second is the "white/orange" binder, and so on. If it is necessary to refer to the twenty-sixth pair of a fifty pair cable it is referred to as "two white/blue" or 2-wt/bl. The seventy-ninth pair in a one-hundred pair cable is called "four white/brown" or 4-wt/bn. This all holds true for the first twenty-four binders in a cable. The twenty-fifth binder is a little different, and my recollection is a little hazy but I believe the binder colors are white-white-blue. Yes that's two whites and a blue. It might be two blues and a white. It's been a long time since I was in a cable over six hundred pairs. One thing I know for sure is that they double up on one of the binder colors after the twenty-fourth binder group. There is also a convention for the positioning the pairs on connecting blocks. The Ring is usually on the Right and the Tip is usually on the Top. As you can see there is a pattern here, Ring-Red-Right and Tip-Top. I guess this was done to make it easier for us dumb installers to remember! |-) The only difference in the color coding between telephone cable (the stuff used outside and strung along poles or underground in conduit) and telephone inside wiring (the gray colored stuff in the walls and up in the ceiling) is that the inside wire has each pair traced with the color of its mate. That is, the first pair is a white wire with a blue tracer and its mate is blue with a white tracer. This is done to avoid "splitting" a pair. Splitting is getting the ring of one pair and the tip of another. In outside phone cable each pair is twisted with its mate and the chances of splitting a pair are not as great (although it's been known to happen ;-)). With wiring done inside a house, a little history is in order. Back when we had party-lines,(I know, we still do, but very few still in service and none available for new service) three wires were necessary because a ground was required to make the bell ring. So, the original phone wiring had three conductors, red, green and yellow. Red and green were ring and tip respectively and yellow was the ground. Then people started getting away from party lines and into princess and trimline phones with lights in the dial. The yellow was no longer the ground and a black wire was added and the yellow and black were used to supply power for the lamps from a small transformer. Time marches on, and now people are getting second lines installed in their homes. Since the new phones get the power for their lamps from the phone line directly, the yellow and black are now "spare". The yellow is usually the ring and black is the tip. Of course, houses that have been pre-wired with six-pair inside wire would normally have line 1 on the white/blue pair and line 2 on the white/orange pair. In many pre-wire installations I have found that the sixth pair (red/blue) was used for transformer power, although I don't believe that was ever an official practice. I hope that this info is of some help. Feel free to put this into the Digest, if you want. John Dearing (jdearin @ pacsbb) ------------------------------ From: wales@cs.ucla.edu Subject: Rolm -- the PBX with a "conscience"? Date: 3 Aug 89 19:04:14 GMT Reply-To: Rich Wales Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department The recent mention of Rolm PBXs reminded me of one of Rolm's radio commercials several years ago. This was one of those "cutesy" commercials with funny sound effects to illustrate each of their points (sort of like how AT&T's ads for their new distinctive "bong-chime-AT&T" sound illustrate the concept of a "friendly" sound by having someone say "Y-y-y-yo, it's AT&T!"). One of the selling points in Rolm's radio commercials was that their equipment had a "conscience". This point was punctuated by a "ding" from a little bell, followed by a soft "this is your conscience" female voice saying, "Is that a *personal* call?" Now, obviously, I realize that Rolm PBX's never *really* went "ding" and asked "Is that a *personal* call?" :-} But can anyone out there tell me exactly what Rolm's "conscience" feature really was? Was it something as mundane as a printed log of every number called from every extension -- so that a manager could go through the list later on and inquire about calls to unfamiliar phone numbers? -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales "K-9, I think we're going to find out what it's like to be a cricket ball." ------------------------------ From: wales@cs.ucla.edu Subject: Best Choice For Multi-line Home Phone Wiring? Date: 3 Aug 89 19:18:50 GMT Reply-To: Rich Wales Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department What is the "best" choice these days for multi-line phone wiring in a home? For best isolation between lines (especially if, say, one or more lines were being used for data), I would assume twisted-pair cable (anywhere from 2 to 25 pairs) would be ideal. But is it actually used? If not, is this because it's just too expensive? Or do the (possibly outdated) electrical codes in various places prohibit it? If some kind of twisted-pair cable is OK for residential phone wiring, how difficult/expensive would it typically be to retrofit such stuff into an existing house? At the moment, I'm thinking very hypothetically (not owning my own home yet). I'm thinking into the future, though, and want to have some idea of what kinds of obstacles (physical, phone-company, electrical-code) I would be up against. Responses from anywhere in the US or Canada welcomed and encouraged. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales "K-9, I think we're going to find out what it's like to be a cricket ball." ------------------------------ From: Ron Watkins Subject: Dial-back Modems Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 07:32:12 EDT If anyone has completed a survey or has any opinions of dial-back modems (you dial number, type in something, it dials you back), could I please have a copy? Brands/features/type of security etc. Thank you Ron Watkins BBN rwatkins@bbn.com ------------------------------ From: Dave Rand Subject: Re: New 800 Service Working Well Date: 3 Aug 89 18:51:40 GMT Reply-To: Dave Rand Organization: Association for the Prevention of Polar Bears and Kangaroos In article telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >I decided to sign up for the Residential 800 service offered by Teleconnect* >USA. Thus far in my limited experience, it seems to be working okay. The >[deleted] >The 800 number works from anywhere in the continental USA. The cost is $2.75 >per month to maintain the number, and 29/22 cents per minute day/night rate. This plan sounds like exactly what I want, except I would like to receive calls from Canada as well. Does anyone know of a residential 800 service that covers Canada as well? I talked to Teleconnect (800-728-7000), but they have no plans to cover Canada. -- Dave Rand {pyramid|hoptoad|sun|vsi1}!daver!dlr Internet: dlr@daver.uu.net ------------------------------ From: Bill Huttig Subject: Re: New 800 Service Working Well Date: 3 Aug 89 15:29:57 GMT Reply-To: Bill Huttig Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL A Florida based carrier Telus (800-330-0000) also offers 800 service. They only charge $2.50/mo 25.6/19.5 cents with no connection charge. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 18:08:12 -0400 From: Henry Mensch Subject: Re: New Area Code Directory Available Reply-To: henry@garp.mit.edu I wonder why you can't charge this to your AT&T card? :) # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / [Moderator's Note: I asked them the same thing. I said just to charge it to my account. She said they can't do it. PT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Hofmann Subject: Re: Rotary-dial Encoding Date: 3 Aug 89 07:44:16 GMT Organization: WRZ, CIBA-GEIGY Ltd, Basel, Switzerland From article , by euatdt@euas11g. ericsson.se (Torsten Dahlkvist): > Third: "Oslo" dialling (the Norwegian Capital is different from the > rest of the country. Historical reasons?): > (10-n)-dialling (or is it (10-(n+1))?); The dial works "backwards" and > looks quite funny to the newcomer. I'm not sure if the coding is 1=>10, > 2=>9...0=>1 or 0=>10, 1=>9... 9=>1. Somebody out there to fill me in? I recall it is the latter: 0=>10, 1=>9... 9=>1. An other apparently not standardized feature is the keypad layout of push-button phones. In central Europe it is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 It can be confusing since it is not the same layout as for calculators. I think in parts of Scandinavia (Sweden?) it is homogeneous: 7 8 9 4 5 6 1 2 3 0 Can someone confirm that? Are there any other layouts? Special keypad for Oslo? Mirror-image layout on the southern hemisphere? Tom Hofmann wtho@cgch.UUCP ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #273 *****************************   Date: Sat, 5 Aug 89 0:11:21 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #274 Message-ID: <8908050011.ab07403@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 5 Aug 89 00:00:50 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 274 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Results of CT Customer Poll (Kenneth Selling) Dial Pad Arrangements (Ole J. Jacobsen) 555 Exchange and Inward Numbers (Douglas Scott Reuben) Need Wierd RJ-adaptor (Roy Smith) Pair Usage (was Color Coding) (Mike Morris) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4-AUG-1989 13:41:04.72 From: Kenneth Selling Subject: Results of CT Customer Poll Here's some news just in. It involves: (1) an entire state not served by the Bell System, (2) that state actually *asking* customers how wide a free calling area they want to have, and (3) the local phone company ending up also giving a major city a larger local calling area without increasing that cities' rates. (Warning to our California readers -- the high East Coast telephone rates quoted here may be a bit shocking to you -- please don't say you weren't warned.) In recent months, some readers have asked about the Southern New England Telephone (SNET) survey taken more than half a year ago, asking Middletown, Connecticut area customers if they wanted to greatly expand their toll-free calling area in exchange for a small increase in monthly rates. SNET was directed by the CT Dept. of Utility Control to conduct the survey. (SNET covers most of Connecticut. It was not in the former Bell System, although AT&T owned a small share of it. It was not affected by Judge Greene's break-up order.) Here are the results (from SNET's Residence Manager R. A. Shanley and Business Manager Clara Brenciaglia) as of August 1, 1989. Beginning about 11:15 pm, Friday, Septemeber 15, 1989, all calls from Middletown area exchanges (342, 344, 346, 347, 349, 632, 635, 636, and 638) to Hartford exchanges will become toll-free. This will add about 193,000 phones to the Middletown free calling area. In SNET parlance, this upgrades Middletown customers from Class II to Class III service. Class is determined by the number of phones in a toll-free calling area. The rate increases per month for this Class upgrade will be: Residence Present September 15, 1989 Private Line - Unlimited Calling $10.19 $11.65 Private Line - Message Service 6.91 7.93 Party Line (existing customers only) 8.00 9.17 Select-a-Call (a life-line service) 5.50 (NO CHANGE)--> 5.50 Business Private Line - Unlimited Calling $29.72 $34.10 Private Line - Message Service 20.58 23.65 Semi-Public Coin Telephone 23.63 27.13 Select-a-Call 16.50 (NO CHANGE)--> 16.50 NOTE - This does not include the $3.50 Federal Subscribers Charge per line. Communities in the Middletown exchange include: Cromwell, Portland, Durham, Middlefield, and of course -- Middletown. Communities soon to be toll-free from Middletown include: Hartford (296, 297, 299, 240, 241, 244, 246, 247, 249, 273, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280, 293, 520, 522, 524, 525, 527, 547, 548, 649, 560, 566, 722, 724, 725, 727, 728, 841, 930, 951, 952, 953, 954) East Hartford (282, 289, 291, 528, 565, 568, 569) West Hartford (232, 233, 236, 521, 523, 561) Wethersfield (257, 258, 529, 563, 721) Bloomfield (242, 243, 286, 726) ... and parts of the adjacent communities of Rocky Hill, Newington, Windsor, and South Windsor. Note that calls will be toll-free in both directions. However, since Hartford customers are already in a Class III area (the highest rates in CT), their exchanges (above) will get a largely increased toll-free calling area without increased rates -- one of the few cases I can think of in recent TELECOM history of a regional operating company giving "something for nothing!" Ken Selling Disclaimer: "I have no connection with SNET, except as a reasonably happy Organization: Wesleyan University customer." Internet: kselling@eagle.wesleyan.edu BITNET: kselling%eagle@wesleyan.bitnet =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Fri 4 Aug 89 08:34:51-PDT From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" Subject: Dial pad arrangements The recent discussion brought back memories of my first message to this list almost 6 years ago, I have enclosed it verbatim (I am still real proud of those diagrams!): Date: 15 Nov 83 12:55:44+0100 (Tue) >From: ole@nta-vax (Ole Jorgen Jacobsen) To: TELECOM@ECLC Subject: Dialling arrangements etc. Hello friends in the telephone world, I only just subsrcibed to this list and while reading through the the archives I noticed a couple of questions relating to dialling arrangements which I will answer herein. First of all "Telegrafverket" is the old name for the Norwegian Telco, now called "Televerket". Don Lynns phone was made by EB which is Elektrisk Bureau an LM Ericsson sister company in Norway. The dial is the "Oslo" or "X" dial as explained below. EB now make our new fancy Tastafones which are "Touch Tone Compatible". On the subject of dials: There are (at least) 3 types of dials in use worldwide: o The "Z" dial is the most common (Internationally) and it looks like this: (4) (3) (5) (2) (6) (1) Pulses correspond to digits (7) (10 pulses for 0) (8) \\ (9) (0) o Next comes the peculiar "Oslo" or "X" dial: (Also used in New Zealand?) (6) (7) (5) (8) Still 10 pulses for 0 but (4) (9) the rest is inverted (3) (2) \\ (1) (0) The Oslo dial is only used within the city itself, we are 10 miles out of Oslo and have the Z dial, it is apparently too expensive to re-strap the old exchanges so we are stuck with the two incompatible phone types until it all dies and goes TT/digital. o Finally, in Sweden the shifted "Y" dial is used: (3) (2) (4) (1) (5) (0) Similar to the "Z", but (6) shifted so that 0 gives (7) \\ one pulse and 9 gives ten. (8) (9) I am not sure what the basis of all this is, but can only assume "Historical Reasons". Just before the new Tastafones went into production here a couple of years ago, it was decided to have the keypad layout DIFFERENT to your favorite Ma Bell. The reason is apparently that people familiar with calculators should not have to re- program their hands when shifting to the new phones, I guess it makes sense, but it is still a bit wierd. The keys still give the same DTMFs of course so that our phones would work on your system and vise versa. 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 4 5 6 1 2 3 7 8 9 0 * # * 0 # Our keypad Your keypad Enjoy International Standards! Ole J Jacobsen Norwegian Telecommunications Administration Research Establishment N-2007 Kjeller Norway +47 2 73 91 75 ole@NTA-VAX <370> ------- ------------------------------ Date: 4-AUG-1989 02:23:57.47 From: "DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN)" Subject: 555 Exchange and Inward Numbers Actually, there are 555 numbers that appear to be assigned to pay phones, at least in special cases. If you go to Disneyland in Anahiem, CA, which is still served by Pac*Bell (but it's VERY near GTE territory..oh no! :-) ), you can use "Pay-Speakerphones". These are basically large booths, with Bell System payphones, which no longer have a handset. Instead, they have a speaker box (with a blue Bell logo) and a microphone near the payphone itself, all neatly built into the wall. A caller goes into the booth, sits down, presses the "on" botton on the side of the phone, hears dial tone, and starts dialing. It's functionally identical to any other Bell payphone, except it has no handset. Anyhow, the point of all this is that the number shown on the plate is "714-555-9036" (or something with a 9xxx). The phone is clearly marked that it "DOES NOT ACCEPT INCOMING CALLS", and dialing 555-9036 without putting my 20 cents in does not get a busy, but does get DA for 714. (On older ESS machines, if you call from a payphone to a busy number in the same ESS [not just the exchange- all other numbers in the same ESS will do] you will get busy signal. This also works for some test numbers, and for numbers that aren't in service. There is NO need to put in any money...If the party is not busy, you get a message "Please deposit 20 cents", or whatever the rate is for a local payphone call.) Also, if you call 714-555-9036 from Connecticut, Mass, New York or Jersey (and probably a lot of other places as well), you get an intercept recording saying "your call can not be completed as dialed." This seems to be true to most other NPA-555-xxxx's as well. IE, unless you dial -1212, you don't get DA, at least from NY and CT. Oh, and if anyone doesn't believe me, I videotaped the speaker phones at Disney, and I even got the 555 number on the plate! If anyone is REALLY curious, I can go look up the number in my old tape collection. -Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu dreuben%eagle.weslyn@wesleyan.edu (and just plain old "dreuben" to locals! :-) ) [Moderator's Note: In the 1970's, the Museum of Science and Industry here in Chicago had a pay (speaker) phone; in fact about three or four of them for use by the public wishing to place phone calls. PT] ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: Need Wierd RJ-adaptor Date: 3 Aug 89 20:57:39 GMT Organization: Public Health Research Institute, NYC, NY Our building was re-wired with 4-pair station wire a couple of years ago when they put in a new AT&T System 25. The phones are those new fancy electronic merlin-type phones (excuse me, voice terminals) which use 3 pairs. This leaves the 4th pair free for me to run appletalk over, which is great, almost. The problem is that the wiring runs terminate in 8-pin modular jacks and PhoneNet is designed to pick up the outside (B/Y) pair of a normal 4-pin jack. I had thought of just mounting RJ-11s next to the 8-pin blocks and jumpering over with a short run of station wire, but they have insulation displacement connectors; no reasonable place to get at the conductors to run a jumper. So, what I need is the following adaptor. At one end, an 8-pin modular plug. At the other end, an 8-pin modular jack, with the first 3 pairs fed straight through from the plug. On the other other end, a modular jack with the 2nd pair patched through to the 4th pair of the modular plug. You plug this into the wall-mounted jack, plug your electro-phone into the feed-through jack and your Macintosh into the 4-to-2 patched jack, and you're all set. As far as I know, no such beast exists, nor is there anything like a RJ-patch-it-yourself kit (these sorts of things are popular with the RS-232 crowd). Any suggestions? -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu "The connector is the network" ------------------------------ From: Mike Morris Subject: Pair Usage (was Color Coding) Date: 4 Aug 89 22:45:22 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris Back when I was installing key systems, I discovered something interesting in the Pasadena (CA.) area - it might be a local trick, or might be standard (but I didn't find it in Arcadia, or Alhambra or anywhere else). If a business had a Ma Bell installed 1A2 system, the pole drop cable was either 6 or 12 pairs. If it was underground it was at least 25. Now comes the cute trick. The local ring generator was connected to the last pair, if it wasn't used for a incoming line. I don't know why, the only use I can conjecture is to determine if the customer had a power failure without a inside premise visit... I never climbed the pole to see if it was terminated there or ran to the CO - I can't imagine it did as it would be a waste of pairs. I didn't have a key for the ground level junction block cabinets, so was unable to check there. Pasadena also had a cute trick - the telephone poles in back of the local Burger King, MacDonalds, Winchells Donuts, etc had lockboxes at shoulder height with a 1-pair protector in them, and was connected to a ringdown to the test board. It was quite common to see a telco truck parked next to the pole with a tech standing there, butt set to his ear and munching on lunch... Again, never saw it anywhere else. Don't know if it is still in use, as I don't have a Warner-Bohannon key. Likewise the GTE Sierra Madre exchange (818-355) (which went from SxS to EAX a couple of years ago) was the only one I ever saw which allowed the user to lease a pair to the CO and have a hunting defeat switch on the side of the receptionist's phone. The customer was a MD and had 3 incoming lines and one answering machine for after-hours calls. When the office was closed, the machine was on and hunting was defeated. Interestingly he had a 25-pair underground cable into the building (3 storefronts, 1 story and a common equipment room) and only the first 9 pairs were in use for incoming lines, and the hunting defeat switch was connected to the last pair. This was also the exchange which had 3 ring plants on the SxS, probably a leftover from the party line days. A friend's house had phones in each of 3 bedrooms, the living room, and the kitchen. An incoming call would ring _sequentially_ in various rooms - I discovered that the house had a mix of 20hz, 30hz and 16hz (I think - this is 15 years ago!) ringers and the CO would sequence them down the line - while feeding one ringback to the caller. Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #274 *****************************   Date: Sat, 5 Aug 89 1:14:05 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #275 Message-ID: <8908050114.aa08337@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 5 Aug 89 01:00:09 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 275 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Inward Dialing (Douglas Scott Reuben) LEC Monopoly and Cable TV (Dick Jackson) Cellular Calls to 911 (Christopher Chung) DA Info On-line (Thomas Lapp) Fort Benton, Montana (Mike Morris) DTMF Frequencies (Rick Watson) Wiring a Modem to a Merlin (Richard Tobier) Re: New Area Code Directory Available (David Scott) Correction: Black Box, not Yellow Box (Miguel Cruz) "Splitting Pairs" By Accident (Miguel Cruz) Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number (David Lewis) Re: New 800 Service Working Well (Brian Jay Gould) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4-AUG-1989 02:39:57.84 From: "DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN)" Subject: Inward Dialing A couple (?) of Digests back, John Covert mentioned that AT&T operators can not talk to Local Bell operators via inward dialing. I'm not sure if I'm right, and maybe in New England it's different, but if that's the case, how do AT&T ops do Emergency Interrupts and Busy Verifications? We I call from CT or New York to verify/interrupt a busy number in Benicia, CA, I call the local op, who puts me through to the AT&T op. (In Connecticut, SNET/AT&T are the same, but in NY they split up, and I just *hate* to dial 00! :-) ) Anyhow, after getting AT&T, I say "Hi, can you interrupt 707-745-1999?" And then she call the number herself, see's that it is busy, and then calls Rate&Route. The number she gets is "415+11591+". Before 1987, it was "415+121+", but then Pac*Bell split up from AT&T in terms of operators, so I guess AT&T keeps +121, and Pac*Bell got +11591. (And it's 415+ since 707-745/Benicia is close to San Francisco - well, sort of - and I guess it is handled by a center in 415, right?) So the AT&T operator dials in 415+11591, gets the operator on the other end who says "Pacific Bell operator", and then they talk about the interupt, and the Pac*Bell op interrupts the line. So they do seem to talk to each other, at least in this case. I would suspect that this is how it works in New England too, but as I've never tried it, I don't know.. Anyhow, give it a try yourself (unless you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, in which case AT&T has nothing to do with it..). The number 707-745-1999 is just a number that is always busy in my friend's exchange there, and isn't assigned to anyone. Just ask them to verify it, to see if it's OK...They always say "OD or OH", which the AT&T op translates as "Off-Hook"...(So what's "OD"?? hmmm..) Finally, in case you REALLY want to confuse some newer AT&T ops, ask them to connect you with the mobile/high frequency operator in Hay River, in the Northwest Territories (Canada). After explaining what you mean a few times, and usually going to the supervisor, you'll get a routing like 403+069+, and they also still use a "ticket" or "mark" for this one, so they will give you some number like 285-130. (I can't recall the numbers exactly...). After you get the operator there, you can ask for SR1777, which I think USED to be "number" there, but no one has answered it for years. The operator there actually gets on the radio and calls "SR1117...Calling SR1117...This is the operator...Come in SR1117"...She will take a message if the party does not answer, and if she hears them come on during the day, will tell them that you called. (If she's nice, that is... :-) ) Well, give 'em both a try...I'd be especially interested to hear if there are other ways to do an interrupt/verification... -Doug P.S. If you call a toll station, like the one in New York mentioned earlier, just say "Hi, can I have a RINGDOWN to the River Edge (?) Toll Station, #3515, in New York, please?" They know what a "ringdown" means, and that usually ends any confusion about it being direct-dialable or not... dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu dreuben%eagle.weslyn@wesleyan.bitnet (and just plain old "dreuben" to locals! :-) ) [Moderator's Note: Your point about emergency interupts and busy verification is well taken. I frequently encounter busy signals for unusually long periods of time and will ask the AT&T operator to verify. I do *not* know the routing or all the specifics, but I *have* heard the distant operator answer saying "Southern Bell Inward" or similar. This is why like yourself, I took some exception to Mr. Covert's report a couple days ago. I think they still have an arrangement with the local BOC's to address their operators direct when required. PT] ------------------------------ From: Dick Jackson Subject: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV Date: 4 Aug 89 18:31:48 GMT Reply-To: Dick Jackson Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica Is anyone else in this group interested in the *future* of the telephone system? There are lots of topics that might be discussed, but just to test the waters let me try just one -- the continued monopoly of the LECs for basic plant and services. Its clear that the LECs really want to make a pile of money out of providing enhanced services but are not really willing to do what the FCC and the other players want in order to ensure fair competition. An example of the LEC's bid for more revenue is their request to be allowed to operate cable TV, i.e. to deliver entertainment to the home. In my, opinion to permit this at the present time would be ludicrous given the operating companies non-clean record on cross subsidies and trampling on smaller companies they perceive as competitors. HOWEVER, and this is the point I would like to see discussed, it seems to me fine to allow the local carriers to deliver cable TV as long as the CATV companies are allowed to offer dial tone. Is this feasible? I guess, for a start that the cable systems would have to be re-engineered, probably with fiber, and there might not be enough money in the (phone) business to make it a good investment. But it is going to take something extraordinary to get fiber into homes, since telephone service alone can't justify it. Dick Jackson [Moderator's Note: I am not quite clear on your use of the abbreviation 'LEC'. Would you explain the abbreviation, please? But to provide one opinion to your question, I think the telcos should stay in the phone business and out of the cable TV business. Let's see what others here think. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Aug 89 22:20:07 EDT From: Christopher Chung Subject: Cellular Calls to 911 I just bought a cellular phone about 3 weeks ago and was wondering if there was any cost in making a 911 call. For obvious reasons I don't want to try and test it out. Thanks, Chris CHRIS%BROWNVM.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU [Moderator's Note: Whether or not there is a charge depends on the policy of the carrier. The landline portion, by law, is sent collect to the police or emergency service. But please note yesterday's Digest and previous items on this: 911 as designed is virtually worthless in cellular applications. It is biased in favor of phones at *fixed* locations, since the caller's name and address are an important part of the message delivered. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 18:11:39 edt From: Thomas Lapp Subject: DA Info On-line Reply-To: mvac23!thomas@udel.edu > F&A... $1.00 for digging thru a phone book and not finding a listing (it > should be higher than what the telco charges us for a DA lookup, because > they have consoles and databases to make the retrieval quick and easy, Why don't we (public) have access to this database? After all, France has their Minitel system which was set up originally to be an on-line phone book (it was cheaper to give out Minitel units than to give out phone books!). - tom ============================================================================== Internet: mvac23!thomas@udel.edu | Why wait for something or | to happen, when, by mvac23%thomas@udel.edu | exercising the rights uucp: {ucbvax,mcvax,psuvax1,uunet}!udel!mvac23!thomas| you have, you can MAKE Location: Newark, DE, USA | it happen? ============================================================================== [Moderator's Note: It is available on line here in IBT-land, under the name 'Directory Express'. You buy time *by the hour* and can connect with your terminal and modem. It is a business offering designed for *heavy* users of Directory Assistance, such as credit departments and collection agencies. How's a couple hundred bucks a month minimum charge grab you? PT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Morris Subject: Fort Benton, Montana Date: 4 Aug 89 22:15:09 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris In the late 60' or early 70's I visited Fort Benton a few times. I remember that the telephone system was SxS, and located in the back of someone's barn, and owned by the Tri County Telephone Assoc. It was either a 3 or 4 digit system and could be dialed from the outside world. Inside the town you dialed 4 digits, I seem to remember the first was always "3". It was 1+ for anything outside the town, even the operator was 1+0 because she was in the next town down. Information was 1+411 and came from Great Falls. I was told later that repair was 3611 and was an answering machine. I have no idea what is current in Fort Benton - I was last there in 1972. Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. ------------------------------ From: Rick Watson Subject: DTMF frequencies Date: 4 Aug 89 05:36:23 GMT Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas What are the frequencies of the various tones used for DTMF? Thanks, Rick Watson University of Texas Computation Center arpa: watson@utadnx.cc.utexas.edu (128.83.1.26) uucp: ...cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!rick bitnet: watson@utadnx span: utspan::watson (UTSPAN is 25.128) phone: 512/471-8220 512/471-3241 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 13:30:40 EDT From: Richard Tobier Subject: Connecting a Modem to a Merlin In response to Nomad who asked : >I would like to connect a modem to the Merlin system at work but need a bit >of help. The phones that we use have an extra jack on the bottom for use (I >am told) with a speakerphone or a "universal device interface". The people >from AT$T are quite willing to sell me a little box to plug into it for a sum >over $250.00 (which seems a bit high for what is undoubtedly a very simple >little box). When I was a installer, I discovered a way to hook up analog devices (Modems, Fax) to electronic systems. The parts may cost you $15 - $20. Disclaimers: 1. The Electronic Phone system must use a dedicated voice pair (tip and ring). 2. The analog devise is only good for originating calls. Parts: 1. One RJ 31x 2. 12 inches of cross connect wire Installation: 1. Mount the RJ 31x within 12 inches of the jack of the station where the devise is to be installed. 2. Connect the cross connect wire to terminals 1 and 8. 3. Connect the tip and ring from the station wiring to terminals 4 and 5. 4. Connect the other end of the cross connect wire to where the station wire was terminated. How to use: 1. Plug analog devise into the RJ 31x. 2. Select the line on your electronic phone. 3. a. MODEM - from your computer type ATDT ect. b. FAX - using your monitor function on your electronic phone dial the number, listen for the tone, hit the connect button on the machine and away you go. You can buy a RJ 31x at any Graybar or even Radio Shack. It is also known as an alarm interface. If you have questions call me at (305) 797-5713 or email encore.encore.com! gould!rtobier Richard Tobier Telecommunications Analyst Encore Computer Corp. (FKA Gould Inc, CSD) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 08:29:36 PDT From: david@eecs.nwu.edu, David Scott Subject: Re: New Area Code Directory Available Can you also get it in machine readable form? [Moderator's Note: Probably from someplace. Not from the source I gave, which is a literature distribution center for AT&T. Readers, any ideas? PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 20:43:52 EDT From: Miguel_Cruz@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: Correction: Black Box, not Yellow Box sandy47@ucsco.ucsc.edu wrote in Telecom Digest 9.269: > which gave actual details, including Radio Shack part numbers for building a > "Yellow" box. Basically a resistor to be switched in at time of ring-receipt (About a device used to defraud telephone companies by keeping billing from starting on incoming long-distance calls.) Actually, it was a "black box". The Yellow box is something else (not sure offhand, but I can check). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 21:09:30 EDT From: Miguel_Cruz@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: "Splitting Pairs" By Accident John Dearing mentioned briefly the problem of "splitting pairs" when doing telephone wiring. I've fallen prey to that more than once. Interestingly, on an NT DMS switch, the lines still worked. I don't remember if it was the tip or the ring, but the new hybrid line adopted the identity of one of its parent lines. But I'm trying it right now on some plain old Michigan Bell lines and there's just a little buzz (no dialtone). Why would the DMS line still operate with a mismatched pair? Isn't each line on a separate, and (hopefully) isolated card? ------------------------------ From: David Lewis Subject: Re: The Tone Which Announces Request for Card Number Date: 4 Aug 89 17:38:50 GMT Organization: Bell Communications Research In article , 89.KREMEN@gsb-how. stanford.edu (The Arb) writes: > I am wondering about the "special tone" that one hears when > making a telephone credit card call using AT&T. Does anyone out know > at what frequency the tone is or is there even a standard? Once more, back to Notes on the BOC Intra-LATA Networks... from Table AQ, "Call Progress Tones"... Calling Card Service Prompt Tone consists of 941+1477 Hz followed immediately by 440 + 350 Hz, for 940 milliseconds (exponentially decayed from -10dBm per frequency an -3 TLP at time constant of 200 milliseconds). whatever *that* means... -- David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower." ------------------------------ From: Brian Jay Gould Subject: Re: New 800 Service Working Well Date: 4 Aug 89 19:30:37 GMT Organization: NJ InterCampus Network, New Brunswick, N.J. I am also a Teleconnect*USA 800 subscriber. As a side note, you can request numbers that spell something. For example, my number is 1-800-PATIENT (Please don't call it to verify!). The special number cost me only $100. Some numbers however are considered to be in demand and may cost as high as $1000. Note that this is a one-time charge and the number is yours forever. - Brian Jay Gould :: INTERNET gould@pilot.njin.net - - UUCP rutgers!njin!gould Telephone (201) 329-9616 - - BITNET gould@jvncc Facsimile (201) 329-9616 - - Vice President, Systems Integration --- Network Design Corporation - ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #275 *****************************   Date: Sat, 5 Aug 89 3:20:57 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest Special Edition: Seminar News Message-ID: <8908050320.aa09537@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 5 Aug 89 03:05:00 CDT Special Edition: Seminar News Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned (Pete Brown) **PRO** Seminar Announcements (Hector Myerston) **CON** Commercialization of TELECOM (Lars J. Poulsen) **PRO** Seminar Announcements, etc. (Frank J. Wancho) **CON** Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned (Tom Wiencko) **PRO** Plugging Telecom Seminars (Bill Cerny) ORIGINAL WRITER REPLIES, Folks who Understand ISDN (Bill Cerny) & QUESTIONS HIS CRITIC Re: Folks Who Understand ISDN (Don Stanwyck) *RESPONSE* Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned (Bennett Todd) **PRO** Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned (Chip Rosenthal)**CON** Is The Monthly Round-Up Too Commercial? (Kenneth Selling) **PRO** Seminar Announcements (Vance Shipley) **PRO** Seminar Announcements - My View (TELECOM Moderator) ??????? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 8:45:54 PDT From: Pete Brown <940se@mather1.af.mil> Subject: Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned >Question to readers: Do you, or do >you not enjoy/wish to read seminar/exhibition/conference announcements? Tell I enjoy the opportunity to either read them or to press 'n' to skip them. My vote is to continue to post them, with perhaps a keyword (such as "List of Commercial Seminars for February") which would serve to warn those whose sensibilities are offended by commercial-flavored posts. Pete ------------------------------ From: myerston@cts.sri.com Date: 26 Jul 89 13:20 PST Subject: Seminar Announcements Organization: SRI Intl, Inc., Menlo Park, CA 94025 [(415)326-6200] I agree that seminar announcements have no place in this newsgroup. There are daily and continuing streams of such announcements. Publishing them here would lead to one of two equally bad results: o A flood of Seminar Announcements OR o Further "Filtering" by the Moderator I think that there is already much too much "noise" on the net in the form of excrutiatingly detailed descriptions of local calling areas in some particular city and the ever increasing use of Moderators Notes before, sometimes during and after submissions by others. Just an opinion! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 11:18:35 -0700 From: Lars J Poulsen Subject: Commercialization of TELECOM Patrick, The three most valuable moderated newsgroups on the net, in my humble opinion, are REC.HUMOR.FUNNY, COMP.DCOM.TELECOM, and COMP.RISKS. Of these, TELECOM is by far the most responsive, in terms of turnaround time and the quality of editorial comments. I appreciate the postings about ISDN seminars. The ones selected appeared to be of high quality; certainly better than the several I have received junk mail ads about. If my job function had related more directly to IDSN applications, I'd likely have gone as a direct result of your recommendation of them. Keep up the good work, and don't let the complaints get you down. / Lars Poulsen (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 1989 21:41 MDT From: "Frank J. Wancho" Subject: Seminar announcements, etc. I skip reading them. I'd rather not see them at all in this forum. --Frank ------------------------------ From: Tom Wiencko Subject: Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned Date: 28 Jul 89 18:03:12 GMT Reply-To: Tom Wiencko Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product" In article stanwyc@mtfmi.att.com (D. Stanwyck) writes: >In article , telecom@eecs.nwu.edu >(TELECOM Moderator) says: >> A while back in the Digest, I printed a schedule of seminars on the subject >> of 'Understanding ISDN' (Integrated Services Digital Network). These ><> > >[Sir Moderator's Note: You raise a good point regards commercialization > ... >for posting. I'll even type them in! Question to readers: Do you, or do >you not enjoy/wish to read seminar/exhibition/conference announcements? Tell I, for one, like to see announcements of conferences and such here. I, also get lots and lots of mail and such for ISDN and other telephony related seminars, but most of them find their way straight to the circular file since I have no way of judging the relative merits of the courses. Given that this is a moderated group, and that the moderator is doing at least some checking of the posting, I tend to value the information I receive here well above that which comes via the US-SNAIL net. In fact, it would also be of interest to me to occasionally see a review or other comments of courses which others have attended and found to be of value. I vote for leaving them in. Tom ------------------------------ Reply-To: toto!bill@apple.com Subject: Plugging Telecom Seminars Date: 28 Jul 89 08:38:39 CDT (Fri) From: Bill Cerny I was a little offended by D. Stanwyck's attack on your policy of announcing telecom seminars, particularly those on ISDN. I'll try to be more objective than Mr. Stanwyck on this matter, and state that announcing telecom seminars is a worthy activity, but unless you've been to one, or have received a review from a reputable person, I believe it would be prudent to stop short of saying (as you did of the TRA ISDN seminars) "...the instructors are from Bell Labs and are really knowledgeable..." (or words to that affect). As much as my former employer appreciates your plug, I think it might be a bit too controversial, especially with the likes of D. Stanwyck in the readership. You solicited a review of TRA's "Understanding ISDN" seminar a month or so ago; yet nobody has replied. Maybe you could post a second request for Digest readers to critique telecom training they have attended. [By the way, I have accepted a position in San Diego, where I was living before coming to Kansas for ISDN research. Perhaps I'll have a chance to put my knowledge to practice: Pac*Bell will offer ISDN Centrex later this year from 25-30 metropolitan (5ESS) c.o.'s across the state. I'd like to post a report on that in the Digest, but I might embarrass my friend John Higdon, who wouldn't believe something that progressive could happen in his state! 8-) 8-) ] Bill Cerny bill@toto.uucp | attmail: attmail!denwa!bill | fax: 619-581-3705 [Moderator's Note: Mr. Cerny was the person who supplied the original message from TRA, and the followup with the additional cities. PT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: toto!bill@apple.com Subject: Folks who Understand ISDN Date: 28 Jul 89 08:22:18 CDT (Fri) From: Bill Cerny To Mr. Stanwyck: I read your recent post in the Telecom Digest concerning ISDN "fakirs." I recall a posting you made a couple months back about your work on the ISDN. Indeed, aren't you a member/chair of some ANSI T1 subcommittee(s) on ISDN? Do you present ISDN fundamentals and applications to AT&T or outside organizations? -- Bill Cerny bill@toto.uucp | attmail: attmail!denwa!bill | fax: 619-581-3705 ------------------------------ From: mtfmi!stanwyc@att.att.com Date: Sat, 29 Jul 89 16:44 EDT Subject: Re: Folks who Understand ISDN Bill: Yes, through March of this year I was vice-chair of the ANSI committee (T1S1.2) that does ISDN access protocols. I do not, and have not for AT&T, teach/taught ISDN. (I did guest leacture for a course at the U of Colorado.) In March of this year I got out of standards and into fulltime education. I don't teach inside or outside of AT&T for the Education center, though, rather I am one of the founding faculty members of the Information Communication Institute of Singapore (ICIS). ICIS is a new (opens 1/2/90) graduate institute in Telecommunications. I was selected for my background in data communication and teaching (I am a member of the graduate faculty at the Univ. of Colorado). Regarding ISDN fakirs.....I don't accuse TRA Associates of being such, rather I note that such do exist. TRA - the company the moderator was pushing, was founded by Mr. Mike Diesel. Mike and I worked together at Bell Labs (Chicago) until 1985. I didn't feel then, nor do I now, that Mike knew a great deal about ISDN. Mike has since hired John Swart - another Chicago Bell Lab'er I knew, and lately Jim Neigh, a New Jersey Bell Lab'er I have worked with quite a bit. Of the bunch, Mr. Neigh is undoubtably the most knowledgeable about ISDN. But TRA doesn't claim to teach all about ISDN. According to a conversation held last week with their VP Sales, they only try to help you understand the buzzwords. So as long as they can do that (and I believe they can) then they have delivered as promised. Unfortuneatly, many, including the moderator, seem to feel that they are really teaching ISDN. There are many other educational seminars taught by far less qualified people - people who have never tried to either implement or work on the ISDN standards. Instead, they do as one author does that I know, and they spend just a short time saying why they think ISDN will never fly (See Stalling's book on Data Communications). But they advertise that their two day course will cover all of OSI and ISDN! Oh well, if you believe the sales pitch, you get what you deserve. Don Stanwyck _ _ mtfmi!stanwyc o o Kelly Ed. Center MT 3F-121 || ICIS Faculty 201-957-6693 \__/ AT&T-Bell Labs [Moderator's Note: Mr. Stanwyck's criticism was the basis for my request for user input in this matter. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 10:33:02 EDT From: Bennett Todd Subject: Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned Remember me -- I'm the "customer who opts for OPTS". Anyway, you asked: [Sir Moderator's Note: > ... > Question to readers: Do you, or do >you not enjoy/wish to read seminar/exhibition/conference announcements? Tell >me, I'll summarize later. PT] I really like the seminar and conference announcements; I haven't been tempted to try to go to any yet, but maybe one of these days.... Even so, I like to know about their existence. I should say, I really like the announcements *at about their current frequency* -- they are an insignificant fraction of the volume of Telecom Digest. Do please keep up the good work, just as you are now. Thanks! -Bennett bet@orion.mc.duke.edu P.S. I still don't have a phone at home -- and I still love it! Friends and coworkers just can't believe it. My family is tolerating it, since I correspond with them via email all the time, and call them from work regularly -- for purposes of which I've gotten an AT&T calling card. As is to be expected, since I explicitly don't have home service to tie the access code to, the number is really weird. Which suits me just fine. ------------------------------ From: Chip Rosenthal Subject: Re: Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned Date: 29 Jul 89 16:43:30 GMT Reply-To: chip@vector.dallas.tx.us Organization: Dallas Semiconductor stanwyc@mtfmi.att.com (D. Stanwyck) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 256, message 4 of 5 >I, for one, strongly object to this forum, especially as a moderated >forum, becoming a place for commercial announcements. I receive an incredible number of such announcements via snail mail every week. Not all these seminars are bad. In fact, I attended one such seminar which I found helpful. However, there are soooo many of them that a full list in TELECOM would also easily grow to annoying size. The fact that such seminars exist would be of benefit to some TELECOM readers, and this information is therefore useful and hence publishable. However, a full schedule isn't especially useful since these seminars are offered all the time, and a full list could grow to extreme lengths. I might suggest something in the monthly listing along the lines of "these places offer regular and frequent seminars" along with contact telno's would be entirely appropriate. To claim that the net is no place for commercial information is naive. I don't want to be barraged with advertising, but I certainly would like to hear about new products and services which might be of help to me. Even the oft quoted "no commercial use of the Internet" has fallen into question; primarly by some reasearch done by Brad Templeton for the news service his company is running. So, I agree with the poster not on the grounds that commercial announcements have no place here, but rather that (1) such a list could grow to annoying size, and (2) these companies offer the same seminars all the time, and posting the dates and details provides little useful information. -- Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337 "I wish you'd put that starvation box down and go to bed" - Albert Collins' Mom ------------------------------ Date: 26-JUL-1989 19:38:39.06 From: Kenneth Selling Subject: Is the Monthly Round-up Too Commercial In TELECOM Digest vol. 9, issue 256, "D. Stanwyck" suggests that our Moderator should not post a monthly round-up of TELECOM seminars and conferences because they are "commercial announcements". Our Moderator then asks of us readers: > Do you, or do you not enjoy/wish to read seminar/exhibition/conference > announcements? Tell me Because most of the workshops our Moderator rounds up for us are to further educate ourselves if we choose, I believe they are very appropriate in the Digest. I do not believe the exclusive fact that many of them are run by commercial organizations should make them tabu. In some cases, the only folks with sufficient resources or expertise to offer these classes are commercial groups (like AT&T, Bellcore, etc.) Agreed, there will be an occasional bad apple in the bunch, such as groups which do not know much about their subject, or are just blatantly out to sell their products. I feel it is worth that risk to publicize legitimate events. I also believe this Digest would be a good forum for readers to feed-back poor experiences they had with any of them (i.e., "It turned out that the 'Bellcore Seminar on Digital PBXs' was run by some chump named Horace Bellcore, who tried all day to push the 'Horace Bellcore Connecto-Jet IV PBX' - made in Malaysia.") Ken Selling Organization: Wesleyan University Internet: kselling@eagle.wesleyan.edu BITNET: kselling%eagle@wesleyan.bitnet ----------------------------- Date: Fri Jul 28 18:56:49 1989 From: Vance Shipley Subject: Seminar Announcements >.......... Question to readers: Do you, or do >you not enjoy/wish to read seminar/exhibition/conference announcements? Tell >me, I'll summarize later. PT] I _DO_ want to see them. Vance Shipley uucp: ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!vances Linton Technology - SwitchView INTERNET: vances@egvideo.uucp 180 Columbia Street West (soon) vances@xenitec.uucp Waterloo, Ontario CANADA tel: (519)746-4460 N2L 3L3 fax: (519)746-6884 ------------------------------ From: Telecom Moderator Date: Saturday, August 5, 1989 0200 Subject: Seminar Announcements - My View So here you see the response of the readers who replied to the question on the propriety of commercial seminar announcements in TELECOM Digest. There were others, but they requested 'do not publish'. The overall count was about sixty percent for and forty percent against such postings, as is illustrated in the messages which appear here. I am going to continue listing occassional seminars, but give far less space to the specifics, supplying only the basics of dates, locations and phone numbers. And generally these will be limited to once a month. It should be obvious to all there is really no way I personally can be informed on all aspects of ISDN, nor can I possibly vouch for the authenticity or quality of any seminar/exhibition/conference being presented. I will supply the information FYI only, leaving it to each of you to phone for more details as desired. Reviews by persons in attendance are encouraged and will be printed. I hope everyone will consider this a reasonable compromise. I've had a notice from some folks in London about a new ISDN newsletter sitting in my pending box for a week now; I was a little schizoid about running it; even though it seems like an interesting new publication. Maybe I will do something with it over the weekend. 73's Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special Edition (Seminar News) *****************************   Date: Sun, 6 Aug 89 0:02:37 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #276 Message-ID: <8908060002.aa17374@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 6 Aug 89 00:00:27 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 276 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson The Verification Operator is NOT Inward (John R. Covert) Where Can I Find A Complete List of Access Codes? (Rodney Amadeus) Using Sprint's FONLINE 800 Service in the Residence (Bill Cerny) Dilemma Choosing Right PBX For Office (Jeff Sicherman) Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? (David Lewis) Re: Various Ways of Handling 555-1212 (Rodney Amadeus) Re: 555 Exchange and Inward Numbers (Marc T. Kaufman) Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant (John Higdon) Re: Rolm -- the PBX with a "conscience"? (Kevin Blatter) Re: Rival Claims PacBell Gave It A 'Virus' (John Higdon) New Toll Free Calling Area in Connecticut (Jon Solomon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "John R. Covert" Date: 5 Aug 89 08:56 Subject: The Verification Operator is NOT Inward >A couple (?) of Digests back, John Covert mentioned that AT&T >operators can not talk to Local Bell operators via inward dialing. > >I'm not sure if I'm right, and maybe in New England it's different, >but if that's the case, how do AT&T ops do Emergency Interrupts and >Busy Verifications? In V9#250, I wrote >In no case will an AT&T operator calling Inward reach a local Baby Bell >operator. Only in the case of the completing calls to non-diallable points >(and there are thousands of them left, especially in California), will an >AT&T operator end up on a Baby Bell toll board, but this isn't Inward. I should have included verification as a case where AT&T operators can end up on a Baby Bell board. But again, this is NOT "Inward" and Baby Bell verification operators are prohibited from completing calls for AT&T if the number turns out to be available. The AT&T operator will have to redial the call from the originating point or possibly via AT&T Inward. There is a good reason for this, and it has to do with DOLLARS. Unless the AT&T call is completed via AT&T's FGD trunks, the local operating company does not get its share of the revenue from the call. /john ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 18:08:24 EST From: "R.A. Anonymous, Jr." Subject: Where Can I Find a Complete List of Access Codes? I was wondering if anyone could help me out with locating the companies that own a few access codes. From my area, I can use 10222 (MCI), 10288 (AT&T), 10333 (US Sprint), and 10444 (AllNet). The codes in question are 10555 and 10999. These both work, but I don't know who I'm going to get a bill from... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rodney Amadeus Anonymous, Jr. | Wyomissing, PA pro-palace!r.a.a. | pro-harvest!r.a.a. pro-palace checked daily | pro-harvest checked weekly - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Moderator's Note: Some time ago, a reader posted the entire list of 10xxx codes for the United States, although some are not available in all communities. Could someone post that list again please? PT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Cerny Subject: Using Sprint's FONLINE 800 service in the residence Date: 5 Aug 89 13:19:23 GMT Organization: Little 3B1 on the Prairie, St. Marys, KS I've had Sprint's 800 service in my home since April, and I'm pleasantly surprised that both the service and the billing has been flawless to date (a sudden triple knock on the wooden desk). At first, the folks at the national sales center (1-800-mumble) refused to allow me to order "residential" 800 service, but that was back in February when FONLINE 800 orders were gushing in. The two-step solution was to go thru my regional Sprint sales office, and operate a business from my home. In February, as now (thru Sep 30), the installation charges are waived (save $50). The monthly is $10, and Canadian service is available for an add'l monthly charge. So far, my usage has been 100 to 250 minutes per month, for an average of .17/min (the majority being evening & night calls, from the West Coast). My favorite feature is the billing detail: if the call originated in an equal access office, you get the full 10d of the party that called you. Sort of a time delayed Calling Line ID. 8-) I've been keeping track of other "residential" 800 service offerings, but Sprint still has the highest "fun factor," IMHO. -- Bill Cerny bill@toto.uucp | attmail: attmail!denwa!bill ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Aug 89 15:15:21 CDT From: jajz801@calstate.bitnet Subject: Dilemma Choosing Right PBX for Office We are planning to upgrade to a small PBX from a keyed system (the old 5 button clunkers) and have looked at AT&T's offerings. In particular they have one that is 'digital' (Merlin) and one analog (?). Is there any reason to choose among these, or others, with respect to use with modems or faxes ? Does the digital imply it can be used as an interconnect media for computers ? Jeff Sicherman jajz801@calstate.bitnet ------------------------------ From: David Lewis Subject: Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? Date: 4 Aug 89 15:57:59 GMT Organization: Bell Communications Research In article , msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > Lisa Smith (lisa@mips.com) wrote the following in an article in > (the Usenet newsgroup) rec.humor.d: > > > That prefix, 555, isn't fictional everywhere. One of my school friends > > said that his grandfather's phone number, somewhere in South Dakota, is > > a 555 number. He said that it was to his knowledge the only place in > > the U.S. that it was a real prefix though. > > Someone else said that if this was ever true it isn't now. > What do the experts say? The 555 prefix isn't fictional; it's "reserved for special use"; e.g. directory assistance. To quote my favorite source, _Notes on the BOC Intra-LATA Networks -- 1986_ (TR-NPL-000275, April 1986): "In general, the assignment of CO codes within an NPA is handled by the serving BOC... Each assignment should be made ... to the extent that it is feasible in accordance with the following guidelines regarding the sequence of assignment: (1) First-choice codes for CO assignment purposes include all NNX type codes, excluding NN0 codes, and the following seven codes that are currently reserved for special use: "555 -- Toll Directory Assistance 844 -- Time Service 936 -- Weather Service 950 -- Access to Interexchange Carriers under FG (Feature Group) B access arrangements 958 -- Plant Test 959 -- Plant Test 976 -- Information Delivery Service" In other words -- they're not fictional, but it is recommended that they not be assigned to users. Of course, local telcos (including BOCs, but particularly independents) are free to ignore the recommendations. -- David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Aug 89 12:50:22 EST From: "R.A. Anonymous, Jr." Subject: Re: Various Ways of Handling 555-1212 Dialing 1-555-5555 gets free directory assistance in my area, too. Rather convenient.... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rodney Amadeus Anonymous, Jr. | Wyomissing, PA pro-palace!r.a.a. | pro-harvest!r.a.a. pro-palace checked daily | pro-harvest checked weekly - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------ From: "Marc T. Kaufman" Subject: Re: 555 Exchange and Inward Numbers Date: 5 Aug 89 16:04:37 GMT Reply-To: "Marc T. Kaufman" Organization: Stanford University In article DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN) writes: >Actually, there are 555 numbers that appear to be assigned to >pay phones, at least in special cases. >If you go to Disneyland in Anahiem, CA, which is still served by >Pac*Bell (but it's VERY near GTE territory..oh no! :-) ), you >can use "Pay-Speakerphones". These are basically large booths, >with Bell System payphones, which no longer have a handset. Instead, >they have a speaker box (with a blue Bell logo) and a microphone >near the payphone itself, all neatly built into the wall. I am sure this is a very special case. These phones were installed when "Tomorrowland" was originally opened (in 1957?) and most of Orange County was still orchards. The Irvine ranch still ran cattle. This was supposed to be a demonstration of "advanced" telephone technology (they even had a demonstration picturephone). Given the volume of calls from these phones, I'm sure the phone company had to treat them specially. We may find out the 555 prefix is bogus, and if you replaced it with the correct prefix you could call in. How about making a collect call from one of them and checking the number on your bill, when you get it. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@polya.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant Date: 4 Aug 89 08:02:21 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , goldstein@delni.dec.com writes: > Of course, not many end-users even know about it. Like many Rolm > features, it's a bit hard to explain. And, like many Rolm features, it's totally screwy and totally non-intuitive. Instead of ten seconds of busy and then music, how about two seconds of busy. NO ONE listens to a busy signal for ten seconds. Having replaced many Rolms in my day, I can say that the reason their owners were quite happy to see them go was that they were so hard to use. Oh, yes, they were feature-laden. Features that required a detailed manual to describe. F'rinstance, to transfer a call in 99% of PBX switches on a single-line phone, you flash the hookswitch, dial the destination number and hang up. With Rolm, you flash, dial a code (different depending on the type of transfer), dial the number and hang up. Rolm's attitude was "We're king of the hill, and you will do it our way." For this reason, many of Rolm's features were never used by their customers. They didn't know how. And it was generally too much trouble. Yes, Rolm, it is possible to have features that work and are easy to use. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: "K.BLATTER" Subject: Re: Rolm -- the PBX with a "conscience"? Date: 4 Aug 89 14:21:35 GMT Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA In article , wales@cs.ucla.edu writes: > voice saying, "Is that a *personal* call?" > > Now, obviously, I realize that Rolm PBX's never *really* went "ding" > and asked "Is that a *personal* call?" :-} But can anyone out there > tell me exactly what Rolm's "conscience" feature really was? Was it > something as mundane as a printed log of every number called from every > extension -- so that a manager could go through the list later on and > inquire about calls to unfamiliar phone numbers? I don't know what Rolm's "conscience" was, but practically every PBX and large key system sold in America comes with an SMDR port. The SMDR (Station Message Detail Recording) port generates information about individual calls made to and from the PBX. This information is usually in ASCII, but not always, so you can hook up a serial printer and get a listing of all the calls that are made. If this port is hooked up to a computer, you can run a call accounting system which will read the "raw" call records and estimate the price of the call, look up the destination of the call and store the call in a database. Reports are run and guarenteed somebody looks at them. Some of these call accounting systems will even pick out individual numbers and rather than list the geographical destination, will list the actual station who the phone is registered to. ie. 1 (305) 555-1234 Kevin's Grandma Within AT&T, these reports are distributed to department heads who then are at liberty to do whatever they want with them. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Disclaimer - The ideas here are my own, not my employer's. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Rival Claims PacBell Gave It A 'Virus' Date: 5 Aug 89 06:11:56 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team Back in '85, GTE Mobilnet began cellular service in the San Francisco bay area. It did a horrible job. In late '86 Cellular One came in as the non-wireline carrier and offered greatly superior service. There was a mass exodus to the new system that was owned 50% by Pacific Telesis. They also offered a new twist: calls from anywhere in the service area directed to a mobile would be toll-free no matter where the mobile prefix was actually located. GTE Mobilnet, which was by now getting its act together got the same arrangement. But even though granted this "land line-no toll" by the PUC, it doesn't really do them much good. Why? Pacific Bell runs the phones. To this day, you can pick up virtually any PB pay phone in the greater SF bay area and dial any Cellular One prefix from Santa Rosa to San Jose for twenty cents. If you try it with a GTE Mobilnet prefix, the automatic coin voice will ask for the prevailing toll rate for that call, even though they have the identical tariff in the matter. This is IMHO a blatant, clear-cut example of Pacific Telesis using its control of the local telephone network to serve its own ends. The standard answer from Pac*Bell whenever you confront them with something like this is, "We would never do that intentionally. We don't have to do business that way." I've been given that line from them many times. While I am generally a fan of deregulation, I have seen enough evidence that Pac*Bell tends to be slimy and the PUC should go very slowly in the direction of removing controls. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Aug 89 12:27:27 EDT From: jsol@bu-it.bu.edu Subject: New Toll Free Calling Area in Connecticut Now, if SNET gave Middletown toll-free calling to New Haven, and this were 15 years ago, I would have paid quite a penny to get a Middletown number, so my Hartford relatives could have been able to call me toll free in NH. *sigh*. [Moderator's Note: jsol was the founder of TELECOM Digest, and the moderator for several years. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #276 *****************************   Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 0:03:25 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #277 Message-ID: <8908070003.aa14914@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Aug 89 00:00:07 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 277 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson More About NJ Sabotage (Mark Robert Smith) Non-dialable Points (Gabe M. Wiener) Why Different Access Codes? (arnor!uri@uunet.uu.net) ANI Phone Number Kept A Secret (David Lesher) Re: 555 Exchange and Inward Numbers (David Lesher) Re: Best Choice For Multi-line Home Phone Wiring? (Ron Natalie) Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Dave Levenson) Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant (Dave Levenson) Re: Special Ring Detection (Dr. T. Andrews) Re: Rotary-dial Encoding (Tom Hofmann) Re: Cellular Calls to 911 (Doug Davis) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 6 Aug 89 19:53:10 EDT From: Mark Robert Smith Subject: More About NJ Sabotage Well, the strike has started. Officially, this means that CWA and IBEW are on strike against NJ Bell. Supervisory personnel are covering. Also, the sabotage has continued. About a dozen subscriber lines were cut in Leonia, NJ's central office. United Telephone/com? (the local telephone company for NW NJ) has reported about 20 incidents per day of vandalism, mostly subscriber lines cut in CO's, and fiber cables cut with hatchets. Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. Mark ---- Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Aug 89 16:59:16 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: Non-dialable Points Organization: Columbia University Recently it was mentioned that there are thousands of non-dialable points left in California. Just out of curiosity... What cities (or should I say villages) are still-non dialable? Do such places have outbound dialing or is all calling still operator-assist? I would think that with today's telephone technology, DDD would reach _all_ points in America. Can anyone explain the holdouts? Thanks, -G [Moderator's Note: Mr. Covert's article recent article stating 'there are thousands of non-dialable points' also caught my attention. If he was including toll-stations in his count, I'd say there might be a couple hundred such places; if his calculations were only of manual exchange service, which all of us were at one point and few (if any) of us are now, it defies my imagination that there are 'thousands of them left....especially in California...'. If there are thousands of them, perhaps Mr. Covert will write an article and name just a dozen or so. Even a lot of the Nevada toll- stations have been picked up by other exchanges in the recent past, but toll-stations are NOT the same as manual exchanges in any event. PT] ------------------------------ From: arnor!uri@uunet.uu.net Subject: Why Different Access Codes? Date: 6 Aug 89 17:12:52 GMT Reply-To: Hello, Could somebody explain: what can one win, using diferent access codes? Like having AT&T as default LD carrier, but routing some of calls through MCI or Sprint? Don't you get billed from BOTH default LD carrier AND the one you actually sent your call through? What are the rules of this game? Thank you, Uri. ============= [Moderator's Note: The use of different access codes merely allows one to select the desired long distance carrier. At the time of divestiture and equal access, in order to avoid forcing millions of phone users to begin dialing an extra five digits on their long distance calls in order that a few people could route their calls 'with equal ease in dialing' to the carrier of choice -- if people did not use AT&T they had to dial upwards of 23 digits to use alternate carriers -- provision was made that you could 'default' your calls to the carrier of choice, continuing to dial 10/11 digits. You are only billed by the carrier which handles the call; not by your default carrier as well, unless of course you have a flat rate package from your default carrier, i.e. Reach Out America, which you pay for whether you use it or not. PT] ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: ANI Phone Number Kept Secret Date: Sun, 6 Aug 89 9:57:41 EDT Reply-To: David Lesher For a long time, in the 216 (and some other areas, too) 200+7d got you the ANI computer that read you back the assignment of the pair you were on. The exception was if the 7d you dialed was correct, it just beeped. This let the installer confirm the pair he had picked was the correct one. Recently Ohio Bell changed the code to be 200+ some secret 7d, and let the troops know that revealing the secret was cause to be terminated. Do any Digest readers have ideas on the logic behind the policy {if any;-{) If OBT felt they were helping out those folks installing 'foreign equipment' on THEIR pairs, why didn't they just make a tariff for it, and charge for it? -- Flash! Murphy gets look and feel copyright on sendmail.cf {gatech!} wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: Re: 555 Exchange and Inward Numbers Date: Sun, 6 Aug 89 9:48:19 EDT Reply-To: David Lesher [Discussion about 'outward only' slots, and a 555 prefix assigned to one] > We may find out the > 555 prefix is bogus, and if you replaced it with the correct prefix you > could call in. How about making a collect call from one of them and checking > the number on your bill, when you get it. Won't work. This scheme was used in places such as bus stations, airports, high schools, et al where the local Mother wanted to forbid incoming calls. After all, they didn't get a quarter from those calls, did they?? The number on the one-armed bandit translated to a secret actual number. I seem to recall that the TSPS position either displayed the correct assignment, with a special "don't tell the sub" message or else calls from the TSPS were translated, unlike normal ones. But {s}he did have a method to call the slot back. Now for a while, '200' code did give you the actual assignment, but they soon disabled it. But Ma did handle the collect call bill part correctly from the beginning. But that brings up an interesting sub-topic. How are the LOC's handling 'calling party id' on calls placed from such slots, or for that matter from all the other special cases, such as PBX trunks and WATS circuits? I recall that 200 DID work on out-wats trunks, and gave some long non-NNNXXXX number. -- Flash! Murphy gets look and feel copyright on sendmail.cf {gatech!} wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM ------------------------------ From: Ron Natalie Subject: Re: Best Choice For Multi-line Home Phone Wiring? Date: 5 Aug 89 22:00:11 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Actually, 25 pair wiring to each room is going out of fashion in the commercial setting now. The new electronic key sets such as MERLIN require only 3 pairs. ISDN (and ISDN like) stuff get by with less. Running 4 pairs seems to be popular suggestion with the local phone company around here. I've got 25 pair cable in my house. It wasn't that expensive. I put it in myself. Sometime when we moved, the phone company managed to start billing something like $.30 a month. Generally this is a ripoff, but it was amusing when we had to have the phone dude out to figure out why all our lines died. He wasn't used to finding a back board full of 66-blocks in residential garages. Turned out that the cats had managed to piss in one of them. The guy left me some extra goodies when I offered to repunch down that cable rather than making him do it. Pretty good deal for .30/mo. -Ron ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public Date: 6 Aug 89 00:40:05 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA > > Equity requires that 20 ordinary phone lines should not cost simply 20 > > times the cost of one phone line, since there are economies of scale. > So why do I have to pay 2 times the cost of one line for 2 residential > phone lines? What's sauce for the goose... That depends upon where you live. In New Jersey, a second line costs less than the first line. This is true for both business and residence service. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant Date: 5 Aug 89 22:48:18 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , goldstein@delni.dec.com writes: ...commentary describing ROLM auto-park where incoming calls to busy stations get put on hold without answer supervision while queued... > This is legal because PBXs are allowed to provide audible signaling to a > DID caller without returning supervision; supervision is required only > when a two-way path is opened. It should, however, be obvious that PBX > manufacturers affiliated with long distance carriers (be they AT&T or > Bell Canada) would not be particularly anxious to implement this > feature! > > It's one of the widest loopholes in the supervision rules. Kudos to > Rolm for taking advantage of it. (It's been around for over a decade.) > Of course, not many end-users even know about it. Like many Rolm > features, it's a bit hard to explain. The trouble with this arrangement, if implemented and used by vast numbers of telephone users all over the network, is that I might call you and get autoparked because you are busy -- perhaps calling me, and being autoparked because I'm busy...etc. Or perhaps we're not calling each other, but we're each calling someone else who is calling someone else... The problem is that after a while, the network is blocked with non-revenue calls autoparked at the destination, and no new calls get through. Hopefully, someone somewhere will give up, abandon their outgoing call, and start to break up the logjam. The right solution to the waiting-for-busy problem is network-implemented automatic call back. That probably won't happen while the "network" is a disjoint set of networks owned by different carriers. Who pays for all of this "non-revenue" use of the networks? You guessed it! I suggest that the rules for supervision not permit this sort of thing. In the long run, it will only be destructive to the blocking probability or network usage cost. If ROLM wanted to be like other premises switching systems, they'd offer ACD, instead. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Special Ring Detection Date: Sat, 5 Aug 89 7:21:39 EDT From: "Dr. T. Andrews" Organization: CompuData, Inc. (DeLand) The service of providing special ring(s) is offered here, under the name "ringmaster". You get several numbers, all of which ring the same line. The ring cycle is varied, depending on which number is called. Remember party lines, with long/short rings? They can list or not list the added number(s), depending on whether you want one for the kids, or if you want one for friends to alert you that it isn't a salesman. Same charge applies either way. Of course, a sales caller cycling through the numbers won't know not to call your priority number. If we have all of these spare numbers, why must we have 3 exchange prefixes in this town? Is the sale of these spare numbers going to hasten the split of "904"? Will the pan-handle gets stuck changing their numbers instead of us when it happens? -- ...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner ...!bpa!cdin-1!ki4pv!tanner or... {allegra attctc gatech!uflorida uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner ------------------------------ From: Tom Hofmann Subject: Re: Rotary-dial Encoding Date: 3 Aug 89 07:44:16 GMT Organization: WRZ, CIBA-GEIGY Ltd, Basel, Switzerland From article , by euatdt@euas11g. ericsson.se (Torsten Dahlkvist): > Third: "Oslo" dialling (the Norwegian Capital is different from the > rest of the country. Historical reasons?): > (10-n)-dialling (or is it (10-(n+1))?); The dial works "backwards" and > looks quite funny to the newcomer. I'm not sure if the coding is 1=>10, > 2=>9...0=>1 or 0=>10, 1=>9... 9=>1. Somebody out there to fill me in? I recall it is the latter: 0=>10, 1=>9... 9=>1. Another apparently not standardized feature is the keypad layout of push-button phones. In central Europe it is: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 It can be confusing since it is not the same layout as for calculators. I think in parts of Scandinavia (Sweden?) it is homogeneous: 7 8 9 4 5 6 1 2 3 0 Can someone confirm that? Are there any other layouts? Special keypad for Oslo? Mirror-image layout on the southern hemisphere? Tom Hofmann wtho@cgch.UUCP ------------------------------ From: Doug Davis Date: 5 Aug 89 23:05:23 CDT (Sat) Subject: Re: Cellular Calls to 911 Reply-To: doug@letni.LawNet.Com (Doug Davis) Organization: Logic Process Dallas, Texas. >[Moderator's Note: Whether or not there is a charge depends on the policy >of the carrier. The landline portion, by law, is sent collect to the police >or emergency service. But please note yesterday's Digest and previous items >on this: 911 as designed is virtually worthless in cellular applications. >It is biased in favor of phones at *fixed* locations, since the caller's >name and address are an important part of the message delivered. PT] This is not entirly true everywhere, down here on the range "South Western bell mobile systems." The local wireline carrier. Has some kind of cel identification that routes 911 calls to the local, to that cell, emergency center. The first time I used it, after reading about all the horror stories in telecom about getting your home area's 911 center. I was quite shocked when my 911 call was routed to the local sheriffs office in "rock mound" Texas, pop 213. Since then I have made several 911 calls over the past 4 months that I have owned my phone. Each time they got it right as far as where to route the call, even in local suburbs of big citys like Dallas and or Fort Worth. The call was always routed to the correct response center. We might have been the last place on earth to get cellular service, but at least so far, it looks like they did it right. As a side note, anyone want to post their experences about fun things to do with your portable cell phone? So far I have this list: + Calling someone while sitting out front of their dwelling. (yeah I know that's old but it still worth a few laughs... sometimes) + While sitting in a resturant with lousy service, call the manager up and complain.. + Calling up the grocery store and asking where they hid something. + Ordering pizza, (yes please deliver it to the red z-car outside) + lastly, calling up your buddy who has another portable phone, about 20-30 seconds after he goes into the "facilities." >From some of the reactions I have seen, I am convenced that some people will never be able to cope with "modern" technology. Usually when they peer sheapishly out from the office, or whatever, a little wave and a smile is all it takes to get the eye popping, open mouth act. If there is any interest, i'll be glad to compile a list and post it. doug -- Doug Davis/1030 Pleasant Valley Lane/Arlington/Texas/76015/817-467-3740 {sys1.tandy.com, motown!sys1, uiucuxc!sys1 lawnet, attctc, texbell} letni!doug "BUMP! Squeak Squeak Squeak... Hey! this must be an invisible wall!" "Oh, it is." "Great! I've always wondered what one of those looked like." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #277 *****************************   Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 0:35:31 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #278 Message-ID: <8908080035.aa14555@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Aug 89 00:00:46 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 278 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson CodaCall Blocks Unwanted Calls (Scott D. Green) ATT, DEC Computer Interface to PBX (Roger Clark Swann) The World's Telephones from AT&T (Dave Horsfall) US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments In Digest (Steve Elias) Tanks Near Telephone Poles (Jeff Wasilko) WEAF and Women (Kevin L. Blatter) Yuppies and Operators (Hector Myerston) Dial-A-Numbers in Rochester NY (Mike Koziol) RJ-XX Connectors (Hector Myerston) Ringback Number Wanted (Gabe M. Wiener) Toll Stations (Gabe M. Wiener) Clarification on 'LEC' (Ed Frankenberry) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 11:03 EDT From: "Scott D. Green" Subject: Coda Call Blocks Unwanted Calls This appeared in the Phila. Inquirer last week, by Jim McNair of the Miami Herald (reprinted without permission): "To most of us, people who sell by "cold-calling" are just as pesky as mosquitoes. Not even unlisted phone numbers prevent solicitors of penny stocks, insurance or home-improvement services from calling you at home in the middle of supper." "But one cure will be available later this summer. This month, a Winter Park, FL company, Coda Call Corp., will begin producing a telephone attachment that will require callers to punch in a three-letter password to get thru. The four-by-four inch box shuts out obscene calls, unsolicited sales pitches, wrong numbers and others who don't know your code." "'On the front of the box,' said Coda Call president Joseph Lutz, 'we have a switch that says *normal* and *code*. If you want all the calls to come thru, you slide the switch in the *normal* position. But the minute you slide the switch into *code*, your telephone is completely out of the circuit because my box is monitoring the line.'" "The Coda Call Model C-757-3 is connected to the line between the wall plug and the telephone. When switched on, it intercepts the ring and sends back a tone calling for the three-letter password. The caller has five seconds to dial the code." "There are drawbacks to the Coda Call product. Friends and relatives who don't know your password are shut out along with the undesirable callers. And the box is incapable of passing on calls to your answering machine." "Two weeks ago, some of Lutz's friends from California came to town unexpectedly and couldn't call him because his call-blocker was on. They finally reached him by getting the password from his son." "Lutz acknowledged that other call-blocking devices were available, but said that they generally worked by blocking designated numbers." "With such devices, 'you have to know the number you want to get rid of,' Lutz said. 'But if I wanted to get to you, I could go to a phone booth. And you can't get rid of solicitors because you don't know their number.'" "The Coda Call will be sold thru selected distributors of telephone products for $129." "Lutz said he hoped to introduce a $139 call-blocker for junk-fax transmissions by year-end." So, at the risk of starting another Call*Block Caller*ID discussion, what do you think? Winner or loser? -Scott "in no way connected with Coda Call, BOC's, IEX's, Miami Herald, Phila. Inquirer" Green. Member FDIC. [Moderator's Note: They are not the first with such a device. The Privecode, by International Mobile Machines in Pennsylvania was first introduced in 1982, and they did have a method of shunting the caller direct to the answering machine, which plugged into the back of the Privecode unit. It was a couple hundred dollars more than Coda Call, however. PT] ------------------------------ From: Roger Clark Swann Subject: ATT, DEC Computer Interface to PBX Date: 1 Aug 89 04:41:19 GMT Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA The following article is copied without permission from PC WEEK July 17, 1989 ............................................................... AT&T, DEC Announce Joint PBX-to-Computer INterface Development AT&T and Digital Equipment Corp. recently pledged to provide mutual technical support in the area of computer supported telephony, including plans to develop a PBX-to-computer applications inteface. The applications interface will be based on ATT&t's application platform, the Adjunct Switch Application Interface (ASAI), and Digital's new Computer Integrated Telephony (CIT) platform, officials from the companies said. The interface will help customers take advantage of Integrated Services Digital newtworks (ISDN) and help meet their demands for multivendor connectivity, said Don Hirsch, vice president for product management at AT&T's Business Communications Systems division in Bridgewater, N.J. The companies will also work through international standards organizations toward a standard that allows seamless integration of voice and data-processing systems, officials of the companies said. Roger Swann | uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!clark @ | The Boeing Company | ------------------------------ From: Dave Horsfall Subject: The World's Telephones from AT&T Date: 7 Aug 89 03:49:33 GMT Reply-To: Dave Horsfall Organization: Alcatel STC Australia, North Sydney, AUSTRALIA This was found in Computing Australia, 24th July 1989: ``Ring-a-ding-ding: busy lines! Just because you were _dying_ to know, we can now tell you that Australia ranks 12 in the world for the number of telephones it has. With a piddling 6,816,301, we're a country mile behind the US, which bolts in with 118,400,662. Second, trailing well behind with 49,976,000 is Japan, followed by the Soviet Union with 27,660,900. All these unforgettable facts are contained in the latest edition of "The World's Telephones", an AT&T reference book. But wait, there's more. Not only that, but the book also gives figures for "teledensity" (hmmmm?), the number of telephones per 100 population. In regard to Australia: + Sydney has 1,420,419 telephones (half of which, half the time, work), and: + There are about 99,000 coin-operated phones in Australia (less than half of which are still there, working about half of the time). You can get this literary "must" from AT&T's New Jersey headquarters, at 26 Parsippany Rd, Whippany. Where else, for a book like this?'' -- Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU), Alcatel STC Australia, dave@stcns3.stc.oz dave%stcns3.stc.oz.AU@uunet.UU.NET, ...munnari!stcns3.stc.oz.AU!dave ------------------------------ From: eli@chipcom.com Subject: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest Date: Mon, 07 Aug 89 10:36:03 -0400 I talked to my pal at US Sprint. he responded to the following 3 questions: ?? Any comment on the Port Authority / Grand Central FONcard shutdowns? some netters complained that this was an evil thing to do, since John Doe Just Off The Bus could not use his FONcard upon arriving in NYC. .. "The shutdown was not for all of Port Authority / Grand Central, it was just for a few payphones that were causing the trouble. John Doe is probably better off being prohibited from using the phone than if he did use the phone and someone watched over his shoulder, stole his FONcard number, and racked up thousands of calls on his bill." ?? What is the deal on remote areas that cannot reach US Sprint. Another netter had moaned about remote areas in California being stuck with ATT. .. "Telcos with less than 10,000 lines are not required to provide equal access. There is nothing that Sprint can do about this." ?? Any comment on the Sprint rep who said "if it doesn't work, you can always use ATT". .."Any company has dopes." -- Steve Elias -- eli@spdcc.com, eli@chipcom.com [mail to chipcom.chipcom.com bounces!] -- voice mail: 617 859 1389 -- work phone: 617 890 6844 ------------------------------ From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: Tanks near Telephone Poles Date: 7 Aug 89 05:16:49 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Wasilko Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest I've seen compressed gas cylynders near poles and I've always wondered what purpose they are used for? Could anyone shed some light on this? Thanks Jeff Wasilko ------------------------------ From: lzaz!klb@att.att.com Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 09:39 EDT Subject: WEAF and women Since the posting on the WEAF history, I have been thinking about it. Someone, (I don't recall who) made the comment about women and employment with WEAF. That jarred my memory and so I thought I would do a little research on the subject. This is what I found with respect to women and WEAF's early years: Quoting Banning, W. P., "Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer: The WEAF Experiment, 1922-1926". Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1946, Pg. 110; "A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: The Early Years (1875-1925)", (C) Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975 states, "Miss Helen Hann of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., Long Lines Department was WEAF's first studio hostess and announcer". (Page 423) Therefore, at least one woman was deeply involved in the success of the first radio station beyond that of just a secretary. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Laboratories Disclaimer - My employer wrote the book. Hey, I hope it's their opinion! ------------------------------ From: myerston@cts.sri.com Date: 7 Aug 89 08:18 PST Subject: Yuppies and Operators Organization: SRI Intl, Inc., Menlo Park, CA 94025 [(415)326-6200] Re: Douglas Scott Reuben's "cute" article on Inward Dialing and how amusing is it to ask AT&T operators [particularly the less experienced] for obscure dialing sequences and locations. The idea of adults, presumably gainfully employed professionals, going around harrasing low-paid, tighly monitored working folks is just toooo cuuuuute! I wonder if Wesleyan has any "amusing" numbers? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 89 04:06:00 EDT From: Mike Koziol Subject: Dial-A-Numbers in Rochester NY C.E. Reid (in Digest 259) listed a few Dial-A-Numbers in the Rochester NY area in a recent posting. A couple of the numbers Dial A YUK and Dial a Torah Thought got my (and our Moderator's) curiosity stirred up. So, all in all it being a very boring night at work I tried them to see what that were. - Dial-A-Yuk: a recording giving the names of the comics scheduled to to appear at a local comedy club, Yuk-Yuks. - Dial-A-Torah-Thought: seems to be the same as Dial-A-RAMBAM that has been discussed recently in the Digest. - Dial-A-Tire: no, it doesn't give you the most recent happenings in the on going discussion of radial vs bias ply, but, it was a local tire distributor. I think they went "belly up" recently, something to do with a warehouse fire. ------------------------------ From: myerston@cts.sri.com Date: 7 Aug 89 10:01 PST Subject: RJ-XX Connectors Organization: SRI Intl, Inc., Menlo Park, CA 94025 [(415)326-6200] Roy Smith writes: "Nor is there anything like an RJ-patch-it-yourself kit...." Well....actually there >are< kits to install the plugs [there aren't that many variations, 2,4,6 and 8 positions] which consist of the plugs and a termination tool. AMP and GMP are two that come to mind. With one of these, some and some modular installation jacks [many varieties are available with screw-type or punch-down terminals, and the wire [Satin-ribbon flat cable] you can fabricate any bizarre "adapter" you may want. Some of the "which-pin-is-which-pair" issues are still not standarized. Particularly the 8 pin connectors where AT&T and Bellcore are advocating different schemes for pairs 3 and 4. A fun time to be in Telecom.... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 14:02:30 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: Ringback Number Wanted Is there a list of telco #'s to get a ringback? I know that in NPA 212, it used to be: 660 *2 flash flash followed by a high-pitched tone, at which time you'd hang up and get a ringback. I know at our house in Sharon, CT, the ringback is quite strange. You dial your own number, hear a beeping about twice as fast as a reorder, and then you hang up and get a ringback. Sounds like a remnant from party-line service, even though the exchange is ESS. Thanks, -G ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 14:08:11 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: Toll Stations Could someone explain just what a toll station is? I've always thought that it's just a subscriber circuit that has to be signalled manually. Is it anything more than that? More importantly, why do toll-stations still exist? Isn't it possible to connect the subscriber to a regular automatic circuit. When I was a senior in High School two years ago, I remember getting literature from Deep Springs College. The literature said, "To contact us, call your long distance carrier and ask for Deep Springs Toll Station #2" -G [Moderator's Note: A toll-station is a telephone in a very remote area so thinly populated that not even a small (but normally operating) exchange can be profitably maintained. The one or two -- sometimes even three or four!! -- phones in the middle of nowhere -- literally! -- are from some other exchange, usually many miles away. Toll-stations are mostly a Nevada phenomenon, but a few exist in western Utah; in Arizona; in the desert area of California; and the northwestern rural area of Idaho...places where the entire population of town is six people. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Clarification on 'LEC' Date: Mon, 07 Aug 89 14:32:07 -0400 From: Ed Frankenberry > Moderator's Note: I am not quite clear on your use of the abbreviation > 'LEC'. Would you explain the abbreviation, please? Patrick, I think this is an acronym for "local exchange carrier." Ed Frankenberry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #278 *****************************   Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 1:21:10 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #279 Message-ID: <8908080121.aa25218@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Aug 89 01:15:32 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 279 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Re: Pair Usage (was Color Coding) (Vance Shipley) Re: Cellular Calls to 911 (John DeArmond) Re: Cellular Calls to 911 (Mike Morris) Re: DTMF Frequencies (Mike Morris) Re: Dial Pad Arrangements (Torsten Dahlkvist) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Ron Natalie) Re: Is Europe Going to Get 8 Digit Numbers? (Dave Horsfall) Re: Dilemma Choosing Right PBX for Office (Kevin Blatter) Re: 1 (708) NXX-XXXX Is Working (Dave Levenson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: vances@xenitec.uucp (Vance Shipley) Subject: Re: Pair Usage (was Color Coding) Organization: Linton Technology - SwitchView Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 18:43:20 GMT In article Mike Morris writes: >Likewise the GTE Sierra Madre exchange (818-355) (which went from SxS to EAX >a couple of years ago) was the only one I ever saw which allowed the user to >lease a pair to the CO and have a hunting defeat switch on the side of the >receptionist's phone. The customer was a MD and had 3 incoming lines and one >answering machine for after-hours calls. When the office was closed, >the machine was on and hunting was defeated. ... This is/was quite common here in Ontario. 'Break hunt' is a tarriffed service offering. In a DID situation it is quite common to have a "power fail" pair back to the central office. When the pbx is down (power fail, reload, etc.) the central office is alerted by the lack of (or presence of, depending on local engineering) -48 volts on this pair. Incoming calls for the DID lines are either presented with overflow or re-routed to any incoming trunks they have. Vance Shipley uucp: ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!vances Linton Technology - SwitchView INTERNET: vances@egvideo.uucp 180 Columbia Street West (soon) vances@xenitec.uucp Waterloo, Ontario fax: (519)746-6884 CANADA N2L 3L3 tel: (519)746-4460 ------------------------------ From: John DeArmond Subject: Re: Cellular Calls to 911 Date: 7 Aug 89 13:08:44 GMT Reply-To: John DeArmond Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product" >>[Moderator's Note: Whether or not there is a charge depends on the policy >>of the carrier. The landline portion, by law, is sent collect to the police >>or emergency service. But please note yesterday's Digest and previous items >>on this: 911 as designed is virtually worthless in cellular applications. >>It is biased in favor of phones at *fixed* locations, since the caller's >>name and address are an important part of the message delivered. PT] > >This is not entirly true everywhere, down here on the range "South Western >bell mobile systems." The local wireline carrier. Has some kind of cel >identification that routes 911 calls to the local, to that cell, emergency >center. Same here in Atlanta. I use my phone fairly frequently on 911. Between the daily traffic accidents, drunks, and out-of-control cops, I'm on about twice a week. The call always goes to the juristdiction of the cell handling the call. (sometimes it's off by one when I'm near a boundary but that does not count.) BellSouth Mobility does not charge for 911 service. BTW, One of the nicer things about celphones in the car is being able to call in real time and report cops who are out of line. I love nothing more than to ping one going about 20 over the limit or third laning traffic while not on emergency traffic. I always ask the dispatcher to confirm that the car number is not on 10-33 traffic and then I describe in detail what I saw. I've been transfered to the duty captain more than once to provide first hand details. Try it sometime. John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | Manual? ... What manual ?!? Sales Technologies, Inc. Atlanta, GA | This is Unix, My son, You ...!gatech!stiatl!john **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!! ------------------------------ From: Mike Morris Subject: Re: Cellular Calls to 911 Date: 7 Aug 89 21:02:24 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris doug@letni.LawNet.Com (Doug Davis) writes: > ..edited... > >As a side note, anyone want to post their experences about fun things >to do with your portable cell phone? So far I have this list: > + Calling someone while sitting out front of their dwelling. > (yeah I know that's old but it still worth a few laughs... sometimes) > + While sitting in a resturant with lousy service, call the > manager up and complain.. > + Calling up the grocery store and asking where they hid something. I've done all of those with an amateur radio autopatch system. Been doing it since 1968, with a Motorola "portable" that had tubes in it (rember those? The electronics teachers tell the students "think of them as high voltage, depletion mode JFETS that glow in the dark"). The radio sat in a canvas bag that was shoulder-carried, with a 18" whip sticking out. The microphone plugged into a box that had a touchtone pad, a transformer and a 9v battery in it, and the box plugged in to the microphone jack on the radio. The system technology has changed - the repeater now has a Z-80 based controller, with 512k of PROM, 16k of battery-backed RAM, and can run 5 different radios simultaneously, plus a speech synthesizer and a autopatch card. I can carry a radio smaller than a pack of cigarettes that has 4 times the power (1w vs 250mw), or a 8-watt walkie talkie can hang on my belt... > + Ordering pizza, (yes please deliver it to the red z-car outside) Amateurs can't legally do this. The plain English translation of the FCC's gobbldegook is: "If your autopatch use results in a profit for anybody, don't". Exceptions are made for 911, AAA, tow truck, etc calls. If anybody is _really_ interested, there is an ongoing argument of this on rec.ham-radio. >From some of the reactions I have seen, I am convinced that some people >will never be able to cope with "modern" technology. Even truer back in the '70s when I got my first solid-state "portable". Still in the canvas sack, but 2 whole watts! Later on I got a true handheld. It was fun calling my date on the phone and saying "Go open the door", and then surprising her with a rose when she did. >... Usually when >they peer sheapishly out from the office, or whatever, a little wave and >a smile is all it takes to get the eye popping, open mouth act. > Most of the crowd I ran around with needed a technical explanation, and several ended up getting their amateur licenses. One girlfriend did! Unfortunately, my wife won't. Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. ------------------------------ From: Mike Morris Subject: Re: DTMF Frequencies Date: 7 Aug 89 07:12:21 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris (Rick Watson) writes: > >What are the frequencies of the various tones used for DTMF? > 1209 1336 1477 1633 697 1 2 3 A FO 770 4 5 6 B F 852 7 8 9 C I 941 * 0 # A D P I have an old 5-line 4-wire Autovon phone here that I modified (added a network) for 25-pair 2-wire use. It has a "A" on the key that would normally be a "#". The 4th column keys are labeled with FO-F-I-P. On another Tiwanese throw-away phone I've seen the same keys labeled A-B-C-D, this phone was sold at the local K-Mart and the extra buttons were explained as "4 additional keypad keys for future banking and special services". A long time ago I figured out the mathematical sequence that the frequencies follow - Without overlapping the groups I figured that you could get a 9 by 9 matrix, with overlap a 12 by 9 (my memory is hazy, this would have been in 1969 or 1970). Note that these are not "MultiFreq" tones. Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. ------------------------------ From: Torsten Dahlkvist Subject: Re: Dial Pad Arrangements Date: 7 Aug 89 08:05:15 GMT Reply-To: Torsten Dahlkvist Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden In article OLE@csli.stanford.edu (Ole J. Jacobsen) writes: > Just before the new Tastafones went into production here a > couple of years ago, it was decided to have the keypad layout > DIFFERENT to your favorite Ma Bell. The reason is apparently > that people familiar with calculators should not have to re- > program their hands when shifting to the new phones, I guess > it makes sense, but it is still a bit wierd. The keys still > give the same DTMFs of course so that our phones would work on > your system and vise versa. > > 7 8 9 1 2 3 > 4 5 6 4 5 6 > 1 2 3 7 8 9 > 0 * # * 0 # > > Our keypad Your keypad > To the list of "Famous Mistakes"-quotes, should be added the telecom-group (I'm not sure exactly who participated) who in the early 70:s ran an investigation of people's attitudes towards keypad layouts. They found that most users learned to use the "1-on-top" keypad, as used on most phones around the world today, slightly quicker than they learned the "calculator- style" keypad. The unfortunate conflict between the two lay-outs was noted but the general conclusion was that "there are so many more phones than calculators in this world that if we decide on a new lay-out, IT will be the standard." Of course, a few years after this, the silicon revolution came around and everybody got at least three pocket calculators before they got their first keypad phone. Some countries, like Norway and Denmark, who have held on to their Telco monopolies very long and have been late in converting to DTMF, have been able to force a change of style on their keypads. I believe the Danish lay-out (same as the Norwegian above) was actually passed as a law by their Parliament which even makes it _illegal_ to sell a phone with a different style of keypad in Denmark. Not that I know of anyone ever trying to enforce that law against small-scale dealers, but a large company like Ericsson would be very careful to "toe the line" when selling to Denmark. /Torsten Additional disclaimer: Even though I work for a subsidiary of Ericsson and have in the past been involved in the actual design of some of their products, I am now in no way connected to such activities and my interest in these matters is purely for nostalgic reasons. I am not in any way acting as a representative of Ericsson and the opinions expressed are strictly my own. Torsten Dahlkvist ! "I am not now, nor have I ever ELLEMTEL Telecommunication Laboratories ! been, intimately related to P.O. Box 1505, S-125 25 ALVSJO, SWEDEN ! Dweezil Zappa!" Tel: +46 8 727 3788 ! - "Wierd" Al Yankowitz ------------------------------ From: Ron Natalie Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Date: 5 Aug 89 21:38:39 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Then there's the green box. A device that sends a tone back to a pay phone releasing the deposited money, I believe. It's been a while since the Army Labcom security office has provided me 2600 newsletters to read. -Ron ------------------------------ From: Dave Horsfall Subject: Re: Is Europe Going to Get 8 Digit Numbers? Date: 7 Aug 89 03:33:24 GMT Reply-To: Dave Horsfall Organization: Alcatel STC Australia, North Sydney, AUSTRALIA In article , Torsten Dahlkvist writes: | | If/when we get interplanetary dialling the logical prefix would be 000. I hope not - that's the emergency number here in Oz! Why did America choose 911 anyway? Australia is 000, Great Britain is 999. What other codes are there? -- Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU), Alcatel STC Australia, dave@stcns3.stc.oz dave%stcns3.stc.oz.AU@uunet.UU.NET, ...munnari!stcns3.stc.oz.AU!dave ------------------------------ From: "K.BLATTER" Subject: Re: Dilemma Choosing Right PBX for Office Date: 7 Aug 89 13:20:05 GMT Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA In article , jajz801@calstate.bitnet writes: > We are planning to upgrade to a small PBX from a keyed system (the old 5 > button clunkers) and have looked at AT&T's offerings. In particular they > have one that is 'digital' (Merlin) and one analog (?). Is there any reason > to choose among these, or others, with respect to use with modems or faxes ? > Does the digital imply it can be used as an interconnect media for computers? I guess that digital would imply that it can be used for computers. There are two types of Merlin systems. One is analog (Plus) and the other is digital (Merlin II). The Merlin II can be used for asynch. transmission. I'm not a sales rep or even an expert on Merlin. Talk to a knowledgable AT&T sales rep for the full scoop on data connectivity with a Merlin II. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Disclaimer - Usual stuff. ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: 1 (708) NXX-XXXX Is Working. Date: 7 Aug 89 22:42:15 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , dwtamkin%chinet.chi.il. us (David W. Tamkin) writes: > As of Wednesday (I didn't try on Tuesday) I found I could dial from my local > Centel service in Chicago to suburban locations with 1-708 or without... > [Moderator's Note: However, it does NOT yet work in Chicago-Rogers Park. > After first seeing your message in the queue, you know I tried it immediatly > from home. At this point here, 708 or 1-708 go immediatly to intercept. PT] Had to try it from NJ, too. 1+708+anything goes to immediate intercept as of Mon Aug 7 18:40:45 EDT 1989. Tried this using both AT&T and MCI. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #279 *****************************   Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 2:06:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #280 Message-ID: <8908080206.aa29519@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Aug 89 02:00:24 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 280 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Automatic Number Annoucement Abuse (Larry Lippman) Can There Be 'Fake' 911 In Rural Areas? (Peter Fleszar) Non-dialable Points (Charles Buckley) AT&T Calling Card/NY Tel Calling Card (Fuat C. Baran) Re: More About NJ Sabotage (Barry Shein) Phone Service in a Remote Part of Alaska (Clayton Cramer) Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? (Nark Brader) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Automatic Number Annoucement Abuse Date: 7 Aug 89 23:35:06 EDT (Mon) From: Larry Lippman In article dl@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) writes: > For a long time, in the 216 (and some other areas, too) 200+7d got you the > ANI computer that read you back the assignment of the pair you were on. The > exception was if the 7d you dialed was correct, it just beeped. This let the > installer confirm the pair he had picked was the correct one. > Recently Ohio Bell changed the code to be 200+ some secret 7d, and let the > troops know that revealing the secret was cause to be terminated. Do any > Digest readers have ideas on the logic behind the policy {if any;-{) The logic is very simple: keeping ANAC (Automatic Number Annoucement Circuit) "secret" or otherwise controlled is believed to hinder any would-be eavesdropper from easily identifying the subscriber line pair of a potential victim. ANAC is a pretty useful adjunct to any perpetrator bent upon unlawful eavesdropping, with such a perpetrator not having access to outside plant pair assignment records. Lacking specific pair data can make such subscriber line identification a trial-and-error task of considerable proportion, and with some risk of discovery. There are basically two methods of such pair identification: (1) Connect a VLF (20 kHz or so) oscillator across the subscriber pair at the known premises location to place an inaudible identification signal on the pair. Using a sensitive receiver and capacitively coupled test probe the pair appearance at a dedicated plant access or control point can be located. This type of equipment is readily available for legitimate telephone company cable tracing purposes. (2) Pick a working pair and dial the subscriber line in question when it is believed that no one is in the premises. Using a high-gain amplifier with capacitively coupled test probe, ringing pairs at the access or control can be identified. Since more than one ringing pair may be detected, the process will have to be repeated until it is certain that the desired pair has been identified. Both of the above methods result in some risk of detection, either at the subscriber premises or through ringing of the subscriber telephone. Successively trying ANAC on pairs using insulation-piercing test clips is much "safer". As an amusing aside, the legendary eavesdropper of the 1950's and early 1960's, the late Bernard Spindel, bragged about using the ringing pair technique on multiple cross-connect boxes (large numbers of bare binding posts - before days of dedicated plant). He would dial the subscriber line, wet his fingers, and "scan" the exposed binding posts for the ringing voltage shock! Most operating telephone companies, especially the BOC's, go to great length to protect subscriber line pair information from unauthorized access - especially by their own employees. New York Telephone, as an example, provides NO reference files to specific subscriber identity and pair assignments in any "unattended" central office; the only exception are special circuits such as WATS, FX, data, etc. which may require periodic maintenance. Pair assignment information is strictly on a "need to know" basis that is made available only with an installation order or trouble ticket - which is the way it should be. ANAC is too useful for telephone company purposes to eliminate or overly restrict out of deference to security issues. Therefore, control of ANAC access is attempted made through "intimidation" of craftspersons not to reveal the number. In addition, some BOC's with ESS offices routinely place the ANAC code on "call trace", which specifically records the date, time and calling number of all ANAC requests. If ANAC "abuse" is suspected, the ANAC access records can be extracted from call accounting tapes. Furthermore, since ANAC is most commonly used NOT for outside plant purposes but at the central office MDF (Main Distributing Frame), some CO's have the ANAC circuit connected to one or more loudspeakers located in the MDF area. It is more convenient in routine cross-connection verification for a frameperson to dial the ANAC code with a butt set and hear the result without having to put the butt set to their ear. In some CO's, the ANAC annoucement is ONLY connected to loudspeakers in the MDF area, and there is NO audible annoucement on the pair itself; this is considered a "security" measure. The moral of the story is that, today, ANAC usage may well be monitored. What the telephone company can DO with ANAC usage information is another matter, but they CAN and DO monitor it. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Aug 89 18:49:08 EDT From: Peter Fleszar Subject: Can There Be 'Fake' 911 In Rural Areas? Hello net_peoples, I have a question concerning 911 laws and practices and the meaning of life in general. Some of us know that some huge metropolises such as Ithaca have no 911 service, and that anyone who dials 911 on a phone in such benighted areas as this is given to the regular telephone company operator off in the Twilight Zone somewhere. Now, small counties like Tompkins (Ithaca) and Cortland (nearby, where I live) typically have a centralized dispatcher for fire and ambulance, usually accessible from one phone number in the entire county. The dispatcher also can call out on the inter-agency police frequency and (in Cortland at least) can call on the sheriff's and city police frequencies (yes, two, one for each. Imagine! :-) ). Now, what is wrong with telling the local telco to route 911 calls to the Fire Control dispatcher instead of the telephone operator? (Other than that it makes too much sense, of course...) There was an unfortunate incident here last year when someone who had just arrived from New York City was being threatened - she called 911 like she was taught back in grade school, but it took something like 90 minutes for the cry for help to circulate among the telebureaucrats and police agencies. But the city police did arrive - just in time to call the coroner. I realize that the 911 cobbing together I envision would not be a complete substitute for a 'real' 911 dispatching system, but why wouldn't it make a good alternative for travelers and others ignorant of the 'proper' numbers? Pete N. Peter Fleszar, KB2CCL dt5y@cornella.bitnet dt5y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu 'Always peek before you poke.' Acknowledge-To: ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 18:26:23 PDT From: Charles Buckley Subject: Non-dialable Points From: gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Date: 6 Aug 89 20:59:16 GMT Organization: Columbia University Recently it was mentioned that there are thousands of non-dialable points left in California. Just out of curiosity... I remember about 6 years ago when I was in the habit of getting up early and watching one of those morning news programs where the weather, feature articles and good-natured banter took longer than the news portions . . . One feature article on said program was about the introduction of dial service in some out of the way place east of Eastern Pennsylvania but west of Ohio, and south of the great Lakes but north of Tennessee - I remember seeing it on the drawn map, but cannot remember the political entity. Anyway, as you might have guessed, this made the program because it was given to be the *last* manual exchange in the US. Therefore, someone has their facts wrong (could well be the news agency). [Moderator's Note: Every so often, a program or news story says 'this is the last one'....there was supposed to be one in Maine a few years ago which was the last, and the subscribers were *resisting* the change, for nostalgic reasons among others. The original poster contended '...there are thousands of them left....especially in California....' and I am hoping he will write again soon, and name a dozen or so. The last one I knew of in California was the town of Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island. It cut to dial several years ago. Prior to the conversion, William Wrigley, the chewing gum magnate and former owner of the Chicago Cubs, had an estate in Avalon. The phone number was Avalan 400. He also had Avalan 401. Both were non-published numbers, of course. PT] ------------------------------ From: "Fuat C. Baran" Subject: AT&T Calling Card/NY Tel Calling Card Date: 8 Aug 89 01:32:51 GMT Reply-To: "Fuat C. Baran" Organization: Columbia University Center for Computing Activities New York Telephone started a bboardish sort of thing called Info-Look and they said that I would need a New York Telephone calling card. So I applied for one and about two weeks later received a blue New York Telephone calling card (with 14 digits). As I was putting it in my wallet I noticed that it had the *SAME* 14 digit number as my white AT&T calling card which I ordered last year (and which took 8 weeks, plus multiple calls to the 800 order number). Does anyone know what the difference is? Obviously they can't tell which card I am using based on the number, so the service will be the same. Why do they bother making a distinction in the name and appearance of the card? I called New York Telephone to ask, and got a silly response: "use your AT&T card for long distance calls and NYTel card for calls within NYTel's domain" despite the fact that the paper that came along with the NYTel card says I can use it from anywhere in the US. Just curious. --Fuat -- INTERNET: fuat@columbia.edu U.S. MAIL: Columbia University BITNET: fuat@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu Center for Computing Activities USENET: ...!rutgers!columbia!cunixc!fuat 712 Watson Labs, 612 W115th St. PHONE: (212) 854-5128 New York, NY 10025 [Moderator's Note: AT&T and the Sisters Bell use the same data base for calling cards at the present time. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 21:41:10 EDT From: Barry Shein Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) >Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any >judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. Why are you so certain it's the union provoking this? Individuals get p-o'd at everyone when they're put out on strike. Not to mention that it's in the company's interest to fill the media with union horror stories. Don't be naive, the BOC's and the union are now at war and the first casualty of war is truth. If you've ever been involved with a union during a strike you'd know that the first thing they tell the membership is that the company will try to accuse them of sabotage and all sorts of things so keep your noses clean because it only hurts their (the union's) cause and try to ignore the propaganda campaign. This whole drama is nearly the same no matter who the union or who the company, don't be naive. And, so I don't appear entirely one-sided, the union will begin screaming that management refuses to even sit down and bargain, that scabs are being brought in by the zillions, that the whole strike was engineered by management for some incredibly clever conspiratorial reason and that union strike leaders and their families are being physically harassed etc etc. And no doubt some of it all will be true, but not much. Come back and report when charges are filed and the union is held responsible for this, not when some manager at NJ Bell calls the press to badmouth the union. I'd prefer if both sides spent their time settling their differences rather than playing media games. Calling information in Boston now yields a recording that it's not available. What fun. -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade 1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 Internet: bzs@skuld.std.com UUCP: encore!xylogics!skuld!bzs or uunet!skuld!bzs ------------------------------ From: Clayton Cramer Subject: Phone Service In a Remote Part of Alaska Date: 7 Aug 89 18:14:32 GMT Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA In article , morris@jade.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Morris) writes: # In the late 60' or early 70's I visited Fort Benton a few times. I remember # that the telephone system was SxS, and located in the back of someone's barn, # and owned by the Tri County Telephone Assoc. It was either a 3 or 4 digit # system and could be dialed from the outside world. Inside the town you # dialed 4 digits, I seem to remember the first was always "3". It was 1+ # for anything outside the town, even the operator was 1+0 because she was # in the next town down. Information was 1+411 and came from Great Falls. # I was told later that repair was 3611 and was an answering machine. # I have no idea what is current in Fort Benton - I was last there in 1972. # Mike Morris You want unique phone companies? I've got one for you. When I worked for Harris Digital Telephone Systems in the early 1980s, we had a customer in Alaska who used a pair of our D1200 switches to provide local phone service 18 hours/day -- at the end of the day, he would power down, and everyone went without service during the night. To a city boy like me, this was a real shocker -- phone service from someone's basement. -- Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer A pacifist who calls the police isn't one; hired violence is still violence. Disclaimer? You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine! ------------------------------ From: Mark Brader Subject: Re: 555-XXXX As A Valid Prefix Anywhere? Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 17:49:27 EDT > Lisa Smith (lisa@mips.com) wrote the following in an article in > (the Usenet newsgroup) rec.humor.d: > That prefix, 555, isn't fictional everywhere. One of my school friends > said that his grandfather's phone number, somewhere in South Dakota, is > a 555 number. He said that it was to his knowledge the only place in > the U.S. that it was a real prefix though. > Someone else said that if this was ever true it isn't now. > What do the experts say? > [Moderator's Note: On a hunch, after the first message on this topic > appeared, I tried dialing 701-555-various in North Dakota. Most > combinations other than '1212' were answered 'Northwestern Bell, may I help > you?' PT] Why did you try in NORTH Dakota? [Moderator's Note: No particular reason....just some at random dialing. I notice that Illinois Bell has quite a few numbers <>1212 plugged off now. F'rinstance, anyplace-555-8000, 555-7000 all go to immediate intercept. There are a few in the 'vicinity of' 1212 which wander off to the boondocks somewhere, as in the 701 example. -- Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com "I'm a little worried about the bug-eater," she said. "We're embedded in bugs, have you noticed?" -- Niven, "The Integral Trees" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #280 *****************************   Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 0:09:54 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #281 Message-ID: <8908090009.aa20094@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Aug 89 00:00:12 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 281 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest (David Albert) Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest (Andrew Boardman) Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV (Dell Ellison) Re: Coda Call Blocks Unwanted Calls (Edward Greenberg) Re: Can There Be 'Fake' 911 In Rural Areas? (Dave Fiske) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (Jeffrey Silber) Re: Is Europe Going to Get 8 Digit Numbers? (David Albert) Re: DTMF Frequencies (James J. Sowa) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (Robert E. Seastrom) Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools (Andrew Boardman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Albert Subject: Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest Date: 8 Aug 89 13:37:30 GMT Reply-To: David Albert Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA In article eli@chipcom.com writes: >I talked to my pal at US Sprint. he responded to the following 3 questions: >?? Any comment on the Port Authority / Grand Central FONcard shutdowns? > .. "The shutdown was not for all of Port Authority / Grand Central, it > was just for a few payphones that were causing the trouble. John Doe > is probably better off being prohibited from using the phone than if > he did use the phone and someone watched over his shoulder, stole his > FONcard number, and racked up thousands of calls on his bill." I fail to understand why your friend would say something as patently ridiculous as this and expect anybody to accept it. Since John Doe is not responsible for those calls, the only reason he is "better off" is that he saves a few moments of aggravation. Or is the Sprint spokesman suggesting that John Doe will have a serious problem getting the calls removed from his bill, presumably because of Sprint's notorious billing inefficiencies and other problems? Either way, the comments don't bode well for Sprint. I've never had any serious problems with my Sprint service, but I count my blessings every day. David Albert / UUCP: ...!harvard!albert / INTERNET: albert@harvard.harvard.edu --"You carry water from a mile away? How can you do that?" --"That's where the water is." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 15:14:47 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science In article eli@chipcom.com quoth: >I talked to my pal at US Sprint. he responded to the following 3 questions: >[...] > .. "The shutdown was not for all of Port Authority / Grand Central, it > was just for a few payphones that were causing the trouble. John Doe > is probably better off being prohibited from using the phone than if > he did use the phone and someone watched over his shoulder, stole his > FONcard number, and racked up thousands of calls on his bill." Considering that said phones are not *labelled* as such, Mr. Doe would probably try his call, have his Sprint account ripped off anyway, and then go through the further inconvienience of having to retry the call somewhere else... Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu (or, if you must, ab4@cunixc for bitnet people) ------------------------------ From: Dell Ellison Subject: Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV Date: 9 Aug 89 03:25:07 GMT Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona In article , jackson@ttidca.tti.com (Dick Jackson) writes: > Is anyone else in this group interested in the *future* of the telephone > system? There are lots of topics that might be discussed, but just to test > the waters let me try just one -- the continued monopoly of the LECs for > basic plant and services. > An example of the LEC's bid for more revenue is their request to be > allowed to operate cable TV, i.e. to deliver entertainment to the home. > In my, opinion to permit this at the present time would be ludicrous given > the operating companies non-clean record on cross subsidies and trampling > on smaller companies they perceive as competitors. > [Moderator's Note: I am not quite clear on your use of the abbreviation > 'LEC'. Would you explain the abbreviation, please? But to provide one opinion > to your question, I think the telcos should stay in the phone business > and out of the cable TV business. Let's see what others here think. PT] Actually, I would like to see the phone company provide cable TV, etc... Because: 1. The Cable TV companies in many cases are 'trampling' on the consumers, because they have no competition (many times) in a particular area. Many times they have little selection, poor service and high prices. This solution would provide some competition for them. 2. I am very much in favor in the development of new technologies and higher efficiency. This would be a much more efficient and feature-rich system. (Not to mention the great benefits of direct digital connections to our home computers.) I would like to see this happen. (This would also bring picture phones a lot closer to reality.) ------------------------------ From: Edward Greenberg Subject: Re: Coda Call Blocks Unwanted Calls Date: 8 Aug 89 18:23:04 GMT Reply-To: Edward Greenberg Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest Phone companies will love this one, since the "Coda Call" answers the phone, and if you don't know the code, you've paid anyway. One would have to want to be pretty isolated to put one of these things on the phone, since many people you like will probably run into it. In addition, if you leave it on when you're not home, you're causing everyone, even people who know the number, to call and get nothing. How about one that answers (and tickets) the call, then returns busy, until you answer the phone. That'd be truly antisocial :-) -edg -- Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg ------------------------------ From: Dave Fiske Subject: Re: Can There Be 'Fake' 911 In Rural Areas? Date: 8 Aug 89 21:45:04 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY In article , DT5Y@cornella.bitnet (Peter Fleszar) writes: >Hello net_peoples, I have a question concerning 911 laws and practices >and the meaning of life in general. Some of us know that some huge >metropolises such as Ithaca have no 911 service, and that anyone who Heck, we don't have it in Albany/Schenectady/Troy! Albany itself is over 100,000 in population, and the Tri-City Area is around a quarter million. I just checked the front pages of the phone book, and they have 7-digit numbers listed for the local police departments. The only exception in this area is Saratoga County, which set up an Enhanced 911 system last year. Calls to 911 generate a name/address display on a computer terminal at the dispatcher's end. However, many towns in Saratoga are rural, and people didn't have street numbers, just RFD-type addresses. So first they had to try and find everybody, and assign them street numbers and addresses, so emergency workers would have someplace to show up at. (Recently, officials have been complaining, too, that people are not using the 911 system enough, considering the expense the County went to to do it. They speculate that people don't think their emergencies are important enough to use it!) A slightly humorous incident happened due to Albany's lack of 911 service. Around 6 years ago, I was working at the Albany Urban Renewal Agency, a unit of the city government which is located in a building other than city hall. All City offices were on the same PBX, however. One time an employee at Urban Renewal accidentally sprayed her eyes with an aerosol glue can, and one of the ladies who staffed the phones decided to call the Fire Rescue Squad. Well, she did what she thought was the quickest thing--dial 'O'. This connected her to the City Hall Operator, who was told that the Fire Department was needed at Urban Renewal. Well, the City Hall operators were probably little old ladies who had been hired thanks to their husbands' political backgrounds, and had never even set foot at Urban Renewal. For whatever reason, they told the Fire Department to go to 119 Washington Avenue, instead of the correct address of 155. Well, 119 had been a city-owned building, and they HAD considered locating Urban Renewal there years previously, but it ended up as some other offices, with a McDonalds on the ground floor. A few of us decided to go out on the sidewalk in order to guide the rescue workers to the right office, but instead we saw a fire truck pass us by, heading down to the McDonalds. We didn't know if it was meant for us, or if there was a fire down there. It just so happened that one of my co-workers was coming back from lunch, saw us running around, and figured something was wrong. So he waved down a cop who happened to be passing, who said the call had been for 119 Washington Avenue. At this point the woman who had come out of the building with me started yelling, "No, we never moved there. They just thought about moving us there!" Finally, we convinced the cop that the fire truck was supposed to be responding to us, and he relayed the information by radio. Luckily, the woman with the glue hadn't really been injured badly--mainly, she had glued her eyelids shut, but because she couldn't see, she had thought she'd blinded herself. She was treated briefly at the Emergency Room, and was back at work the next day. When you consider that this scenario could have involved some actual disaster, you can see how important 911 can be. -- "MAN USES TAPE TO STICK Dave Fiske (davef@brspyr1.BRS.COM) HIS TOE BACK ON!" Home: David_A_Fiske@cup.portal.com Headline from Weekly World News CIS: 75415,163 GEnie: davef ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey Silber Subject: Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles Date: 8 Aug 89 12:27:47 GMT Reply-To: Jeffrey Silber Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY In article Jeff Wasilko writes: >I've seen compressed gas cylynders near poles and I've always wondered what >purpose they are used for? Could anyone shed some light on this? Major phone trunks are pressurized, to prevent moisture in the cables. The pressurization is done at the CO. I've always assumed that where they have had to cut a trunk to repair it they put the tanks (nitrogen, I believe) in place to provide temporary pressurization. -- "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." --Sen. Everett Dirksen Jeffrey A. Silber/silber@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu Business Manager/Cornell Center for Theory & Simulation in Science & Engineering ------------------------------ From: David Albert Subject: Re: Is Europe Going to Get 8 Digit Numbers? Date: 8 Aug 89 13:29:56 GMT Reply-To: David Albert Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA }Why did America choose 911 anyway? Australia is 000, Great Britain }is 999. What other codes are there? In Israel, 100 is police, 101 is fire, 102 is ambulance. David Albert / UUCP: ...!harvard!albert / INTERNET: albert@harvard.harvard.edu --"You carry water from a mile away? How can you do that?" --"That's where the water is." ------------------------------ From: jjjs@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (james.j.sowa) Subject: Re: DTMF frequencies Date: 8 Aug 89 12:39:40 GMT Reply-To: jjjs@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (james.j.sowa) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 275, message 6 of 12 >What are the frequencies of the various tones used for DTMF? >Thanks, Here is the DTMF chart taken from "Notes on Distance Dialing" January 1975 HIGH-Group Frequencies (Hz) 1209 1336 1477 1633 687 1 2 3 A LOW GROUP FREQUENCIES 770 4 5 6 B (HZ) 852 7 8 9 C 941 * 0 # D ================================================================== Jim Sowa ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 08:28:59 EDT From: "Robert E. Seastrom" Subject: Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles These tanks are probably dry nitrogen, for pressurizing hardline (ie air-insulated) coax. ---Rob ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 15:37:33 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science First, a question: I recently lost (they were destroyed, actually) a set of various telecom-oriented tools. I haven't been able to replace two of them from any regular hardware supplier that I sould find and there's quite probably someone out there who could tell me where I could order them. The first is that cute little tool used for punching down wires on punch-down blocks. (a puncher-down?) The second has a similar purpose except it's used on the older boards on which screw terminals are used. (A standard boltdriver type thing could be used here but the telco-provided model was much more useful in this particular environment.) In article Ron Natalie wrote: >It's been a while since the Army Labcom security office has provided me 2600 >newsletters to read. Oh, it's still alive and well, subscriptions are $10 or $12 a year from their offices out in Long Island somewhere. Cover prices on individual issues are $3. Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu (or, for you bitnet people, ab4@cunixc) [Moderator's Note: 2600 Magazine also has a netmail address, 2600@something, but I can't locate it right now. In the next issue of the Digest (#282), a tour de force by John Covert, responding to questions about the 'thousands of non-dialable points' message; and other comments on non-dialable places. Issue 282 will be released about 1:00 AM, once this issue has gotten cleared out of the list channel. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #281 *****************************   Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 1:12:18 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #282 Message-ID: <8908090112.aa08535@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Aug 89 01:00:04 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 282 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Non-Dialable Points (John R. Covert) Non-Dialable Points Revisited (Gabe M. Wiener) Re: Non-Dialable Points (John DeBert) Re: Non-Dialable Points (Edward Greenberg) DTMF Layout in Ireland (Charles Bryant) Oslo/New Zealand Phones Sold in USA (Steve Gaarder) Asymmetric Calling Card Billing (Steve Kass) AT&T Card Demo Line (TK0GRM2%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu) Re: Correction of Telco Name (Dell Ellison) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "John R. Covert" Date: 7 Aug 89 22:53 Subject: Non-Dialable Points In my recent article on Inward, I referred to "non-dialable points." That term includes non-dialable exchanges, toll stations, and other strange things. To check my numbers, I did a search of a Bellcore database about four years old for points in North America with the non-dialable flag set, and came up with 4589 of them. I then excluded Mexico and had 1657 left. After excluding the Caribbean, Canada, Wake and Midway, there were only 825 left, so I'll admit that "thousands" was an exaggeration when referring to the U.S. They are located in AK, AZ, CA, ID, KY, LA, MT, NV, OR, TX, UT, and WA. Most of them are toll stations, but a few are exchanges. For the doubting ones among you, call 206 555-1212 and ask for the Ross Lake Nat'l Rec Area in Newhalem, Washington. You will be told to dial your "0" operator (Outside the LATA you'd have to call your "00" operator or 10288-0 if you're not an AT&T customer) and ask for Newhalem 7735. This is an automatic exchange which cannot support incoming toll calls. Local calls are dialled on a four digit basis. The incoming restriction may be due to a long-standing requirement that calls be diallable on a seven digit basis locally (also allowing less is ok, but seven must work) before incoming calls can be permitted. It may also have something to do with the fact that the power company owns the switch and the wires in and out of the area, and the phone company may not want to deal with the maintenance issue or doesn't trust them to return proper answer supervision. More interesting is the system in Shoup, Idaho. Call 208 555-1212 and ask for the Shoup Salmon River store -- you'll be told to call Shoup 24F3. It is what's called a "Farmer's Line," and it's sort of a single magneto drop with several stations. The people out there maintain the line themselves. It's single wire ground return. The people on the line call each other with coded ringing (and being allowed to make local calls is one of the things that makes a farmer's line different from a toll station). They get incoming calls with coded ringing from the operator at a cord board. They contact the cord board to get out with a loooooong ring. The board handling calls is an AT&T board. One of my favorite toll stations is the one at the ranch of a person I've never met. Mr. J. D. Dye isn't listed with directory assistance anywhere I've found, but he is listed right in the Bellcore database. Yep. He doesn't have a phone number, but you can reach him by asking for DYE J D, in Texas, if you can get an operator to look it up in her computer. Note: Rate and Route, which used to be 141 (not 131, as Patrick claimed, that was information) is gone, and has been replaced with computer terminals at each operator's position. Somewhere nearby there are also Durham Ed, TX and Durham Hal, TX. A place I've actually visited (the Patrick Creek Lodge in Gasquet, CA) used to be Idlewild 5. They appear to have disconnected their toll station and now have an answering machine on a normal number located 8 miles from the lodge. Idlewild 1,2,3,4,7,8, and 9 still exist -- and are handled off of an AT&T cord board, not a PacTel board. One of the big non-dialable places in Northern California, Sawyers Bar, has finally become diallable. Like Newhalem, they had local dialing, but could not be dialled from toll. They were listed in the database like toll stations, with each subscriber having a rate and route listing. Now their old four digit numbers (mostly 46XX numbers) are 462-46XX. Pilottown, Louisiana is still a toll station -- the only one in the state, it seems. Amchitka, Alaska, has a normal looking seven digit number for billing purposes: 907 751-8001, but from the lower 48, calls must be placed through Anchorage. I'm sure some of our other readers can find more non-diallable points, both entire exchanges (of which I don't expect to find more than 5-10 in the U.S.) and toll stations (of which there are still several hundred). /john [Moderator's Note: Bravo! and thank you for a most enjoyable contribution to the Digest. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 15:44:41 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: Non-Dialable Points Revisited Organization: Columbia University I was always led to believe that the last magneto exchange was in Bryant Pond, Maine. It shut down in 1984 despite fierce opposition by residents. I once called Elden Hathaway, the man who ran it for years, and he explained that they always had trunks running out of Bryant Pond, but you had to connect through an operator if you were dialing in from another area. I'm quite curious to know if there are any manual _exchanges_ left in the U.S. (not meaning toll stations), and if so, where? Back to toll stations for a minute. I assume that they simply run to the nearest telephone office, n'est-ce pas? But if they're running to the nearest telco, then why aren't they just hooked into the automatic switch like any other number? Toll stations need to be reached by an operator, right? If so, then I assume that all OUTGOING calls from one must also be completed manually? -G [Moderator's Note: This is correct. They go off hook and wait for an operator to answer, and extend them to the desired place/number. In this respect, they are like the manual service of the old days. PT] ------------------------------ From: John DeBert Subject: Re: Non-Dialable Points Date: 8 Aug 89 20:59:36 GMT Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest In article , gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia. edu (Gabe M Wiener) says: > X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 277, message 2 of 11 > Recently it was mentioned that there are thousands of non-dialable points > left in California. Just out of curiosity... If one were to include toll stations, non-coin and COPT phones and other lines or services with a COS that prevents indial access (including OUTWATS of course), then there are surely thousands not only in CA but everywhere. > > What cities (or should I say villages) are still-non dialable? > Do such places have outbound dialing or is all calling > still operator-assist? On the Central Coast, I can only recall of one set of toll stations that remain: Tassajara Hot Springs has somewhere from 4 to 9 stations. There was one to the east of SIllyCon Valley called "San Antone" which belonged to Pac Bell. The area served by the toll stations was taken over by a private party in 1983 ( +/- a year). They have their own prefix (408-897) and DDD in and out is available. They have a few equipment problems, though, including coin stations that are installed but never work. It's anywhere from 20 to 60 miles to the nearest town or point with coin phones. > I would think that with today's telephone technology, DDD would reach _all_ > points in America. Can anyone explain the holdouts? Toll stations usually still exist because the phone company does not feel that there is enough reason to justify installing cables, trunks and remote facilities to serve such remote areas as Tassajara Hot Springs and San Antone and others. They are a long way from existing CO's - Tassajara sites are more than 50 miles from the nearest CO and all points in San Antone are 20 to 70 miles from the nearest 408 CO in San Jose. (The present CO is in Patterson, in the 209 area about 40 miles from the middle of San Antone.) That's a lot of money to invest in an area that is very sparsely populated and with no expected increase in population in the near future and cannot be considered to pay for itself. Small independent telco's often end up providing service using very old equipment as is the case with SAn Antone and Pinnacles in CA. ------------------------------ From: Edward Greenberg Subject: Re: Non-dialable Points Date: 8 Aug 89 18:17:26 GMT Reply-To: Edward Greenberg Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest >toll-stations are NOT the same as manual exchanges in any event. PT] Could you explain a bit about what a toll station IS? Thanks, Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg [Moderator's Note: In this issue of the Digest, Ed and others, I hope the type of service known as Toll Stations and other types of non-dialable points has become clear to all. As for *actual manual exchanges* -- that is, cord board service to a community of more than one or two people in the wilderness somewhere -- I do believe Bryant Pond, ME was the last one. Mr. Covert seems to think there might be a few more. Can anyone name names at this point? An interesting angle is the way calls to these places show up on your phone bill. The billing will show the area code and the 'mark', meaning the three digit code -- not necessarily the prefix of the number -- used for billing purposes, and the final four digits, filled with leading zeros as required. PT] ------------------------------ Date: 6 Aug 89 16:47:41 GMT From: Charles Bryant Subject: DTMF Layout In Ireland Reply-To: Charles Bryant Organization: Maths Dept., Trinity College, Dublin In article mcvax!cgch!wtho@uunet.uu. net (Tom Hofmann) writes: >An other apparently not standardized feature is the keypad layout of >push-button phones. In Ireland one layout is *required* if equipment is to be approved (TTA1 P.80 part b) The arrangement of push buttons in the equipment shall be as shown in Table 1 in the case of manual signalling: 1209 1336 1477 1633 697 1 2 3 A 770 4 5 6 B 852 7 8 9 C 941 * 0 # D The output frequencies shall be maintained within plus-or-minus 1.5% of their nominal value. This tolerance shall also include the effect of different line impedances offered to the sender. I have never seen a phone which has the ABCD column, and I expect that those tones are not used. There is no extra charge for the ability to DTMF dial on a line, but it is not yet available on all lines. -- Charles Bryant. (ch@dce.ie) Working at Datacode Electronics Ltd. (Modem manufacturers) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 09:36:55 EDT From: Steve Gaarder Subject: Oslo/New Zealand Phones Sold in USA For those of you intrigued by the recent discussion on different methods of numbering rotary dials, Fair Radio Sales has a telephone for sale that has an Oslo/New Zealand dial - 9 sends 1 pulse, 8 sends 2, down to 0 which sends 10 pulses. They call it their "oslo telephone," stock number OSLO-BK, price $14.95 plus shipping. It seems to work on US lines, though it is of course not FCC registered, and you have to do a little translating when dialing. Fair Radio is at 1016 E. Eureka Street, PO Box 1105, Lima, Ohio 45802, 419-223-2196 or 223-2793. Steve Gaarder gaarder@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu ..!cornell!batcomputer!gaarder ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 10:17 EDT From: "No gas will be sold to anyone in a glass container." Subject: Asymmetric calling card billing Can someone shed some light on the following asymmetry in calling card charges for calls between the US and Canada? With an AT&T Calling Card: Calls from US to Canada US rates and discounts apply Calls from Canada to US Canadian rates and discounts apply Calls within Canada Canadian rates and discounts apply Calls within US US rates and discounts apply With a Bell Canada Carte d'Appel: Calls from US to Canada Canadian rates and discounts apply (!) Calls from Canada to US Canadian rates and discounts apply Calls within Canada Canadian rates and discounts apply Calls within US US rates and discounts apply The strange fact is that for calls from Canada to the US, Canadian rates and discounts apply for both cards, while for calls from Canada to the US, it depends which card you have. I've researched the tariffs and made the calls, so despite the wrong information that AT&T and Bell Canada give out regarding these calls, this is indeed the proper billing. You might wonder what the Canadian rates and discounts are for calls from the US to Canada. If I make a call from Madison, WI to Montreal, PQ with a Bell Canada card, the rate is computed according to the distance between the switching centers and the time in Madison, as if Madison were in Canada. Bell Canada's discount periods (none on Saturday, for example) apply. More often than not, this means the higher of the two countries' rates applies. Perhaps someone can also tell us what kinds of financial transactions are involved. Why do I pay Canadian tax on a call from the US to Canada if I use a Bell Canada card, but not if I use an AT&T card? When calls are made from the US to Canada and billed at the Canadian rates, who gets the extra money? Steve Kass No gas will be sold to Department of Mathematics and Computer Science anyone in a glass container. Drew University Madison, NJ 07940 -Sign at a Santa Fe, NM 201-408-3614 gas station, January, 1985 skass@drew.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Aug 89 15:57 CDT From: TK0GRM2%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu Subject: AT&T Card Demo Line This may be old news to some of you, but AT&T has a "calling card tutorial" line installed. You can reach it at 1-800-255-3439. You don't really need a valid AT&T card...any 14 digits will work. It's not too exciting...but I know that some of you are into such trivial info (I know I am :). -=->G<-=- ------------------------------ From: Dell Ellison Subject: Re: Correction of Telco Name Date: 9 Aug 89 02:55:15 GMT Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona In article , TK0GRM2%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu writes: > Patrick - just to clarify a message that somebody posted about > a non-numeric phone number in Utah (sorry I don't know who..old > digests are auto-purged after they are read). The BOC for Utah > is Mountain Bell. (not Utah Bell). > -=->G<-=- > > [Moderator's Note: You're right. Sorry, I missed that one myself. PT] I don't know. I thought that Mountain Bell is now going by the parent name of U.S. West? [Moderator's Note: Well, that too. But Mountain Bell is the way the customers think of it, I imagine. We here in Chicago are variously known as Ameritech or Illinois Bell, depending on who you ask. If you ask David Tamkin, of course he would say Centel, since they have that one little dinky corner of Chicago, along with Park Ridge and Des Plaines, IL. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #282 *****************************   Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 1:51:23 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #283 Message-ID: <8908090151.aa20122@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Aug 89 01:50:17 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 283 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson BOC Strike - One Good Side-Effect (Robert E. Seastrom) Re: More About NJ Sabotage (Mike Trout) Re: More About NJ Sabatage (Ihor J. Kinal) Bay of Eagle Fiasco (Mike Trout) Re: Coda Call Blocks Unwanted Calls (Fangli F. Chang) Toll Stations (Robert E. Seastrom) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 08:34:47 EDT From: "Robert E. Seastrom" Subject: BOC Strike - One Good Side-Effect With all the stories of vandalism and other ugliness surrounding the BOC strike circulating, I thought I might point out one of the nicer side-effects of the BOC strike. I had occasion to call Delaware Directory Assistance yesterday. Before I got a ringback, a recording came on that said "Due to work stoppage, there may be a delay in servicing your call. Thank you for your patience". Well, I sat there on a ring for about a minute and a half and then this lady answered the phone and asked if she could help me. I wasn't sure what number I wanted at the Delaware Department of Motor Vehicles, so we went back and forth for about 30 seconds trying to decide which number I wanted. She seemed genuinely concerned and a lot more helpful than the standard, run-of-the-mill directory assistance operator. Maybe we should just flush the current employees and let the supervisors man the phones. It took a little extra time, but the operator's pleasantness made the wait worthwhile. ---Rob [Moderator's Note: If the make-do operator sits there much longer, her pleasant disposition will begin to erode, believe me you. Operators take a tremendous amount of abuse at times from customers, and are expected to handle a huge volume of traffic per hour. Hateful customers are nothing new however: On the front cover of my copy of the 1921 Chicago Telephone Company Alphabetical Directory appears this Admonition to Subscribers: "Our operators are trained to speak courteously and politely to subscribers. When addressing the operator, please use the language and tone of voice which you would want in response. Please do not address our operators using profane language or obscene words. Thank you, General Mgr. CTC, Inc." PT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Trout Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage Date: 8 Aug 89 18:37:44 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY In article , msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) writes: > Well, the strike has started. [...] > Also, the sabotage has continued. About a dozen subscriber lines were cut in > Leonia, NJ's central office. United Telephone/com? (the local telephone > company for NW NJ) has reported about 20 incidents per day of vandalism, > mostly subscriber lines cut in CO's, and fiber cables cut with hatchets. > Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any > judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. Don't confuse the unions' desires with the semi-rational actions of a few saboteurs. I would suggest "vandalism" is a more accurate description than "sabotage." The union leaders, as well as the rank-and-file, have no desire to have their case soiled by a handful of violent malcontents. Of course, it is the responsibility of the union leadership to control (and preferably prevent) violence and vandalism. The leaders may be guilty of not adequately exercising such control. On the other hand, there is only so much union leaders can do--if some boneheads absolutely want to cut cables, they're going to do it regardless. Most judges and arbitrators know all this and take it into account. When you deal with human beings, a certain amount of nonsense is inevitable. This is not to suggest that officially sanctioned union (or management) violence and sabotage never happens. Sometimes it does, but there's no evidence to suggest that is the case here. -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 17:45:30 EDT From: Ihor J Kinal Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article , bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: > And no doubt some of it all will be true, but not much. > > Come back and report when charges are filed and the union is held > responsible for this, not when some manager at NJ Bell calls the press > to badmouth the union. I've been scanning the news articles, but I HAVE NOT seen any BELL MANAGER accuse the UNIONS of sabatoge. From the nature of Barry's article, though, it would appear, since the UNION is not culpable, and that the UNION MEMBERS are not culpable, that either the GENERAL PUBLIC or MANAGEMENT of the BELL CO are doing this to make the UNIONS look bad. It's possible - I'm sure that some COMPANIES have done that in the past, but I suppose most people are unlikely to accept that as the likelier of the possibilities in this particular case. Ihor Kinal STANDARD DISCLAIMER about my opinions being my own. [Moderator's Note: It appears we here in Ameritech territory will get off lucky this time around. Strike-talk was in the air at Illinois Bell, but apparently they are very close to resolving the few minor difference which remain. PT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Trout Subject: Bay of Eagle Fiasco Date: 8 Aug 89 19:07:22 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY OK, gang, another mystery from the AT&T system of the late 1960s-early 1970s: Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked up the phone and dialed: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 Somebody answered, my brother let loose with some good Oklahoma slang, then hung up. The phone rang IMMEDIATELY, and my mother (in another room) answered on an extension. It was a phone company rep (or so he claimed), who was absolutely beside himself with the stunt my brother had just pulled. He refused to say exactly what had happened, other than to say that my brother had called someplace "you weren't supposed to call" and that it had better not happen again. In fact, the rep felt that a personal visit to our home might be a good idea. My mother, understandably bewildered, suggested the rep phone later when my father came home. That later conversation apparently canceled the personal visit. Needless to say, my brother found himself in a wee bit of hot water with my parents. I've always wondered exactly what my brother did. He doesn't remember it well, and my parents don't remember enough details to help. They did emphasize how mad the rep was (although that might have been exaggerated to scare my brother). Any ideas? The first digit dialed--"1"--would obviously open access to direct long distance dialing (which was still fairly new in those days). But the next three digits--"234"--are not, and I presume were not--a valid area code. If they were, the last two digits--"90"--would be ignored. I'm assuming the "234" or some portion of it opened access to SOMETHING. But why would such an obvious sequence of numbers be assigned to anything? The way kids are, I would suspect that the number sequence "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0" is probably dialed several times a day by children--not to mention drunks, curiosity seekers, and the like. I'd try it myself today, but I guess my parents made a big impression on us (I still brush my teeth before going to bed, Mom!). Also note the years involved: Nixon was president, the nation was in flames, paranoia and heavy government control ran rampant, and everybody suspected wiretaps, bugs, and illegal government surveillance. Call me paranoid, but while Nixon was president our phone was constantly clicking, popping, and going dead. -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson [Moderator's Note: I just now tried it of curiosity. Dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 sent me to immediate intercept with a message saying, "When dialing a call outside the 312 area, you must dial '1' before the number. When calling within 312, do not dial '1' first." PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 14:50:48 EDT From: Fangli F Chang Subject: Re: Coda Call Blocks Unwanted Calls Reply-To: fangli@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (fangli.f.chang) Organization: AT&T BL In article GREEN@wharton.upenn.edu (Scott D. Green) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 278, message 1 of 12 >This appeared in the Phila. Inquirer last week, by Jim McNair of the Miami >Herald (reprinted without permission): (stuff deleted) >"The Coda Call Model C-757-3 is connected to the line between the >wall plug and the telephone. When switched on, it intercepts the >ring and sends back a tone calling for the three-letter >password. The caller has five seconds to dial the code." > >"There are drawbacks to the Coda Call product. Friends and >relatives who don't know your password are shut out along with >the undesirable callers. And the box is incapable of passing on >calls to your answering machine." (more stuff deleted) >"The Coda Call will be sold thru selected distributors of >telephone products for $129." Too expensive for its price/performance. >So, at the risk of starting another Call*Block Caller*ID >discussion, what do you think? Winner or loser? Loser, of course. The functions provided by the Coda Call can be easily replaced by today's answering machine. The AT&T 1320 answering machine that I own has a "emergency call through" feature. Once the answering machine took over, the caller can enter a security code (a different one from the one that used to operate the answering machine remotely) to have the answering machine BEEP loudly for ten times even when the volume control is completely turned off. After that the caller can opt to reenter the security code again and again or wait for the recording signal and leave his/her message. The price I paid was a little bit less than $100 (item was on sale, tax included). I guess AT&T probably not the only one that offer this feature on answering machines so I doubt there will be a bright future for call blocking devices. >-Scott "in no way connected with Coda Call, BOC's, IEX's, Miami >Herald, Phila. Inquirer" Green. Member FDIC. What I really hope to have is a voice answering service liked device: "I'm not here to take your phone call if you are calling from xxx please press 1 if you are calling from yyy please press 2 .... otherwise please wait for the beep and leave you name and phone number ...". Better yet, when CNI is available in the future, the device will automatic answer the incoming call with personalized message, route to recording machine (with emergency call through feature, of course), ring the phone with recording machine as a backup or make some weird noise then drop the line ;-). I know that there are some product on the market like this but none of them is under $100 (missed by two 0 :-) may be three). Fangli Chang -- attmail!ihlpl!fangli (312)979-1734 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 01:22:48 EDT From: "Robert E. Seastrom" Subject: Toll Stations From: Gabe M Wiener : > When I was a senior in High School two years ago, I remember getting > literature from Deep Springs College. The literature said, "To contact > us, call your long distance carrier and ask for Deep Springs Toll > Station #2" Hey, I remember getting literature from Deep Springs College too! (In fact, I was a senior in high school 2 years ago also...) Piecing together from memory and from your post, I decided to try this one on a lark. I tried this just before posting this message, so the information is just about as up to date as can be expected. Here's a transcript of the conversation: Me: 10288-0 (no sense trying Sprint on THIS one...) OPR: AT&T Operator, may I help you? Me: Yes, I would like a ringdown please to Deep Springs Toll Station Number 2, Deep Springs, California (Deep Springs College is in Nevada, but Deep Springs, California is the nearest POP) OPR: Do you have a NUMBER there? Me: Yes, it's Deep Springs Toll Station Number *2* Deep Springs, California. OPR: How am I supposed to dial *THAT* number? Me: Well, if I were you, I'd get in touch with a California operator and see what THEY can do for you... OPR: One moment, sir... OPR2: ... Inwards, may I help you? (I obviously missed out on the first half of the ident; bummer!) OPR: Yes, operator, this is the AT&T Operator in Washington, DC and I need a ringdown to Deep Springs Toll Station Number 2 in Deep Springs, California. How do I dial that number? OPR2: Well, you need to dial another operator and she'll dial the call for you. Dial 619-058-121 for Inwards. OPR: Thank you, Operator. OPR3: ...Inwards, may I help you? (DAMN! I can't believe my bad luck with this!!) OPR: Yes, I need a ringdown to Deep Springs Toll Station #2, Deep Springs, California... OPR3: One moment please... RECORDING: THE NUMBER YOU HAVE REACHED OPR3: What number did you want? OPR: 2 OPR3: I'm not showing 2; I *am* showing 1, but I'm getting a disconnect on it... OPR: Thank you, operator. OPR: I'm sorry, sir, but we can't seem to get your call through to that number. Me: Thank you; I'll call directory assistance and see if they can be of any further assistance to me... (breathing sigh of relief that I won't get billed for all this putzing around...) OPR: Thank you for choosing AT&T... (end of conversation)... Has the modern world even caught up with Deep Springs (which is so far out in the middle of nowhere that you can't get any radio stations at ALL during the day)?? Does anyone out there have any CONCRETE evidence of any non-direct-dialable exchanges left ANYWHERE? ---Rob [Moderator's Note: The above message arrived too late to be included in the Digest issued at 1:00 AM, but I did want to include it on the same day for reference with the others, and it gives a good chuckle to close this issue of the Digest. Even as little as thirty years ago, the USA was full of places such as described here, and by John Covert in the previous issue. Operators in the 1940-50 period would have found nothing confusing about such a request at all. See you tomorrow! PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #283 *****************************   Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 0:06:38 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #284 Message-ID: <8908100006.aa18668@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu,10 Aug 89 00:00:05 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 284 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View (Rich Wales) Response to US Sprint Comments (eli@chipcom.com) Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest (Henry Mensch) NW Ohio Telecomm Speakers Needed: GTE, Ohio Bell (Bruce Klopfenstein) Farmer's Line (Gabe M. Wiener) Prophetic ROLM ad (Tom Ace) 2600 Magazine (John Owens) AT&T manuals, etc. (Gabe M. Wiener) ISDN in Silicon Valley Alpine Office? (John Higdon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rich Wales Subject: DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View Date: 9 Aug 89 19:54:04 GMT Reply-To: Rich Wales Organization: UCLA CS Department, Los Angeles In article Mike Morris gives the DTMF tones as follows: 1209 1336 1477 1633 697 1 2 3 A FO 770 4 5 6 B F 852 7 8 9 C I 941 * 0 # A D P Note that these frequencies occur in a well-tempered scale with a mul- tiplier between steps of 1.05135 (i.e., 13.84 steps per octave). If "tone N" has a frequency of 697*(1.05135^N), we get the following: 697.0 Hz = tone 0 1209.1 Hz = tone 11 770.4 Hz = tone 2 1336.4 Hz = tone 13 851.6 Hz = tone 4 1477.2 Hz = tone 15 941.3 Hz = tone 6 1632.8 Hz = tone 17 This particular well-tempered scale fits each of the stated frequencies to within 0.5 Hz, if you assume that 697 Hz is exact by definition. I suppose it might be possible to come up with an even better fit via a least-squares linear approximation to the logarithms of the frequencies. The upper set of tones is selected in such a way as to be roughly half- way between the octaves of the lower set of tones. That way, there is no chance for the upper tone of any pair to be "lost" in the harmonics from the lower tone. I'm not sure why they didn't use a scale with exactly 14 steps per octave (multiplier = 1.05076). That would seemingly have been simpler. The reason why you can do crude approximations to a few common tunes (e.g., "Mary Had a Little Lamb") with DTMF tones is that the Western musical scale is built on 12 steps per octave (multiplier = 1.05946) -- fairly close to the DTMF scheme if you don't stretch it too far. I have an old 5-line 4-wire Autovon phone here that I modified (added a network) for 25-pair 2-wire use. It has a "A" on the key that would normally be a "#". The 4th column keys are labeled with FO-F-I-P. I recall someone mentioning on TELECOM, some time ago, that Autovon used the keys in the 4th column to indicate the precedence of the call. The abbreviations mean something like "Priority", "Immediate", "Flash", and "Flash Override" (the latter heralding World War III for all practical purposes). By pressing one of these keys before dialing a number -- and assuming that your phone line had authorization to invoke that particu- lar precedence -- the Autovon system would automatically disconnect any call in progress of *lower* precedence in favor of your call. (I'm not sure whether the disconnected party got any kind of notification of why he had suddenly gotten cut off.) Maybe someone who has used Autovon can confirm this info and/or correct my details. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales "K-9, I think we're going to find out what it's like to be a cricket ball." ------------------------------ From: eli@chipcom.com Subject: Response to US Sprint Comments Date: Wed, 09 Aug 89 09:35:07 -0400 [comments here are from me, not my Sprint Rep Buddy] > From: David Albert > > In article eli@chipcom.com writes: > > > .. "The shutdown was not for all of Port Authority / Grand Central, it > > was just for a few payphones that were causing the trouble. John Doe > > is probably better off being prohibited from using the phone than if > > he did use the phone and someone watched over his shoulder, stole his > > FONcard number, and racked up thousands of calls on his bill." > > I fail to understand why your friend would say something as patently > ridiculous as this and expect anybody to accept it. What's wrong with the truth? If it's too ridiculous for you, I don't know what to suggest. If you want lies, you're talking to the wrong people. Neither my friend nor myself have any reason to lie or make "patently ridiculous" comments. > Since John Doe > is not responsible for those calls, the only reason he is "better off" > is that he saves a few moments of aggravation. Such problems lead to more than a few moments of phone time with US Sprint customer service reps. Though they have been fairly responsive to my latest complaints. I usually use the normal reps rather than my friend there, just so I can keep track of how well they are doing. > Or is the Sprint > spokesman suggesting that John Doe will have a serious problem getting > the calls removed from his bill, presumably because of Sprint's > notorious billing inefficiencies and other problems? John Doe's card will be disabled everywhere and he will be left with no long distance access at all for a few days. This has nothing to do with "notorious billing". It is a direct result of having one's PIN ripped off. > Either way, the comments don't bode well for Sprint. I think they bode just fine. The realities of code abuse can interfere with your long distance service, regardless of your long distance carrier. > David Albert /UUCP: ...!harvard!albert / INTERNET: albert@harvard.harvard.edu > From: Andrew Boardman > In article eli@chipcom.com quoth: > > .. "The shutdown was not for all of Port Authority / Grand Central, it > > was just for a few payphones that were causing the trouble. John Doe > > is probably better off being prohibited from using the phone than if > > he did use the phone and someone watched over his shoulder, stole his > > FONcard number, and racked up thousands of calls on his bill." > Considering that said phones are not *labelled* as such, Mr. Doe would > probably try his call, have his Sprint account ripped off anyway, and > then go through the further inconvienience of having to retry the call > somewhere else... You are assuming that the sprint system would provide Mr. Doe with the normal PIN entry sequence. I don't know exactly how the 'disabling' was carried out, but your assumption that Mr. Doe would get to the point where he would enter his PIN is not necessarily correct. The idea is to prevent the John Doe from ever entering his PIN, so it won't get stolen! To allow Doe to enter his PIN and then to refuse his call provides no benefit to either US Sprint or Mr. Doe, so my guess is that some other method was used to prevent Doe from entering his FONcard PIN. The subject of a few Grand Central payphones and their Sprint access been beaten around enough... I'm quite happy to pass on additional questions to Mr. Sprint Rep, but this issue is a relatively minor one, in my opinion. Enough! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 15:31:08 -0400 From: Henry Mensch Subject: Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest Reply-To: henry@garp.mit.edu David Albert asks why the Sprint rep would say something as bogus as he did. Obviously, the Sprint rep understands Sprint's inability to handle billing properly in the first place, and "knows" that it will take months or years to have these calls taken off the customer's bill! :) # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / ------------------------------ From: Bruce Klopfenstein Subject: NW Ohio Telecomm Speakers Needed: GTE, Ohio Bell Date: 9 Aug 89 14:02:48 GMT Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. I am teaching a senior level/graduate introduction to new media technologies in the School of Mass Communication at Bowling Green State University. I am looking for telco representatives and others who can either come to the campus or talk to us via speaker phone teleconference on any of the following topics: Telco entry into video distribution into the home Fiber optic fundamentals ISDN fundamentals ISDN trials Telco provision of information services Computer networks and electronic mail Videophones Facsimile Other topic ideas welcomed. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the critical issues and new technologies of telecommunications. As these are broadcasting and mass communication students, they are coming from a more liberal arts background than a science background. Anyone who can suggest speakers is encouraged to do so as well. Thanks for your help! Bruce Klopfenstein -- Dr. Bruce C. Klopfenstein | klopfens@andy.bgsu.edu Radio-TV-Film Department | klopfenstein@bgsuopie.bitnet Bowling Green $tate University | klopfens@bgsuvax.UUCP Bowling Green, OH 43403 | (419) 372-2138; 352-4818 | fax (419) 372-2300 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 17:22:31 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: Farmer's Line Someone earlier mentioned "farmer's lines." Well, I looked it up in a 1925 Western Electric handbook I have, and it explained that most magneto sets are equipped with a button. When the button is up, winding the generator causes all the phones on the circuit to ring, thus permitting one subscriber to call another through coded rings. When the button is down however, none of the subcriber phones ring, and a flag drops on the exchange. As to manual exchanges, such as the privately-run 4 digit systems that are run privately, how do they go about getting any long-distance service at all? They aren't direct-dialable for obvious reasons (only 4 digits), but will AT&T run long-distance trunks to their switchboard? Or do they have to pay them to bring the trunks in? I would think that AT&T would gladly bring in trunks to any switchboard, no matter how old, if they're going to generate revenue. Does anyone know just how the policy works? I can just imagine it now. The AT&T operator looks up the routing on her terminal, presses the ST key to make it ring, and as she does so, an old magneto drop is thrown somewhere in Iowa. :-) -G ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 13:10:10 PDT From: Tom Ace Subject: Prophetic ROLM Ad A somewhat pompous full-page ad (lots of white space around a paragraph of text) for ROLM appeared in the 8/7/89 NY Times. It suggested that something special would happen to ROLM customers the next day. (The ad's text is reproduced at the end of this posting.) Sure enough, when I got into work on Tuesday, several extensions in the building, including mine, were making bizarre noises from the speakers in their bases: howls, fragments of various ringing tones, screeching noises, and more. We have a Rolm PBX. The repairman told me a card in the PBX was taken out by a power disturbance, and that we ought to have a power line conditioner. I told him a PBX ought to have a more tolerant power supply; he smiled knowingly. Dozens of computers in the same building (Apollos, Macs, others) had no problems. The same day, I called someone at another company in another state, and the voice mail was broken in their Rolm PBX. I found it amusing that all this happened on the day mentioned in the ad: "For just about everyone here in America, tomorrow, August the 8th, will be just another Tuesday. Alarm clocks will ring a little earlier than we'd like. The newspaper will arrive too late to read. Dressing the kids will take at least twice as long as planned. Three meetings will be scheduled for the same time. The lunch hour will only be 38 minutes. A few of us will get a raise. There won't be enough hours in the day. Someone will get a puppy for their birthday when they were really hoping for a pony. In other words, for most everyone here in America, just another typical Tuesday. Everyone, that is, except for the customers of ROLM." Tom Ace tom@sje.mentor.com ...!mntgfx!sje!tom ------------------------------ Organization: SMART HOUSE Limited Partnership Subject: 2600 Magazine Date: 9 Aug 89 19:04:55 EDT (Wed) From: John Owens The address is 2600@dasys1.UUCP -or- 2600 PO Box 752 Middle Island, NY 11953 -- John Owens john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US uunet!jetson!john +1 301 249 6000 john%jetson.uucp@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 21:28:37 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: AT&T Manuals Wanted Does anyone know of a source for AT&T manuals? I'd love to have a gander at the reference books the long-distance operators use. I'm sure AT&T keeps those under tight security for fear of phone phreaks and whatever, but is there any source? -G P.S. Wasn't it all so much easier before 1984? :-) ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: ISDN in Silicon Valley Alpine Office? Date: 10 Aug 89 01:20:29 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team This may be a little too "regional specific" for the DIGEST, but I know there are a lot of SillyCon Valley readers, one of which may know the answer. About a week and a half ago, all of the ALpine crossbar (about eight prefixes) was cut to DMS. Given Pac*Bell's lethargy in upgrading anything, I thought there might be a reason other than simply to provide better service to subscribers. As it happens, THE major customer in this CO is Apple Computer. Before the strike, I struck a conversation with a Pac*Bell installer. His comment was that the cut was indeed because of Apple. Now this raises some interesting questions. Apple's PBX uses an entire prefix of the 1AESS, so that isn't affected. But is it possible that ISDN is involved here somehow? If so, what generic would the DMS be running? I know that Pac*Bell was conducting ISDN tests with the DMS in San Ramon. Light and knowledge in this matter would be helpful. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #284 *****************************   Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 0:53:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #285 Message-ID: <8908100053.aa23830@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu,10 Aug 89 00:50:08 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 285 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson The Way It Used To Be (John Higdon) Panasonic vrs. AT&T In the Marketplace (John Higdon) Note About Operators (Carl Moore) FLeetwood in Olympia, Wash.? (Carl Moore) Re: Toll Stations (Mark T. Ganzer) Toll Stations...One More Time! (Gabe M. Wiener) Re: More About NJ Sabotage (Mark Robert Smith) Re: More About NJ Sabatage (Gary Cattley) Strike Delays Annoy Users (Andrew Lih) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (John DeBert) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (John Higdon) [Moderator's Note: In issue 284 of the Digest, issued at 00:06 CDT, the *envelope header* inadvertently said "285". It was indeed 284, and the one you are reading now is 285. Please edit your archives copies so the envelope header reads correctly. Sorry, and thanks. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Higdon Subject: The Way It Used To Be Date: 10 Aug 89 02:40:37 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team Something that every reader of this group should do is take a tour of a local central office. I would kill for that opportunity now with all the advances in the past few years such as COSMOS, electronic switching, etc. But I never will forget the several times I toured local offices, both officially (with a public tour) and unofficially (with a friend who was a supervisor in the office). The Santa Clara "AXminster" office used to be exclusively #1 and #5 crossbar. There was a big ammeter in the power room that indicated the draw from the 48V batteries by all the equipment in the building. Late at night (when I was there) it read between 2000 and 3000 amperes. The copper bus bars carrying this current were enormous. I was told that during the day the typical indication was around 5000 amperes. A good portion of that draw was simply to supply loop current to the thousands of subscribers who were off hook, and of course the rest went to power the zillions of clattering relays. There was a room with a bunch of little odometer-like counters, thousands of them. While I was standing there, suddenly the lights went out, there was a flash, and then the lights came back on. They actually photographed the dials for traffic studies. Long distance call records were kept on paper tape that was handled by these large floor standing machines. Near one of the test positions, was a machine that would periodically make a lot of noise and then a punched card would drop into a basket. This was the "trouble recorder" and the card would contain information concerning some error that occurred within the maze of electromechanical equipment. Ringing current was generated by these rotary devices that produced the ringback tone and busy tone as well. Before touch tone, they also produced dial tone. The cadence was performed by these mercury-filled drums that were driven off the same shaft as the ring generator. The #1 crossbar bit the dust several years ago, but the #5 remains. The old panel equipment that was in the now-defunct Larkin Street CO in San Francisco has been preserved by the local chapter of the Telephone Pioneers and will still operate upon request. Again you must see this equipment operate to appreciate how it used to be. If you live in an area that still has functional electromechanical CO equipment, do whatever it takes to wangle a tour before it's all gone forever. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Panasonic vrs. AT&T In the Marketplace Date: 7 Aug 89 18:49:11 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team So the Justice Department breaks up AT&T to promote the consumer interest and to encourage competition. Then there is competition. Then AT&T whines that it can't compete because everyone else's products are better and cheaper. So the Commerce Department slaps a 178% tariff on Panasonic telephone products. You know what? After dealing with AT&T garbage and Panasonic products, I'll still buy Panasonic. When will people (AT&T) understand that you can't sell junk at any price? Patrick, I'll say it for you: Followup by e-mail. The DIGEST is not the place to debate US trade policies, but I thought it might be interesting to observe how perverted the BIG BREAKUP has become. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: You are correct in noting the divestiture is not quite what most people expected. You are also correct in noting that there is nothing I can do about it here. Followups direct to JH please. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 10:41:12 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Note About Operators The note about operators taking a lot of abuse reminded me that some call guides (preceding the white pages) express such concern regarding unlisted numbers: When you are told a number is unlisted, please do not persist in trying to get it, as it is not available. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 10:43:49 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: FLeetwood in Olympia, Wash.? I had an oldies station, WFBR-AM (1300, Baltimore), on last night, and heard that the Fleetwoods took their name from a phone exchange of that name in Olympia, Washington state. That name choice was done over 30 years ago. ------------------------------ From: "Mark T. Ganzer" Subject: Re: Toll Stations Date: 9 Aug 89 21:11:15 GMT Reply-To: "Mark T. Ganzer" Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego >[Moderator's Note: > ... Toll-stations are mostly a Nevada >phenomenon, but a few exist in western Utah; in Arizona; in the desert area >of California; and the northwestern rural area of Idaho...places where the >entire population of town is six people. PT] Interestingly, until 4-5 years ago, one of our lab's test facilities was served by a toll station. And it wasn't in the desert area of California, but only 5 miles north of the greater Los Angeles basin in the San Gabriel Mountains, in an area served by GTE (our phone book listed it as San Gabriel Canyon Toll Station 32). What surprised me was that there was quite a number of residences a few miles up the canyon, as well as a Forest Service Station. Except for the leased lines from San Diego, not many people knew how to dial into the place (and when I had to, not many operators knew how to either...). As I recall, the complaints from the residents were enough to finally force them to install a microwave link up there, and run a line down to us. I kind of miss that old system. It's a pain to drive 130 miles only to get stuck with a phone in your ear all day...something I could have stayed in the office and done. -- Mark T. Ganzer Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego UUCP: {bonnie,sdcsvax,gould9,hp-sdd} - !nosc!ganzer {apl-uw,ncr-sd,bang,crash } / Internet: ganzer@nosc.mil Compu$erve: 73617,442 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 17:24:44 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: Toll Stations...One More Time! Ok folks, here come two more: 1) Why are they called "toll stations" anyway? Why aren't they simply called "non-dialable points" instead? And, of course, the one I've been asking about all week! 2) If they're running a cable out there to hook up a toll station, why not just wire them right into the switch and assign them a telephone number like any other telephone subscriber? -G [Moderator's Note: Regards (1): "Toll Station" is the historic term for these places. They were around from long before almost anyplace was dialable, thus 'non-dialable' points, while perhaps an accurate description now, was not very descriptive when they first where installed many, many, many years ago. The difference between a manual exchange, or 'non-dialable point' and a toll station is that a toll station is essentially a manual exchange as far as billing is concerned, but an 'exchange' with just one subscriber, or more precisely, combination phone operator/subscriber! The difference between a toll station subscriber and an ordinary subscriber on a manual exchange is that the former have historically been listed as 'places' in the Bellcore, nee AT&T database rather than individuals listed in a telephone directory of the exchange (which is also a 'place' in the database. Covert pointed out yesterday that there are actually entries in the database which are *the names of people* rather than towns. One of my favorites was "Mary's Ranch, Nevada, Toll Station 1". Regards (2): Yes there is a pair of wires running there, just as you would find from any manual exchange to the subscriber premises, but the 'normal' exchange (and again, I am talking from a historical perspective) was relatively small in geographic coverage. Some, if not all toll station subscribers are 50-100 miles or more from the exchange that serves them. We are talking about very desolate, very deserted wilderness areas such as the vast amounts of desert in Nevada and the huge forest/wilderness areas in Idaho and Washington State. The idea behind a toll station was that '...everything is a long distance call from here....'. Toll stations have NO local calling area, and to make them part of a 'local exchange' with, say, a thousand other people in town who get to call all of a mile in any direction as their 'free local calling area' would be wrong. If you did it this way, *they* would get 50-100 miles 'local calling area' versus the folks in town who would not. So those few phones in wilderness areas which of necessity make a long distance (or toll) call everytime they go off hook are described as toll stations, and listed in the database for lack of any legal name for the wilderness area by the name of the person who subscribes. In summary, 'toll station' is an historic term with much accuracy and a specific meaning. "Non-dialable point' may describe a toll station, but 'toll station' does NOT describe the majority of non-dialable points, although admittedly, toll stations are among the few types of non-dialable phones still around. John Covert, can you add to this or correct anything I have stated? I might add that for billing purposes, toll stations are generally marked on the toll ticket as 'other place', while for manual exchanges, the mark will usually be the area code for the geographic environs, plus some theoretical three digit 'prefix'. PT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Robert Smith Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage Date: 9 Aug 89 11:57:51 GMT Organization: Rutgers - The Police State of New Jersey I seem to have forgotten a few points that lead me to exclude the general public from responsibility for the vandalism, and point the finger at a Bell employee - union or management. Most of the individual lines that were cut were cut IN the Central Office, which is a high security area. They were not cut in the boxes on the street - though in Englewood, 50 of these boxes were vandalized. Therefore, I believe that an NJ Bell employee was responsible. Mark -- Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 8:51:45 CDT From: cattley@ntvax.uucp (Gary Cattley - CEMI) Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage Organization: Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia, U. of North Texas Mark Smith comments, >>Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any >>judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. In article bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) responded: >Come back and report when charges are filed and the union is held >responsible for this, not when some manager at NJ Bell calls the press >to badmouth the union. Irregardless of the source of the damage to telco equipment, it seemingly is more than coincidental vandalism. I found Smith's postings informative, more for the explanation they offered for results that I got when trying to place calls to the affected area(s), than for the political interpretations. The latter, just take with proverbial salt in any posting, media source, etc. If there are more service interruptions, please continue to post. gary Gary Cattley - CEMI email: cattley@dept.csci.unt.edu or bitnet id48@vaxb.acs.unt.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 09:29:19 EDT From: Andrew Lih Subject: Strike Delays Annoy Users > Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 08:34:47 EDT From: "Robert E. Seastrom" > Subject: BOC Strike - One Good > Side-Effect > I had occasion to call Delaware Directory Assistance yesterday. > Before I got a ringback, a recording came on that said "Due to work > stoppage, there may be a delay in servicing your call. Thank you for > your patience". Well, I sat there on a ring for about a minute and a > half and then this lady answered the phone and asked if she could help > me. I wasn't sure what number I wanted at the Delaware Department of > Motor Vehicles, so we went back and forth for about 30 seconds trying > to decide which number I wanted. She seemed genuinely concerned and a > lot more helpful than the standard, run-of-the-mill directory > assistance operator. Maybe we should just flush the current employees > and let the supervisors man the phones. It took a little extra time, > but the operator's pleasantness made the wait worthwhile. I could not disagree with you more! I called Pennsylvania's Directory Assistance and after waiting a minute or so, asked for University of Penn's General Info number. The operator fumbled around for about 30 seconds and then finally gave me a recorded message that told me a 202 number, which is in Washington DC! I could not even get through on New Jersey's Directory Assistance. The sooner the strike is over the better! Andrew Lih lih@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu Columbia University [Moderator's Note: Whether you are calling Penn State or the state pen, operator assistance has been very slow because of the strike. But this one is *nothing* compared to the first one I remember, in 1950, when *everything* outside Chicago went through an operator. Long distance calling was virtually suspended for a few days, prompting Mother to hasten the automation process all the faster. Just think, in a few years 95 percent of all operator functions will be automated. Calling card calls are already. *Then* watch how long management takes to settle! If we could search the DA database now, we (and Mom) would have it made. PT] ------------------------------ From: John DeBert Subject: Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles Date: 9 Aug 89 19:12:53 GMT Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest In article , claris!apple!netcom! wasilko (Jeff Wasilko) says: > I've seen compressed gas cylynders near poles and I've always wondered what > purpose they are used for? Could anyone shed some light on this? I have seen them too. To satisfy my curiousity, I examined one closely. It appears to be either nitrogen or compressed dry air attached via a pressure regulator to a fitting on a cable or splice cover. The prupose appears to be to force out water and moisture to prevent corrosion. A yellow cylinder contains compressed air and one that is silver with green at the top is nitrogen gas. Once or twice, I have seen helium cylinders (silver with orange) in place, perhaps because nothing else was available(?) Compressors can also be found, especially in remote areas, used also to keep cables and connections dry. JJD onymouse@netcom.UUCP ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles Date: 8 Aug 89 16:17:49 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , claris!apple!netcom! wasilko (Jeff Wasilko) writes: > I've seen compressed gas cylynders near poles and I've always wondered what > purpose they are used for? Could anyone shed some light on this? These tanks are filled with nitrogen. By using positive pressure withing the cable housing, moisture is kept out and sudden loss of pressure could indicate cable damage or failure. BOCs generally pressurize from central points; GTE and other independents use those tanks that you have noticed. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #285 *****************************   Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 1:32:57 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #286 Message-ID: <8908100132.aa29119@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Aug 89 01:30:57 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 286 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Call Forwarding Fun (Tom Ace) Re: Yuppie Operator Calls (Douglas Scott Reuben) Re: Can There Be 'Fake' 911 In Rural Areas? (Amanda Walker) Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools (Amanda Walker) Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (Charles Daffinger) Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV (Robert Virzi) Re: Correction of Telco Name (Terry Roberts) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Dr. T. Andrews) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 18:05:11 PDT From: Tom Ace Subject: Call Forwarding Fun A couple of years ago, an acquaintance in Los Angeles told me about a problem GTE experienced after modernizing one of their COs down there. They had replaced a mechanical exchange with a digital one (if memory serves me correctly, a NEC switch), and some kids found an interesting problem with it. Three subscribers with call forwarding would create a forwarding loop, e.g. A forwards his calls to B, B to C, and C back to A; once that was set up, calling any of the three numbers from another location would, after a short pause, cause the entire switch to go down (completely go out of service). There was evidently code in the switch to recognize two-subscriber forwarding loops, but with three or more, it would hang. The only fix they had at the time was to disable call forwarding for customers served by that switch. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this story, it was just something I'd heard. Has anyone heard of anything similar? What happens with Bell ESS switches? What happens if two customers in different areas try to set up a loop? (I'd try, but I don't have the feature and don't know people who do.) Tom Ace tom@sje.mentor.com ...!mntgfx!sje!tom [Moderator's Note: We covered this topic rather extensively some time back in the Digest. There are now absolute limits on the number of loops which can be made. Maybe someone will respond who knows the specifics. PT] ------------------------------ Date: 9-AUG-1989 02:44:05.18 From: "DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN)" Subject: Re: Yuppie Operator Calls Not that I want to be the one to start a "war" over a small post, but the article posted in the Digest (issue 278) by 'myerston@cts.sri.com' was just a bit too insluting to let pass. Initially, I sent an article to the digest about, amongst other things, how hard it is with newer, post-divestiture operators, to complete a call that requires special handling via an AT&T/Bell operator. Now admittedly I wasn't too stoical about this, and found it somewhat amusing that times have changed to the extent that most operators have never even *heard* of a mobile operator or have any idea of how to connect to one. I also find this somewhat disturbing, as if this were an emergency, someone who needed to get through quickly and did not have any knowledge of how the "phrase" his or her request would waste a good deal of time repeating the request until an operator was found who could handle the call. In any event, Mr. Myerston thought it was just "tooo cuuute". He seems to think that finding out things like this by actually trying it out is a waste of Bell's time, and that I should be doing other things besides calling remote areas to find out routing codes, etc. He also assumes that I am in a sense 'picking' on people who are paid less than I am to see how they fail at their tasks. Well, Mr. Myerston, I don't know what YOU were reading, or more likely what you read INTO my posting, but I don't think I said something like "Hey, look at those sappy, underpaid AT&T ops who are SO incompetent that they can't even route a call to Canada!" Take a look again...I clearly didn't intend to make fun of anyone... What I think I said, and what I do still argue, is that it is amusing to see people who supposedly know more than I do about phones and who are supposed to be trained to handle such calls make such a big production over a rather simple task. I find it somewhat funny that after I tell them a routing they say "Let me check..." and then come back a few seconds later and go "Yeah, you're right...You must call there a lot!". I don't think this is making fun of them, but rather something we all could enjoy as a diverting and unusual situation that doesn't occur all too often in an age of automated collect-calling systems and voice-synthesized Directory Assistance computers. As a matter of fact, when calling up to Hay River, Canada about 3 years ago, I said to the operator, who was having a particularly hard time in getting through, "Sorry to have to call so late..." and she said "Oh no!!.. This is the most fun I've had all day!" Now I'm not saying I call to make the operator's day, or that it's OK to do this all day and repeatedly bother them, but once in a while is a different story. I find it really hard to believe that you find this sufficient cause to publicly make note of how "cute" my post was in an attempt to show your disapproval of my behavior. Rather than sending me a personal note, or posting something like "But doesn't that get to bother the operators and should we all be doing that?" asking whether the Digest should discuss things of that nature, you just had to flame off on your keyboard some silly old message which was quite rude and in my own opinion, unwarranted. Oh, and you said you wanted some numbers at Wesleyan that you could play with? Try calling Wesleyan's modem dialups...Maybe if you listen REALLY carefully to the carriers you could find something about THAT that you don't like as well...Can't wait to hear about it in some future Digest issue! In the future, please restrain yourself when you are not sure of what I (if not others as well) am trying to say in a posting. I think, and I'm sure some will agree, that pointlessly flaming and/or belittling me/other posters only serves to discourage would-be contributors to the Digest, which benefits no one. As it is, this message is wasting valuable space that someone could have used for a more Telcom-realted posting, which I'm sure everyone would much rather read. I sincerely hope that I don't have to waste my and everyone else's time responding to something like Mr. Myerston's post again... Sorry for any typos and for a general waste of bandwidth... -Doug "tooooo cuuuuute" Reuben dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu dreuben%eagle.weslyn@wesleyan.edu (and just plain old "dreuben" to locals! :-) ) [Moderator's Note: However, I do not think divestiture can be blamed for the lack of training given to operators now. This has been a problem for the past twenty years, since about the time DDD was almost universal and the older ladies who had been with Mom all their working careers began to retire. Many of the newer operators do not consider it a lifetime *career* and it reflects in their work and their attitudes. Years ago, the majority of the operators had many years experience, with manual exchanges, yet! And did you know the rule for many years was a new operator was *never* permitted to work a real board until after several weeks of training at a 'teaching board' under the close watch of the supervisor and/or Chief Operator. Bell was *very particular* in the old days about the help. PT] ------------------------------ From: Amanda Walker Subject: Re: Can There Be 'Fake' 911 In Rural Areas? Date: 9 Aug 89 15:28:05 GMT Reply-To: Amanda Walker Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation In article , davef@brspyr1.brs.com (Dave Fiske) writes: > [incident with rescue squad being sent to the wrong address] > When you consider that this scenario could have involved some actual > disaster, you can see how important 911 can be. Even so, there's still the possibility for human error--there was a sad story on the DC news recently about a person who died because the ambulance that had been dispatched on the 911 call was sent to the wrong quadrant of the city (NE instead of NW). (For those of you who aren't familiar with DC, most addresses occur 4 times, so you have to tack the quadrant [NW/NE/SE/SW] onto the address to fully specify a location.) Luckily, most cities are laid out a little less symmetrically than DC... -- Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation -- amanda@intercon.uu.net | ...!uunet!intercon!amanda ------------------------------ From: Amanda Walker Subject: Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools Date: 9 Aug 89 15:32:23 GMT Reply-To: Amanda Walker Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation Speaking of telephone tools, I once saw a little tool that was so mind-bogglingly useful that, of course, I've never found a place that sold it. I was told it was a telephone tool of some sort. It's basically a pair of needle nose pliers with a little place near the tip that acts as a wire stripper for 22 (or so) AWG wire. Perfect for doing wirewrapping... Anybody know where I could pick up one of these things? -- Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation -- amanda@intercon.uu.net | ...!uunet!intercon!amanda ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 11:33:06 -0500 From: Charles Daffinger Subject: Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington >OK, gang, another mystery from the AT&T system of the late 1960s-early 1970s: >Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked >up the phone and dialed: >1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 >[Moderator's Note: I just now tried it of curiosity. Dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 >sent me to immediate intercept with a message saying, "When dialing a call >outside the 312 area, you must dial '1' before the number. When calling >within 312, do not dial '1' first." PT] Here I got 'the number you have dialed has been disconnected or no longer in service. If you feel that you have dailed the correct number, please hang up and try again. Thank you. -charles -- Charles Daffinger >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water< (812) 339-7354 cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ames}!iuvax!cdaf Home of the Whitewater mailing list: whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu ------------------------------ From: Robert Virzi Subject: Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV Date: 9 Aug 89 19:38:29 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Inc., Waltham, MA > In article , jackson@ttidca.tti.com > (Dick Jackson) writes: > > Is anyone else in this group interested in the *future* of the telephone > > system? Very much so, both professionally and as a consumer. > > An example of the LEC's bid for more revenue is their request to be > > allowed to operate cable TV, i.e. to deliver entertainment to the home. > > In my, opinion to permit this at the present time would be ludicrous given > > the operating companies non-clean record on cross subsidies and trampling > > on smaller companies they perceive as competitors. As witnessed by the increasing interest in video from all the phone companies, I suspect they think they can make Big Money in video to the home. They are probably right. I would like to see the LECs given the Greene light (;-) to provide video to the home, with one caveat. They should be required to give equal access to other CATV and video providers on a home-by-home basis. I picture a plan similar to that for long distance telephone where the user selects a primary video provider and might even have access to other video providers through access codes. This does several things. First, it opens the doors to competition and increases my choices as a consumer. Don't like your towns current CATV company -- scrap 'em and pick another. This should make video providers more sensitive to the need to provide high levels of service. (Ever wonder why your cable TV offices are closed nights and weekends?) It also makes narrowcasting more attractive. I can start a business delivering special interest videos to left handed albinos and still make money because I would have access to all the left handed albinos in the US. Groups of similar minded people can get the sort of programming they want. A parallel argument is that this type of system would free us from the tyranny of democracy. As long as their are multiple conduits, there is no need to make them all attractive to the majority. I say let the LECs provide content, as long as they provide comparable transport for other content providers. DISCLAIMER: These views are in no way representative of the official company line, at least to my knowledge. I'm not even sure they fairly represent what I think. -- -Bob Virzi | Innuendo ... rv01@gte.com | ...!harvard!bunny!rv01 | ... and out the other. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 16:09:17 MDT From: Terry Roberts Subject: Re: Correction of Telco Name >> The BOC for Utah is Mountain Bell. (not Utah Bell). >I thought that Mountain Bell is now going by the parent name of U.S. West? Getting closer... The three BOCs in the U S WEST territory merged about a year ago and adopted the collective name "U S WEST Communications". Some people may still use the name Mountain Bell informally, but it doesn't officially exist anymore. (Which is different from Patrick's situation, Illinois Bell still being a distinct subsidiary of Ameritech.) -Terry Roberts roberts@uswest.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 6:47:31 EDT From: "Dr. T. Andrews" Organization: CompuData, Inc. (DeLand) ) ... green box ... tone to payphone Do payphones not use out-of-band signalling? It would seem to invite abuse if they used in-band signalling, especially if someone were inclined to carry a recording of money being dropped into the thing. -- ...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner ...!bpa!cdin-1!ki4pv!tanner or... {allegra attctc gatech!uflorida uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #286 *****************************   Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 0:49:51 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #287 Message-ID: <8908110049.aa10928@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Aug 89 00:45:36 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 287 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Tool Sources (Will Martin) Re: Tool Sources (Will Martin) Re: Tool Sources (Amanda Walker) Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools (Marvin Jones) Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools (Mike Morris) Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools (John DeArmond) Re: Info About 2600 Magazine and Tool Sources (Denis Svenny) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (Paul E. Robichaux) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (John DeBert) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Andrew Boardman) Re: New York Geography (Dave Esan) Last Laugh! A Strange Way of Posting Things (Jim Guyton) [Moderator's Note: Another special edition of the Digest coming your way this weekend! Richard Tobier has very kindly provided me with a copy of his 'RS-232 Standards for Phone Wire', a document prepared during his tenure with Encore Computer. Complete with diagrams and charts, this very informative document will be presented in its entirety in a Digest I'll transmit to you sometime Saturday. You may want to print it out and keep it with other reference materials. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 9:32:49 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Tool Sources Specialized Products Company (800-527-5018) -- Spring 89 catalog, page 177: Utica Swiss Model U502E Series High Precision Stripping Tool. "Designed to be the most precision chain nose stripper-cutter combination tool for working with Teflon, Kynar, and other tough insulations. This is a very unique [sic -sigh...] tool that has become very popular as a wire wrap stripper/cutter. The 502E eliminates having to use two separate tools. The cutting and stripping blades can be micro adjusted and are replaceable. Features foam cushion handles and is available in 5 wire gauge sizes." It comes in 22, 24, 26, 28, & 30 AWG models. Price: $79.50 each (Wow!) Klein Tools (in Chicago, 312-677-9500), catalog #127 (vintage 1984), page 24, has a model D2291 "Long Nose Insulation Skinner" pliers, which is described as "A special plier for telephone work, designed to skin 22- or 24-gauge wire. Slot provided in nose to crush insulation." This might be what you're looking for, but the illustration isn't clear if there is a real wire-strip hole near the tip of the jaws. Klein's a manufacturer, so no prices are given. Similar size Klein pliers are in the $8-$10 range in a 1984 W. S. Jenks & Son tool catalog (800-638-6405) but this specific one isn't listed, and nothing else equivalent is there either. Interestingly, I looked thru the following other electronic-tools catalogs which did NOT carry a similar product: Techni-Tool, OK Industries (even though they are wire-wrap specialists!), Contact East, and Time Motion Tools. Dikes with wire-strip holes and long-nose pliers with strip holes near the hinge are common, but pliers with strip holes near the tip, as was asked for, are definitely rare! Hope this info is of help. Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 16:08:12 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Re: Tool Sources I was wrong. I had looked in the "plier" section of the W. S. Jenks & Son catalog, and didn't find the Klein D-2291 "insulation skinner" tool there, and reported in my previous message that they didn't carry it. Then, a few minutes ago, I got the catalog back out to look for the "punch-down tools" the other poster had asked about. I didn't find them, but the "insulation skinner" tool was there in the "telecommunications equipment" section. Feh! Anyway, as I mentioned before, this catalog is 1986 vintage. Price then was $8.30. Try calling them for a new catalog: W. S. Jenks & Son 2024 West Virginia Ave, NE Washington DC 20002 800-638-6405 or 202-529-6020 Regards, Will ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 11:50:56 edt From: Amanda Walker Subject: Re: Tool Sources Someone else also suggested Klein, so I'm going to start calling local distributors. The SPC tool sounds interesting, but it's a little more than I'm looking for right now :-)... Thanks a lot for the information! --Amanda ------------------------------ From: Marvin Jones Subject: Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools Date: 10 Aug 89 17:52:11 GMT Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA In article , amb@cs.columbia.edu (Andrew Boardman) writes: > The first is that cute little tool used for punching down wires on punch-down > blocks. (a puncher-down?) The second has a similar purpose except it's > used on the older boards on which screw terminals are used. (A standard The tool you need is something like the Dracon D814 Impact Tool, which is used for backboard punchdown work. A couple of good companies to use for things like this are: Specialized Products Co. 2117 W. Walnut Hill Lane Irving, TX 75038 800-527-5018 and Time Motion Tools 410 S. Douglas St. El Segundo, CA 90245 213-772-8170 I am sure there are many other places as well. Unfortunately, these places don't discount very much. Anyone know of good telecom tool suppliers who discount to small quantity buyers? I am personally unfamiliar with the second tool you mention. Hopefully someone else will recognize that one. Marvin Jones {pyramid, pixar, tekbspa}!optilink!jones Optilink Corp. ATT-net 707-795-9444 X206 Petaluma, CA CIS 71320,3637 ------------------------------ From: Mike Morris Subject: Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools Date: 10 Aug 89 14:12:09 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris (Andrew Boardman) writes: >The first is that cute little tool used for punching down wires on punch-down >blocks. (a puncher-down?) It's called an impact tool, made by Dracon. Comes in two styles, get the more expensive one, the extra $ are worth it - it'l set you back maybe $40. Get a spare blade at $9 or so - all it takes is dropping it blade first on a concrete floor, at the beginning of a job on Saturday... > ... The second has a similar purpose except it's >used on the older boards on which screw terminals are used. A can wrench will set you back about $15 or so. They come in two models, both with and without a wire stripper in the side of the handle. I've never needed the stripper. Made by Klein. Both are available at any Graybar Electric, Telecom division. In most major cities. Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. ------------------------------ From: John DeArmond Subject: Re: Reader Needs Source For Telephone Tools Date: 10 Aug 89 21:25:25 GMT Reply-To: John DeArmond Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product" In article amb@cs.columbia.edu (Andrew Boardman) writes: >First, a question: I recently lost (they were destroyed, actually) a set >of various telecom-oriented tools. I haven't been able to replace two of >them from any regular hardware supplier that I sould find and there's quite >probably someone out there who could tell me where I could order them. Specialized Products Company, 2117 W. Walnut Hill Lane Irving, TX 75038 Local phone - 214 550 1923 Local FAX - 214 550-1386 800 527 5018 They are also in Southern California, Houston, and Boston. Best phone tools supplier I've seen. -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | Manual? ... What manual ?!? Sales Technologies, Inc. Atlanta, GA | This is Unix, My son, You ...!gatech!stiatl!john **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!! ------------------------------ From: wellflt!svenny!denis%talcott@harvard.harvard.edu Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 22:14:31 EDT Subject: Re: Info About 2600 Magazine and Tool Sources Folks, Last I heard 2600 can be reached at: PO Box 752 Middle Island, NY 11953-0752 Their BBS number is: (914) 725-4060. As for telephone tools, these folks have one of the most comprehensive catalogs I have ever seen. They seem to sell EVERYTHING having to do with phone systems, including shovels and brooms for cleaning up afterwards !!!! ATI Supply 5717 Corsa Ave. Wetlake Village, CA 91362 (800) 826-4821 Hope this helps, Denis ...!harvard!talcott!wellflt!svenny!denis ------------------------------ From: "Paul E. Robichaux" Subject: Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles Date: 10 Aug 89 11:15:47 GMT Reply-To: "Paul E. Robichaux" Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Around my neighborhood, there are several telephone poles which commonly have gas containers chained to them. My understanding is that local welders can leave the tanks there and have a service company (say, Union Carbide/Linde) come by, get them, fill them with non-flammables, and put them back. Don't know if this is true- I heard this from my next-door neighbor the welder. -Paul -- Paul E. Robichaux | REMEMBER the HOSTAGES!! Georgia Institute of Technology | (and don't let that SOB Obeid go, either) GT PO Box 30818; Atlanta, GA 30332 |============================================ Internet: gt0818a@prism.gatech.edu | All opinions in this message are mine. ------------------------------ From: John DeBert Subject: Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles Date: 10 Aug 89 20:18:00 GMT Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System (408) 997-9175 guest in article , I said: > > A yellow cylinder contains compressed air and one that is silver with green > at the top is nitrogen gas. Once or twice, I have seen helium cylinders > (silver with orange) in place, perhaps because nothing else was available(?) > I wasn't sure if nitrogen cylinders also used green as green usually marks oxygen cylinders. Yesterday, while at work, I checked. nitrogen cylinders have beige paint on them, not green. I doubt that any telco would seriously consider pressurising a cable with oxygen... JJD onymouse@netcom.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 11:05:52 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science In article tanner wrote: >) ... green box ... tone to payphone >Do payphones not use out-of-band signalling? It would seem to invite >abuse if they used in-band signalling, especially if someone were >inclined to carry a recording of money being dropped into the thing. They most certainly do use in-band signalling; in fact, such a recording was floating around department where I used to work. (For those that keep track of such things, a circuit hardwired to produce the tones necessary (coin deposit, not coin return) is referred to as a "red box". (Construction is trivial, but generally I prefer to pay for the service I get from AT&T. I dread the day that I read "Coin calls from this telephone are carried by the US Sprint PublicFON service.")) Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu (but if you really have to, ab4@cunixc will work from bitnet) ------------------------------ From: Dave Esan Subject: Re: New York Geography Date: 10 Aug 89 15:01:10 GMT Reply-To: Dave Esan Organization: Moscom Corp., E. Rochester, NY In article smb@ulysses.att.com writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 248, message 7 of 7 > But I remembered that Liberty Island and Ellis Island are > politically part of the borough of Manhattan and the County > of New York, Please note that Liberty Island is also claimed by NJ. While I don't remember all the details, when President Reagan signed some proclamation about the Statue of Liberty, he did so in the presence of four senators, two from NY and two from NJ, so as not to offend either state. Are there telephones on these two islands, and if so what are the area codes? -- --> David Esan rochester!moscom!de ------------------------------ Subject: Last Laugh! A Strange Way of Posting Things Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 01:14:08 PDT From: guyton%condor@rand.org nice headers ... (from the digest) Re: More About NJ Sabotage (Mark Robert Smith) Re: More About NJ Sabatage (Gary Cattley) ... Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (John DeBert) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (John Higdon) And here I thought they'd called in the National Guard! -- Jim Guyton [Moderator's Laugh: ha ha! Guffaw! Snort! Thanks, Jim. It made my day. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #287 *****************************   Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 1:40:27 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #288 Message-ID: <8908110140.aa05533@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Aug 89 01:35:02 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 288 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson DTMF Levels (Torsten Dahlkvist) Re: DTMF Frequencies (David Lewis) Re: DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View (Pete Brown) Re: Prophetic ROLM Ad (Andrew Lih) Re: Prophetic ROLM Ad (G. Paul Ziemba) NY Tel $25,000 Reward for Arrest of Vandals (Roy Smith) Re: AT&T Manuals Wanted (Mike Morris) Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (Pete Brown) Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (Peter Desnoyers) Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (really: 12345678) (Fred Goldstein) Reuben and Cuteness (benson@odi.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Torsten Dahlkvist Subject: DTMF Levels Date: 10 Aug 89 07:43:09 GMT Reply-To: Torsten Dahlkvist Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden O.K. so now we've been given the frequencies for DTMF dialling. What no-one has mentioned is the fact that the levels are crucial too. The one group (the higher or the lower, I can't remember) is a couple of dB's louder. This (as far as I can recall) is the same for Bell (U.S.) and CCITT (Europe). However, the nominal levels for the signals are different in Bell and CCITT countries. Bell, I think, is louder. Somebody out there to fill me in? The figures were on the order of -7/-9 dB for Bell and -11/-13 dB for CCITT, but my memory is very vague on the exact values. Of course, a variation of a few dB's doesn't matter much and a Bell phone usually works just fine in CCITT country (the reverse would probably be true in most cases except very long lines). Oh, by the way, the "dB" levels are of course weighted against the old traditional "1 mW into 600 Ohms" standard, giving a reference voltage of 0.7746 V. Does anybody know why the 600 Ohm standard line impedance has been replaced by "900 Ohm // 30 nF" for modern phones? /Torsten Torsten Dahlkvist ! "I am not now, nor have I ever ELLEMTEL Telecommunication Laboratories ! been, intimately related to P.O. Box 1505, S-125 25 ALVSJO, SWEDEN ! Dweezil Zappa!" Tel: +46 8 727 3788 ! - "Wierd" Al Yankowitz ------------------------------ From: David Lewis Subject: Re: DTMF Frequencies Date: 10 Aug 89 15:07:51 GMT Organization: Bell Communications Research In article , ut-emx!rick@cs.utexas.edu (Rick Watson) writes: > What are the frequencies of the various tones used for DTMF? High Group (Hz) 1209 1336 1477 1633 Low 697 1 2 3 A Group 770 4 5 6 B (Hz) 852 7 8 9 C 941 * 0 # D A,B,C,D are not currently implemented anywhere, so far as I'm aware. (Courtesy of, of coures, Notes on the BOC Intra-LATA Networks, 1986...) -- David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 10:04:47 PDT From: Pete Brown <940se@mather1.af.mil> Subject: Re: DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View >-- the Autovon system would automatically disconnect any >call in progress of *lower* precedence in favor of your call. (I'm not >sure whether the disconnected party got any kind of notification of why >he had suddenly gotten cut off.) Maybe someone who has used Autovon can >confirm this info and/or correct my details. Disconnected parties get a fast little chirp-chirp (sorta like the tone you get from ISDN phones after a hook flash, except much higher in pitch, and of shorter duration), followed by a click, then a non-breakable, unusual dial tone. Unfortunately, there's no way for the preempted callers to know on whose end the preemtion took place, so the call is generally not re-attempted for a while. As a side-note, I just realized how much less I use Autovon now that email is here! Pete Brown Mather AFB, CA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 03:05:32 EDT From: Andrew Lih Subject: Prophetic ROLM Ad > Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 13:10:10 PDT From: Tom Ace > Sure enough, when I got into work on Tuesday, several extensions in > the building, including mine, were making bizarre noises from the > speakers in their bases: howls, fragments of various ringing tones, > screeching noises, and more. We have a Rolm PBX. The repairman told > me a card in the PBX was taken out by a power disturbance, and that we > ought to have a power line conditioner. I told him a PBX ought to > have a more tolerant power supply; he smiled knowingly. Dozens of > computers in the same building (Apollos, Macs, others) had no > problems. > The same day, I called someone at another company in another state, > and the voice mail was broken in their Rolm PBX. Make sure to add this Ivy league institution to that list of broken PhoneMail sites. Here at Columbia, we will not have any voice mail capabilities for an entire 7 days while fixes are being made to the system. This all came very suddenly and no real explanation was given. It seems that many sites of PhoneMail seem to going down. Is there a general bug that has caused ROLM PhoneMail to be immediately shut down? We also have the problem with the ROLM power supplies. They have had a history of breaking down after several months of use. Andrew Lih (lih@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu) Columbia University Academic Computing ------------------------------ From: "G. Paul Ziemba" Subject: Re: Prophetic ROLM Ad Date: 10 Aug 89 16:50:23 GMT Organization: 3Com Corp., Mt. View, CA sje!tom@pdx.mentor.com (Tom Ace) writes: >Sure enough, when I got into work on Tuesday, several extensions in the >building, including mine, were making bizarre noises from the speakers in >their bases: howls, fragments of various ringing tones, screeching noises, [Assorted Rolm problems described...] >most everyone here in America, just another typical Tuesday. Everyone, that >is, except for the customers of ROLM." Just as I finished reading this article, _my_ Rolm-system extension, as well as several others nearby, started ringing continuously for no apparent reason. This has been happening several times a day for the last year, and Rolm is still unable to locate the problem in their switch. I suspect it is a design defect. Has anyone else on a Rolm PBX encountered this problem? ---- Paul Ziemba ...!pyramid!zapi!gpz gpz@bridge2.3com.com (415)940-7671 (w) ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: NY Tel $25,000 Reward For Arrest of Vandals Date: 10 Aug 89 03:06:19 GMT Reply-To: Roy Smith Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) There is a half-page ad in todays New York Times from NYTel offering a $25,000 reward to "the person who first provides information to New York Telephone in each instance that results in arrest and conviction of any person or persons for intentional destruction of telephone facilities." They don't mention who they think is doing the destruction, but do point out that the offer is only good "for the duration of the work stoppage". Perhaps the AT&T breakup will have a useful side effect. Imagine a protracted strike against AT&T, long enough to seriously degrade their long-distance service. Sprint, MCI, etc, may be able to provide sufficient capacity to keep the phone system running. Of course, if the BOCs are struck as well, and for as long, you may have trouble reaching the other carriers. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu "The connector is the network" [Moderator's Note: But AT&T *isn't* on strike! The local telcos in some areas are the ones on strike. AT&T made peace with the unions last month. PT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Morris Subject: Re: AT&T Manuals Wanted Date: 11 Aug 89 00:38:44 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris (Gabe M Wiener) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 284, message 8 of 9 >Does anyone know of a source for AT&T manuals? I'd love to have a gander at >the reference books the long-distance operators use. I'm sure AT&T keeps those >under tight security for fear of phone phreaks and whatever, but is there any >source? I second the question! I have Vols II and III of the July 1980 "Key Systems Service Manual", and would like to purchase volume 1 (the one with all the info on the instruments themselves - I've got a few phones I need to modify). And where do you get the center-tapped (!) 10v ni-cad batteries for the Touch-A-Matic autodialer telephones? and the 1-button speakerphone accesory circuit board? Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 10:06:56 PDT From: Pete Brown <940se@mather1.af.mil> Subject: Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco >>Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked >>up the phone and dialed: > >>1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 > >>[Moderator's Note: I just now tried it of curiosity. Dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 >>sent me to immediate intercept with a message saying, "When dialing a call >>outside the 312 area, you must dial '1' before the number. When calling >>within 312, do not dial '1' first." PT] In Sacramento (916-364) I get "We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed..." [Moderator's Note: Well here in Eye Bee Tee land, '234' is assigned to the village of Lake Forest, IL. 234-5678 *was* a working number, but now goes to the standard intercept message. Adding the '1' on the front causes the problem, at least until 708 kicks in. PT] ------------------------------ From: Peter Desnoyers Subject: Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco Date: 10 Aug 89 19:48:26 GMT Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. In article cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) writes: > >Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked > >up the phone and dialed: > > >1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 I tried it - 9, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 - and got tick, tick, tick... (unusual, regular, call progress clicks) "the person you are trying to reach is unavailable or out of our service area. Please try ..." and I forget the rest. Peter Desnoyers Apple ATG (408) 974-4469 ------------------------------ From: goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com Subject: Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (really: 12345678) Date: 10 Aug 89 13:44:30 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Littleton MA USA Somebody wrote, >>Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked >>up the phone and dialed: > >>1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 This was covered in Art Brothers' column "The Party Line" in Telephone Engineer and Management a couple years back. Now Art owns Beehive Tel in Grouse Creek, Utah, which serves zillions of acres of barren desert, with a thousand or so subscribers spread across six exchanges. Seriously remote territory west of the salt flats and along the NV border. And Mountain Bell hates him. (Art's a professional iconoclast who may have gone into the phone business for the sake of being able to argue with Ma Bell. He's the first and often last thing I read in TE&M.) So when he opened a new exchange near some mining camp or other such outpost (using Harris D-1200 PBXs as COs, btw), Ma gave him the prefix "234". Gee, that's a nice one, though Art. Until he noticed thousands of incompleted pegs to a vacant number. Yep, 234-5678. In Utah, as in many other areas, 1+ is used for all toll, including intra-area code. So 12345678 is a valid dialing arrangement. The 90 doesn't do anything. fred ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 09:02:16 EDT From: benson@odi.com Subject: Reuben and Cuteness Mr. Reuben does not get the point, flame though he does. Operators are monitored. If they don't handle a certain rate of calls they get sat on, and can get fired. They have an electronic big brother breathing down their neck. As a result, they suffer health problems in droves. When a telecom afficionado causes them to spend 15 minutes trying to complete a call that won't go through just so the afficionado can overhear some routing codes, their "performance" suffers. The electronic big brother don't know anything about toll stations. It just counts and measures. If you have never worked in such a job, you come out sounding pretty crass (and, dare I say it, classist and elitist). These people are payed poorly and treated badly. Its no surprise that they seem harried and less than helpful. This applies to the remarks about how nice the temporary management information operator was. Believe me, if that person had to work under the same conditions as the striker they were replacing, they would play a different tune. [Moderator's Note: 'telecom affecionado' ?? Is that another name for a phone phreak? I will agree and disagree with Mr. Benson. Yes, the operators are kept on a tight leash and their output is monitored regularly, and gauged against the performance of other operators and historical standards. But, it is *overall* performance which counts, and not the call count being up or down in any specific time period. Telco management understands that different types of calls take varying amounts of time to handle. Mr. Benson is also correct that the pay is not that great. Illinois Bell only pays their operators about $1200 per month to start; however slavery was abolished in 1863, and people *do* choose to work or not, in occupations of their choice. I wish some of the operators were not robotrons; but then some of the Business Office people are just as inflexible. The system does need repair, or at least some tweaking. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #288 *****************************   Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 2:21:31 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #289 Message-ID: <8908110221.aa13279@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Aug 89 02:10:32 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 289 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Crosstalk Problem (Anthony E. Siegman) Telephone Service at Navajo Nation (TELECOM Moderator) Updated AT&T USA-Direct List (John R. Covert) Still Searching For the Right PBX (Jeff Sicherman) Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV (David Lewis) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (John Higdon) Re: More About NJ Sabotage (Barry Shein) Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (Peter da Silva) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Anthony E. Siegman" Subject: Crosstalk Problem Date: 11 Aug 89 01:03:27 GMT Reply-To: "Anthony E. Siegman" Organization: Stanford University I have a crosstalk problem between my two residential lines, and would appreciate suggestions for alleviating same. Situation: Two residential lines coming into my house -- an old installation, no conduit, the incoming service is just a lead-sheathed bundle of 4 wires coming under the street and up out of the ground at my outside utility box (can't add a 3rd line for my modem!). Large house, several additional rooms added to original structure. All four wires run all around the outside of the house (two twisted pairs of weather proof wires under eaves), and also as a four-wire cable (NOT two twisted pairs, at least I don't believe so, just 4 colored wires) inside the walls in some of the more recent additions. One line serves the main part of the house (half a dozen phone sets), the other serves a wing used as a rental unit (2 or 3 phones). Problem: Big crosstalk between the two lines. When I dial out on line A, I have no problem in hearing, clearly if faintly, a concurrent conversation on line B; and vice versa. (But the person I'm calling hears none of this, which seems odd?) Audibility of crosstalk seems to be quite different in different rooms, however, though the phones are also different models, which might account for this. Question: How can I alleviate this? I can go around and try to separate the wires under the eaves; the cabling inside the walls is unfortunately inaccessible. But would it help to add some impedance, e.g., where lines A and B come out in the same wall box but only A is used, would it help to load down B with a termination of some sort, so the electrostatic coupling would be looking into a lower impedance? Any advice appreciated... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 1:23:33 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Telephone Service At Navajo Nation Francis Mike is the general manager of Navajo Communications Company, the phone service for the Navajo Nation, an Indian community located in and near Chinle, Arizona. He has some unique burdens to overcome in providing phone service to a people who live miles apart in a remote area. Navajos do not live in large clusters. They prefer to be in small groups, generally isolated even from others of their nationality. Mike notes that when people live together, the traditional phone system works just fine, but when they are scattered, most companies cannot justify the cost of service, with the miles and miles of wire serving a very small number of people. Enter Ultraphone, a system that is bringing phone service to the Navajos via radio instead of cables, for about one-eighth the cost of a conventional system. International Mobile Machines (makers of the Prive-Code device mentioned recently in the Digest) began working on what would become Ultraphone back in 1981. Its first installation was in September, 1986, for Mountain Bell in the Douglas, Wyoming area. In November, 1988, the Federal Communications Commission decided the time had come for radio to improve rural phone service. To accomplish this, the Commission established a Basic Exchange Telecommunications Radio Service and allocated several frequency channels to it. Twenty groups or companies are investigating or have installed Ultraphone in such diverse areas of the United States as St. Lawrence County, NY and the sparsely populated Southwest. Mike said Navajo Communications introduced it in November on the 25,000 square-mile reservation, an area of land which is equivilent in size to West Virginia that is home to 175,000 people. Now, demand exceeds supply, he said. Navajos are up on technology. They all have television, and many have other modern home appliances. Now they want to have telephones also. The key to Ultraphone is digital radio technology, using an encoder to covert voices into binary code, for transmission as a radio signal. Beamed to a tower atop a mesa nine miles from the town of Chinle, the signal is relayed to its destination, where it is decoded by a transceiver. Users converse over standard phones; the magic is transparent to the users who simply lift their reciever and dial their call in the usual way. The signal covers a circle with a radius of 37 miles, so subscribers of Navajo Communications have the benefit of being able to make a 75 mile 'local call'. The service is a little more expensive than telecommunications in a larger town though. Bills for basic service run $15 - $23 per month, according to Mike. Navajo Communications has invested about $750,000 in the system. At present, they have about 100 subscribers out of 460 potential subscribers possible. New subscribers are signing up as fast as Ultraphones become available, according to Cecil Jones, technician for Navajo. He said there is frequently a delay in getting the units from the factory, but they hope to connect at least another two hundred subscribers in the next few months. Jones estimated it would cost at least $6 million to run actual wire pairs to the same clusters of buildings. I don't know about the rest of you, but I think this is one of the neatest new ideas in several years. Mike stressed that Ultraphones are not, strictly speaking cellular phones, although the operating principles behind Ultraphone are much the same as cellular service, however. And to think that 'Carterphone' started this whole dizzying spiral of changes we have seen in the past several years in much the same way: by linking the radio and the telephone to make a more desirable system of both! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: "John R. Covert" Date: 10 Aug 89 11:29 Subject: Updated AT&T USA-Direct list Australia 0014 881 011 Greece 00 800 1311 Austria 022 903 011 Guatamala 199 Bahamas 800 872-2881 Hong Kong 008 1111 Belgium 11 00 10 Hungary 00 36 0111 Bermuda 800 872-2881 Italy 172 1011 (Rome & Milan only) Brazil 000 8010 Japan 0039 111 British Virgin Islands 800 872-2881 Jamaica 0 800 872-2881 Cayman Islands 1872 Netherlands 06 0229111 Dominica 800 872-2881 New Zealand 000 911 Dominican Republic 800 872-2881 Norway 050 12 011 Denmark 0430 0010 St. Kitts 800 872-2881 Finland 9800 100 10 St. Martin 800 1011 France 19 0011 Singapore 800 0011 Gambia 001 199 220 0010 Sweden 020 795 611 Germany 0130 0010 Switzerland 046 05 0011 Granada 872 U.K. 0800 89 00 11 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 09:54:51 PDT From: JAJZ801@calstate.bitnet Subject: Still Searching For the Right PBX First, I would like to thank all those who responded personally to my inquiry about modems/fax(es) and PBX's. I will surely raise the compatibility issue with all vendors. On a more mundane level, I would like to get outside opinions on the various PBX'S available. I would expext this MAY have been discussed (or beaten to death) in this digest before (I'm a VERY new subscriber), but since the archives can't be searched online, I'm loath to get hugh volumes of them and start searching. If anybody can direct me to when such a dialog ensued, I would appreciate it. Commercial/Consumer reviews of systems would also be appropriate. Both the usual gang of suspects and some of the more do-it-yourself systems are OK; not afraid to get down-and-dirty with installation IF the instructions are good and support decent. Note, I'm talking about small PBX'S: 3 or 4 lines, less than 16 lines for the foreseaable future. (Merlin-scale or smaller). Thanks in advance Jeff Sicherman jajz801@calstate.bitnet ------------------------------ From: David Lewis Subject: Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV Date: 10 Aug 89 14:58:38 GMT Organization: Bell Communications Research In article , jackson@ttidca.tti.com (Dick Jackson) writes: > An example of the LEC's bid for more revenue is their request to be > allowed to operate cable TV, i.e. to deliver entertainment to the home. > In my, opinion to permit this at the present time would be ludicrous given > the operating companies non-clean record on cross subsidies and trampling > on smaller companies they perceive as competitors. > HOWEVER, and this is the point I would like to see discussed, it seems to > me fine to allow the local carriers to deliver cable TV as long as the > CATV companies are allowed to offer dial tone. Is this feasible? I > guess, for a start that the cable systems would have to be re-engineered, > probably with fiber, and there might not be enough money in the (phone) > business to make it a good investment. But it is going to take something > extraordinary to get fiber into homes, since telephone service alone can't > justify it. > > Dick Jackson > > [Moderator's Note: I am not quite clear on your use of the abbreviation > 'LEC'. Would you explain the abbreviation, please? But to provide one opinion > to your question, I think the telcos should stay in the phone business > and out of the cable TV business. Let's see what others here think. PT] LEC == Local Exchange Carrier. A.k.a. Exchange Carrier. Encompasses Bell Operating Companies and "Non-Bell Operating Companies" (a terribly biased term...). Bells+Independents. The guys who provide intra-LATA service. My opinion -- the LECs are common carriers. They move information from one place to another for anyone who desires, at a common price. If a LEC can figure out a way to provide video distribution as a common carrier -- and make money at it -- more power to 'em, let 'em in. Realize, of course, that common carriage means that the LEC charges the same price to NBC and to Joe's Video for carrying an hour of programming -- regardless of the demand for NBC versus the demand for Joe's Video. It could be run as pay-per-view -- the customer pays ten cents an hour for NBC and one cent an hour for Joe's video -- but in a market used to grazing through 35 channels, don't count on much market penetration pricing this way. Beyond the questions of "should telcos be allowed to offer cable" and "should cable companies be allowed to offer dialtone", keep in mind that there is also the fact that in the majority of this country, both telcos and cable companies have exclusive franchises (read: regulated monopolies) in either the municipality or state. Before you can start talking about cable/telco competition, you have to talk about competition period... Disclaimer: Bellcore doesn't pay me to have opinions about cable TV. -- David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower." ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Date: 10 Aug 89 17:41:26 GMT Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , tanner@ki4pv.uucp (Dr. T. Andrews) writes: > ) ... green box ... tone to payphone > Do payphones not use out-of-band signalling? It would seem to invite > abuse if they used in-band signalling, especially if someone were > inclined to carry a recording of money being dropped into the thing. The insertion of money causes in-band signaling. It makes a little beep that is muted so that you don't hear it. One beep per five cents. This totals up on a display that the operator has in front of her (or on the automatic coin collection equipment.) It is a trivial matter to imitate these beeps with a device called a "red box". However, the first coin must be real, since the phone signals via DC loop that there is indeed at least one coin in the hopper (the first coin trips a flapper in the chute which is reset each time the hopper dumps to either the coin box or the return). If this signal is not present, they know you are pulling something. Pac*Bell has a few fraud prevention techniques to prevent this. One of them is to periodically and without warning dump the hopper into the coin box so that a new real coin will have to be inserted. Any dicrepancies and you better watch out. There are others which I'll keep to myself for now. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 22:05:14 EDT From: Barry Shein Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage From: ijk@violin.att.com (Ihor J Kinal) >I've been scanning the news articles, but I HAVE NOT seen any BELL >MANAGER accuse the UNIONS of sabatoge. Then where exactly are the papers getting this info? Certainly the mere disruption of service is not enough for a newspaper to print "SERVICE SABOTAGED BY UNION!". Someone must be feeding them this analysis. Last I heard it wasn't the practice of non-striking employees to speak to the press for the phone company during a strike (nor the press likely to believe their analysis of an outage.) I doubt the unions are giving this info to the press, so who??? Telepathy? I'm sure if you called one of these newspapers and asked (and they're willing to tell you) you'll find they're re-printing summaries of official press releases prepared by the phone co's PR dept and mailed to all the major newspapers. Either that or interviewing managers as a result of investigating some large service disruption, some reporter looking for an angle, but more likely getting it from "official sources". Maybe you have some fantasy that newspapers do all this careful investigation and would never just reprint some company press release, hah! > From the nature of Barry's article, though, it would appear, since >the UNION is not culpable, and that the UNION MEMBERS are not culpable, >that either the GENERAL PUBLIC or MANAGEMENT of the BELL CO are doing >this to make the UNIONS look bad. I didn't say the union was not culpable, I just said I don't know that they are. How do you even know there was *any* sabotage? Because some phone service got disrupted and the phone co blamed it on the strikers? Maybe, maybe not. In fact the phone co might feel justified in labelling abandoning their posts or half-completed work "sabotage", who knows, be a little cynical, in cases like this it's healthy. Everyone's trying to manipulate the public. -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade 1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 Internet: bzs@skuld.std.com UUCP: encore!xylogics!skuld!bzs or uunet!skuld!bzs ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 21:35:15 -0400 From: ficc!peter@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco I just tried 9-1234567890. It was silent for a LONG time then started ringing. No answer. What's weird is we have a ROLM PBX that doesn't allow outside calls without an employee code #. --- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | writing is the sentence Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | you are now reading" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #289 *****************************   Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 0:32:58 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #290 Message-ID: <8908120032.aa11487@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 12 Aug 89 00:30:33 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 290 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson NY Tel (NYNEX) Service Problems (Andrew Boardman) Fax Standards/specfications (Jeff Sicherman) Phone Databases (Alex Huppenthal) Types of Service (Paul Fuqua) Yuppies and Operators (Hector Myerston) Re: The Way It Used To Be (Roy Smith) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (eli@chipcom.com) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Dave Fiske) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (John Cowan) Re: AUTOVON Preemption (Bill Cerny) Re: DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View (Marvin Jones) Re: Info About 2600 Magazine (Andrew Boardman) Re: More About NJ Sabotage (Mark Robert Smith) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 16:06:29 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: NY Tel (NYNEX) Service Problems... Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science [Especially for those of you who wanted to hear any other service outage reports, this one hits too close to home...] In article roy@phri wrote: > There is a half-page ad in todays New York Times from NYTel offering >a $25,000 reward to "the person who first provides information to New York >Telephone in each instance that results in arrest and conviction of any >person or persons for intentional destruction of telephone facilities." There is a roadside frame in a field just down the street from my home where several hundred subsciber lines emerge from the subterannean depths; yesterday (Thursday) night someone apparently cut all the wires in and out of it, (I happened to be online at the time, too!) and my friendly NYTel rep tells me that this has been happening all over the neighborhood. Sure enough, as I drove to work today, NYT service vans dotted the landsape, including a complement of *four* at the above-mentioned location. (Hey, I though they were all on strike! :-) As I sit here without telephone service for a few days, I just hope that I catch the same people in the act; I could use $25,000... (Another note: this is all within a test-set's throw of the NYT Midstate Headquarters.) Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu (or if you really really really have to, ab4@cunixc on bitnet) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 12:53:48 PDT From: JAJZ801@calstate.bitnet Subject: Fax Standards/specfications Can anybody direct me to where I can get the documents that specify the standards for group 3 FAX. Price and ordering information please. Also, any referrals to more lucid descriptions (books, articles) would be appreciated. Please excuse cross-postings of this request. Jeff Sicherman jajz801@calstate.bitnet [Moderator's Note: In a separate, personal posting to me, Jeff asked for the mailing address of any digest/mailing list which deals with FAX equipment, if there is such a thing. Bitnet does not get Usenet stuff, thus he cannot receive alt.fax. Is there any list he could subscribe to? PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Phone Databases Date: Fri Aug 11 18:17:47 1989 From: Alex Huppenthal Dear Moderator, I'm wondering if there is a way to obtain the phone listings that the telephone companies have. They are needed for qc testing of large database service systems. -Alex Communication Systems Research | This area available for witty 6045 Buffridge Tr. Dallas, Tx 75252 | comments UUCP: ..{texbell}!neisse!alex alex%neisse.UUCP@{texbell.swbt.com} [Moderator's Note: What do you mean, "the phone listings that the telephone companies have..."? If you mean an online directory, yes, some telcos have it available. But is that what you are seeking? What is the application you have in mind? PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 14:48:44 CDT From: Paul Fuqua Subject: Types of Service I'm moving from one apartment to another this weekend, and called my friendly Southwestern Bell office to arrange for the phone service to be moved. The amusing thing was that the representative offered me my choice of three basic services: unlimited, "economy" (charge-per-call over 25 calls), or two-party (!). This is within the Dallas city limits (although only by 100 yards), and I was and am surprised that two-party service is still offered, much less in an apartment built only three years ago. Are there other major cities still offering party-line service? Here's another question: how come the electric company can switch my service for only $7, while the phone company charges $60? Since all the wiring is in place, about all that's involved is a billing change. Paul Fuqua pf@csc.ti.com {smu,texsun,cs.utexas.edu,rice}!ti-csl!pf Texas Instruments Computer Science Center PO Box 655474 MS 238, Dallas, Texas 75265 ------------------------------ From: myerston@cts.sri.com Date: 11 Aug 89 08:12 PST Subject: Yuppies and Operators Organization: SRI Intl, Inc., Menlo Park, CA 94025 [(415)326-6200] My apologies to Douglas Scott Reuben and anyone else who may have gotten bent out of shape about my recent posting. My point was (and is) NOT that Reuben or anyone else should or should not dial as they desire, rather that the invitation to "Try ...." can cause difficulties for the Operators. Long Distance Operators are the original ACD SLAVES. The are not short and abrupt because they want to be but because their job depends on handling time, calls per hour and a litany of such measurements. An ironic twist is the recent posting pointing out that management replacements during the RBOC strike are nicer and friendlier than the normal operators. These same people would severly discipline a regular operator doing the same. ------------------------------ From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: The Way It Used To Be Date: 11 Aug 89 00:50:01 GMT Reply-To: Roy Smith Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) In zygot!john@apple.com (John Higdon) writes: > If you live in an area that still has functional electromechanical CO equip- > ment, do whatever it takes to wangle a tour before it's all gone forever. The British Science Museum (I hope I got the official name right) in London has a small stepper-driven exchange set up as an exhibit. They have about 20 phones in front of a panel of stepper switches (I'm sure I'm not using the right terminology; these are the ones that step up once per dial pulse and then step around once per pulse on the next digit). You can pick up a phone and watch it grab a stepper. As you dial, you can watch the stepper step in sync with the dial and when you finish 2 digits, another stepper is grabbed. When the answering phone hangs up and breaks the connection, the steppers go di-di-di-di-di-di-dit! back to the rest position. It is absolutely facinating to watch. If it wasn't for the fact that there was the rest of the museum to see, I probably would have spent half a day there. They also have one of the early (the first?) automated dial-the-time machines. The spoken digits and words were recorded optically on rotating glass disks. The proper combination of words was put together by mechanically switching to the proper tracks on the various disks. And you thought read-only optical disks were a new invention! -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu "The connector is the network" [Moderator's Note: The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago also has such an exhibit in their Telecommunications Exhibit Area. It is fun to watch. PT] ------------------------------ From: eli@chipcom.com Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 10:32:06 -0400 drea> Return-Path: spdcc!mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu!telecomlist-request > From: Andrew Boardman > Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin > > I dread the day that I read "Coin calls from this telephone are carried by > the US Sprint PublicFON service.")) Why do you dread Sprint more than any other long haul carrier? Don't all carriers have problems with starting charges if you let the phone ring or give a busy signal for a "very long time"? Which carriers are immune from such charges? If Sprint alone is screwing up billing because of "premature billing", this sounds like a good question for my pal at Sprint. I like to give him tough questions! [Moderator's Note: For one, AT&T has no problem with call supervision. They begin charging when the connection is actually established, and not after some pre-set period of time. You may occassionally listen to "The Larry King Show", a radio talk show late at night which is heard coast to coast. The announcer always gives a phone number to call if you want to talk on the air with Larry King, and his announcement is phrased thus, "...if we have a free line, you will get a ringing signal....let the phone *continue to ring* until it is your turn to speak with Larry....we will answer you a few seconds before you go on the air..." . Typically, you listen to ringing for 10-15 *minutes* -- sometimes half an hour -- while the callers ahead of you voice their opinions. Try that on a Sprint line sometime. Chances are your Sprint rep friend will tell you they do not have 'call supervision equipment' and cannot tell when the call actually starts. PT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Fiske Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Date: 11 Aug 89 18:52:40 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY In article , zygot!john@apple.com (John Higdon) writes: > In article , tanner@ki4pv.uucp > (Dr. T. Andrews) writes: > > ) ... green box ... tone to payphone > > Do payphones not use out-of-band signalling? It would seem to invite > > The insertion of money causes in-band signaling. It makes a little beep > that is muted so that you don't hear it. One beep per five cents. This > totals up on a display that the operator has in front of her (or on the > automatic coin collection equipment.) It is a trivial matter to imitate Not that long ago, operators had to be able to distinguish the beeps for various coins. Presumably, if you could throw nickels and dimes into the slot fast enough, the operator would lose track, and you could get your call put through for less than the correct toll. -- "ANGRY WOMEN BEAT UP SHOE SALESMAN Dave Fiske (davef@brspyr1.BRS.COM) WHO POSED AS GYNECOLOGIST" Home: David_A_Fiske@cup.portal.com Headline from Weekly World News CIS: 75415,163 GEnie: davef ------------------------------ From: John Cowan Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin Reply-To: John Cowan Organization: ESCC, New York City Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 17:34:15 GMT In article tanner@ki4pv.uucp (Dr. T. Andrews) writes: >Do payphones not use out-of-band signalling? It would seem to invite >abuse if they used in-band signalling, especially if someone were >inclined to carry a recording of money being dropped into the thing. What you describe is called a "red box", and generates three different tones: 5 cents (ding), 10 cents (ding ding), and 25 cents (blonng). More modern payphones perhaps use out-of-band signaling, but long ago and far away, a recording of those noises would serve quite well in deceiving the operator. Details suppressed to protect the guilty. -- Internet/Smail: cowan@marob.masa.com Dumb: uunet!hombre!marob!cowan Fidonet: JOHN COWAN of 1:107/711 Magpie: JOHN COWAN, (212) 420-0527 Charles li reis, nostre emperesdre magnes Set anz toz pleins at estet in Espagne. ------------------------------ From: Bill Cerny Subject: Re: AUTOVON Preemption Date: 11 Aug 89 12:59:24 GMT Organization: Little 3B1 on the Prairie, St. Marys, KS In a recent Telecom Digest article, wales@cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales) writes: [description of AUTOVON P,I,F,FO keys] > By pressing one of these keys before dialing a number -- and > assuming that your phone line had authorization to invoke that particu- > lar precedence -- the Autovon system would automatically disconnect any > call in progress of *lower* precedence in favor of your call. (I'm not > sure whether the disconnected party got any kind of notification of why > he had suddenly gotten cut off.) There is a one second preemption tone that is applied to your circuit at the time your circuit is robbed. This typically results in calling the AUTOVON operator and attempting the call again at a higher precedence. Preemption gets so bad during peak hours, some folks place 'Priority' precedence calls as a matter of habit. Sometimes it's hard to resist the temptation ... 8-) -- Bill Cerny bill@toto.uucp "I'm gone to San Diego in my mind." ------------------------------ From: Marvin Jones Subject: Re: DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View Date: 11 Aug 89 17:53:21 GMT Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA In article , wales@cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales) writes about musical relationships of DTMF frequencies. Perhaps the more musically useful Telecom tone is precise (digital) dial tone, which uses 350 and 440 Hz. The higher of these tones is US standard concert A (middle A). There have been many times I have been away from home, or other source of musical reference, and have picked up a phone to get an "A" to help tune a guitar or keyboard. Regards, Marvin Jones {pyramid, pixar, tekbspa}!optilink!jones Optilink Corp. ATT-net: 707-795-9444 X 206 1310 C Redwood Way CI$: 71320,3637 Petaluma, CA 94952 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 16:25:15 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Re: Info About 2600 Magazine Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science In article it was written: >Folks, > > Last I heard 2600 can be reached at: > > PO Box 752 > Middle Island, NY 11953-0752 > > Their BBS number is: (914) 725-4060. That particular BBS has been defunct for a year and a bit; there is however a bunch of BBS's associated with 2600. (Five others, I think.) If anyone is *really* interested I can dredge up the numbers; send me mail. (BTW, thanks everyone for the telecom tools information.) Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu (and if you really have to, ab4@cunixc on bitnet) ------------------------------ From: Mark Robert Smith Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage Date: 11 Aug 89 12:28:25 GMT Organization: Rutgers - The Police State of New Jersey In article bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: > I didn't say the union was not culpable, I just said I don't know that > they are. > How do you even know there was *any* sabotage? Because some phone > service got disrupted and the phone co blamed it on the strikers? > Maybe, maybe not. > -Barry Shein Well, I do know that there was *some* sabotage. A fiber cable was cut, with a hatchet, with the result that among other things, Rutgers was knocked off Internet for two days. I don't think that NJ Bell would use a hatchet - knowing that they'd have to fix it - if they wanted to make the unions look bad. Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #290 *****************************   Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 1:17:03 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #291 Message-ID: <8908120117.aa12060@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 12 Aug 89 01:14:45 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 291 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Re: The Way It Used To Be (Jonathan Krueger) Re: Telephone Service At Navajo Nation (Fred Goldstein) Re: Telephone Service At Navajo Nation (Mike Morris) Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in Digest (Scott Barman) Re: UPenn vs. Penn State (Mark Foster) Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV (Lars J. Poulsen) Re: Prophetic ROLM Ad (wing@social.dec.com) Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles (Michael H. Warfield) "1-234-5678" mystery number (Paul D. Anderson) [Moderator's Note: Watch for a special edition of the Digest in your mailbox sometime Saturday. Richard Tobier has provided a copy of his work, "Universal Wiring Plan", written during his tenure with Encore Computer. It is a lengthy document, with diagrams and charts. It will be transmitted in its entirety as a special unnumbered issue of the Digest today. You may want to print it out and keep it with other reference materials. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jonathan Krueger Subject: Re: The Way It Used To Be Date: 12 Aug 89 05:06:30 GMT Organization: DTIC Special Projects Office (DTIC-SPO), Alexandria VA zygot!john@apple.com (John Higdon) writes: >Something that every reader of this group should do is take a tour of a >local central office...[before the older technology is phased out] >you must see this equipment operate to appreciate how it used to >be. If you live in an area that still has functional electromechanical >CO equipment, do whatever it takes to wangle a tour before it's all >gone forever. I agree. I had the opportunity to see an old Centrex switching system shortly before it was decommissioned. And hear it. It made noises. Every connection caused a relay to make a satisfying click. As a demonstration of binomial distributions (average time to next click) it was intellectually satisfying. As a generator of low-frequency white noise it was aesthetically pleasing. It was a musical composition on the definite making and breaking of connections. And as the music responded to the ebb and flow of traffic patterns, it provided a metaphor for the rhythms of daily life, for individual decisions against a background of group behavior, and even for the occasional notable event: sometimes arcing would cause a visible spark. Altogether, kind of O'Henry's symphony of the city, the sound of humans but at a distance, the hum subsiding in the quiet of the night so that individual events and characters become distinguishable, then becoming lost again in the next day's activity. The ESS that replaced it stood mute, its fan noise constant and hypnotic regardless of the traffic, with nothing to affirm the dignity of the individual call, its place in the universe. Of course it was cheaper and more reliable and more flexible. But it served in silence. The old system had something to say about its users and its use. The new system had nothing to say about us, which was perhaps just as well. -- Jon ------------------------------ From: goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com Subject: Re: Telephone Service At Navajo Nation Date: 11 Aug 89 19:12:05 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Littleton MA USA In article , telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes... >In November, 1988, the Federal Communications Commission decided the time >had come for radio to improve rural phone service. To accomplish this, >the Commission established a Basic Exchange Telecommunications Radio Service >and allocated several frequency channels to it. Okay, you've whetted my appetite. What frequencies do these run on? No, I don't want to try and decode them, I just wonder what band they're on. (900 Mhz area? S-band microwave?) This (radio for local loops) is one of those "obvious" things that the FCC sat on for years, so I'm glad to see that there are finally frequencies allocated to it. fred ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 06:51:58 PDT From: Mike Morris Subject: Re: Telephone Service At Navajo Nation Com'on, Patrick. You describe Ultraphone, and give no pointers. How about a address or a phone number? You know that your text is going to hit thousands of readers, and somebody is going to want to follow up on it... No flame, just a very mild simmer... :) -- Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. [Moderator's Note: Okay, for Mike and Fred, and other interested parties, information on Ultraphone and its application in the Navajo Nation can be obtained from Navajo Communications Company. Headquarters: 602-871-5581 Business Office: 602-674-3441 PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 14:34:57 EDT From: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) Subject: Re: US Sprint Rep Responds to Comments in the Digest Reply-To: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) In article eli@chipcom.com writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 278, message 4 of 12 >I talked to my pal at US Sprint. he responded to the following 3 questions: >?? Any comment on the Port Authority / Grand Central FONcard shutdowns? > some netters complained that this was an evil thing to do, since > John Doe Just Off The Bus could not use his FONcard upon arriving > in NYC. > .. "The shutdown was not for all of Port Authority / Grand Central, it > was just for a few payphones that were causing the trouble. John Doe > is probably better off being prohibited from using the phone than if > he did use the phone and someone watched over his shoulder, stole his > FONcard number, and racked up thousands of calls on his bill." This is one of the reasons why I dropped Sprint in favor of AT&T. It is not the first time a telco decided what was in my best interest. When I used to live and do business in NYC and had to contact someone long distance, I ended up getting a card from NY Tel before returning the card to Sprint. What I thought was even funnier was that after I paid off the last bill I kept getting bills with a zero balance. After six months of it, I finally got through to their 800 number on the first try to remind them I changed LD companies and to stop sending me bills. This was a couple of years ago (started about six months after NY Tel sent out their "ballots" on Long Island), I hope they've improved their billing now! -- scott barman {gatech, emory}!dtscp1!scott ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 15:51:55 -0400 From: Mark Foster Subject: Re: UPenn vs. Penn State Organization: University of Pennsylvania >I called Pennsylvania's Directory Assistance and after waiting a minute or so, >asked for University of Penn's General Info number. >[Moderator's Note: Whether you are calling Penn State or the state pen, Aagh. The word play may be cute, but the name confusion isn't. University of Pennsylvania (Penn) is in Philadelphia, in the southeast corner of the state, Penn State is in the State College area: the geographic center of the state. Penn State is a state-run institution, University of Pennsylvania is private. ---- Mark Foster CIS Research Computing Univ. of Pennsylvania [Moderator's Note: Sorry about that; but I couldn't resist finding someplace to stick in the joke. PT] ------------------------------ From: Lars J Poulsen Subject: Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV Date: 11 Aug 89 18:45:46 GMT Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California In article nvuxr!deej@bellcore. bellcore.com (David Lewis) writes: >there is also the fact that in the majority of this country, both telcos >and cable companies have exclusive franchises (read: regulated >monopolies) in either the municipality or state. Unfortunately, an exclusive cable franchise does not always imply that the service is regulated. In Santa Barbara, the city and the county both signed exclusive franchise agreements with Cox Cable. The agreement gives exclusive rights to Cox, and sets technical standards for the service while requiring the municipal authority to review rates. Two years into the agreement, the FCC came out with a ruling that disallowed the regulatory oversight if the cable system was not in a monopoly position. The cable company promptly produced a study showing that the average household can receive 6.2 channels off the air, and thus there is no monopoly. At this point, the cable company sets rates without review, and they grant themselves waivers from the technical standards based on economic viability. Public and government access channels and the exclusivity of the franchise are about the only provisions that are upheld. I do not know of ANYONE here who can receive 6 channels off the air. To receive anything other than the local ABC affiliate would require a significant amount of rooftop gear; probably enough that a sattelite dish would be cheaper. The "local" outlets of the major networks are as follows (distances very approximate): 3 - KEYT Santa Barbara ABC - local 6 - KSBY San Luis Obispo NBC - 60 miles 12 - KCOY Santa Maria CBS - 45 miles 28 - KCET Los Angeles PBS - 120 miles 63 - KADY Oxnard Independent (Riklis) - 40 miles I would be happy to see the exclusivity clause go; then I could put up a pair of sattelite dishes and share the signal with my neighbors. I must admit that I am fairly satisfied with the programming that the cable company provides (though I'd like to get them to carry NASA Select during major space missions) but then I don't watch more than about an hour per month total. It just bugs me that they entered into a contract which was then turned on its head. Followups are unlikely to be relevant to be relevant to telecom. / Lars Poulsen (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !! ------------------------------ From: wing@social.dec.com Subject: Re: Prophetic ROLM Ad Date: 11 Aug 89 20:19:08 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation ->Sure enough, when I got into work on Tuesday, several extensions in the ->building, including mine, were making bizarre noises from the speakers in ->their bases: howls, fragments of various ringing tones, screeching noises, -> ->[Assorted Rolm problems described...] ->Just as I finished reading this article, _my_ Rolm-system extension, ->as well as several others nearby, started ringing continuously for ->no apparent reason. This has been happening several times a day for ->the last year, and Rolm is still unable to locate the problem ->in their switch. I suspect it is a design defect. Has anyone else ->on a Rolm PBX encountered this problem? Our whole building does it from time to time. The electronic extensions flash all their lights and they ring incessantly. The "flash-phones" ring too. After the ringing stops, we get "Error" on the display and a dead phone for a little while, then it starts acting like described above (howling, broken up ringing, etc...) Is there a company that makes a set that is compatible to Rolm's ETS-100A set? It is our understanding that Rolm does not make ETS-100's anymore. Ours are all, for lack of a better term, dying. We keep using "reconditioned" phones, but, this is not a long term solution. In 6 months I have has 12 phones. Both of the ETS-100 and ETS-100A variety. The Rolm serviceman has been here several times, but he seems to be fighting a losing battle. --> :) John <-- DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed above are strictly my own and not represented by my employer. ------------------------------ From: "Michael H. Warfield (Mike" Subject: Re: Tanks near Telephone Poles Date: 12 Aug 89 03:45:27 GMT Reply-To: "Michael H. Warfield (Mike" Organization: Harris/Lanier Network Knitting Circle In article claris!apple!netcom! onymouse@ames.arc.nasa.gov (John DeBert) writes: >in article , I said: >> A yellow cylinder contains compressed air and one that is silver with green >> at the top is nitrogen gas. Once or twice, I have seen helium cylinders >> (silver with orange) in place, perhaps because nothing else was available(?) >I wasn't sure if nitrogen cylinders also used green as green usually >marks oxygen cylinders. Yesterday, while at work, I checked. nitrogen >cylinders have beige paint on them, not green. While there are certain standards for tank markings, outside of some well establish colors there seems to be some variation when it comes to less dangerous or critical gasses. From my days in the broadcast industry I believe the dry nitrogen we used to pressurize our lines came in silver tanks with an orange top. Most of the time that is. There were exceptions (some solid silver tanks and I think I remember a shipment with blue tops). However, I do believe that SOLID green is reserved for MEDICAL oxygen while oxygen for welding is in solid orange cylinders. I have also seen tanks which had a colored band while the tops and bottoms were the same color (generally silver for those). I would seriously doubt anyone would pressurize a line with helium. The cost would be prohibitive and helium would bleed out of the line over time (helium is notorious for bleeding right through metal). Best source of finding out what's what would be to check in an AIRCO (welding gas supplier) catalog (used to have one around this joint somewhere :->) or another local welding supplier. --- Michael H. Warfield (The Mad Wizard) | gatech.edu!galbp!wittsend!mhw (404) 270-2123 / 270-2098 | mhw@wittsend.LBP.HARRIS.COM An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it! ------------------------------ From: "Paul D. Anderson" Subject: "1-234-5678" mystery number Date: 12 Aug 89 03:03:08 GMT Reply-To: "Paul D. Anderson" Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product" >>OK, gang, another mystery from the AT&T system of the late 1960s-early 1970s: >>Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked >>up the phone and dialed: >>1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 Here in Atlanta, 1-234-5678 is a valid long distance number, but it has been disconnected. 1-234-5679 and 1-234-5670 ring and ring so I presume that the exchange is valid. Dialing 234-5678 results in a 'You must dial 1 when calling long distance, please...'. But where it is, I'm not sure. paul -- Paul Anderson (w) (404) 841-4000 gatech!stiatl!pda (h) (404) 662-0799 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #291 *****************************   Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 2:01:39 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest Special Edition: Wiring Plan Message-ID: <8908120201.aa12649@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 12 Aug 89 02:00:33 CDT Special Edition: Wiring Plan Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Universal Wiring Plan (Richard Tobier) [Moderator's Note: My thanks to Mr. Tobier for making this information available to Digest readers. Please note this report contains *Form Feeds* (^L), and you should adjust your printer/terminal accordingly. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 11:10:46 EDT From: Richard Tobier Subject: Universal Wiring Plan In response to the following: >From: levitt@zorro9.fidonet.org (Ken Levitt) >Subject: RS-232 Standards for phone wire >I would interested in any proposed standards for passing RS-232 over 6 >wire phone connectors. If you or anyone else have this information, >would you please post it or send it directly to me. The following are standards that I developed for Encore Computer Corp. (F.K.A. Gould Inc., Computer Systems Div.). I hope this diagrams are useful to those on net. ENCORE COMPUTER CORPORATION Telecommunications Department Universal Wiring Plan ENCORE COMPUTER CORPORATION Telecommunications Department Universal Wiring Plan Connection Instructions The attached diagrams should assist in the installation of terminals to computer ports via the "ENCORE Universal Wiring Plan". Materials Necessary: 3 pr. 24 AWG Telephone wire DB-25 Rs-232 Connectors 6 wire modular telephone line cords, 7 ft, 14 ft, or 25 ft. (One end will be cut off. See diagram for end to save. Each end is different.) Punch Tool Refer to the "Universal Wiring Plan New Installation" Sheet. Your building has been wired to this specification. Most outlets where a telephone is present, also has the capability of supporting an asynchronous terminal. It is necessary to make cables which connect the terminals to the telephone jacks, and cables from the Data Backboard to the Computer Ports. In cases where there is more than one Computer Room, it may be necessary to cross connect in the Telco-Room from the Data Backboard to the appropriate Computer Tie Cable. Cross Connect all six wires from the data backboard run (cable run from the Terminal location) to the next available wires (pin positions) on the Computer Tie Cable Type 66M Block. The same 'pin positions' in the computer room will be used to connect the Computer Port Cable. Refer to the attached sheets for Cable Specifications. ENCORE COMPUTER CORPORATION Telecommunications Department Universal Wiring Plan Telephone Wire Color Code QUAD LINE CORD 3-Pair Tip/Ring MOD # ****** ********* ******* ******** ***** ---- White Wht/Grn T3 1 BLACK BLACK Wht/Org T2 2 RED RED Blu/Wht R1 3 GREEN GREEN Wht/Blu T1 4 YELLOW YELLOW Org/Wht R2 5 ---- BLUE Grn/Wht R3 6 T1 ----------------------O------------- | } Pair # 1 R1 ------------------O---+------------- | | T2 --------------O---+---+------------- | | | } Pair # 2 R2 --------------+---+---+---O--------- | | | | T3 ----------O---+---+---+---+--------- | | | | | } Pair # 3 R3 ----------+---+---+---+---+---O----- | | | | | | | | | | | | +-------------------------+ | T3 T2 R1 T1 R2 R3 | <-- Modular Phone Jack +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+ | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | <-- Modular Phone Plug +-------------------------+ Pins face up | | To Equipment The above conforms to Jack Wiring for USOC RJ11C 1-pair wiring, USOC RJ14C 2-pair wiring and USOC RJ25C 3-pair wiring. LEGEND: Wht/Blu White wire Blue dot Org/Wht Orange wire White dot Blu/Wht Blue wire White dot Wht/Grn White wire Green dot Wht/Org White wire Orange dot Grn/Wht Green wire White dot ENCORE COMPUTER CORPORATION Telecommunications Department Universal Wiring Plan Telephone Wire Color Code T1 ----------------------O------------- | } Pair # 1 R1 ------------------O---+------------- | | T2 --------------O---+---+------------- | | | } Pair # 2 R2 --------------+---+---+---O--------- | | | | T3 ----------O---+---+---+---+--------- | | | | | } Pair # 3 R3 ----------+---+---+---+---+---O----- | | | | | | T4 ------O---+---+---+---+---+---+----- | | | | | | | } Pair # 4 R4 ------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---O- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------------------------------+ | T4 T3 T2 R1 T1 R2 R3 R4 | <-- Modular Phone Jack +--------------------------------+ +--------------------------------+ | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | <-- Modular Phone Plug +--------------------------------+ Pins face up | | To Equipment LEGEND: Wht/Blu White wire Blue dot Wht/Grn White wire Green dot Blu/Wht Blue wire White dot Grn/Wht Green wire White dot Wht/Org White wire Orange dot Wht/Brn White wire Brown dot Org/Wht Orange wire White dot Brn/Wht Brown wire White dot Type 66M Telco Block Wire Assignments PAIR PIN # WIRE COLOR 1 1 WHITE/blue 2 BLUE/white 2 3 WHITE/orange 4 ORANGE/white 3 5 WHITE/green 6 GREEN/white 4 7 WHITE/brown 8 BROWN/white 5 9 WHITE/slate 10 SLATE/white 6 11 RED/blue 12 BLUE/red 7 13 RED/orange 14 ORANGE/red 8 15 RED/green 16 GREEN/red 9 17 RED/brown 18 BROWN/red 10 19 RED/slate 20 SLATE/red 11 21 BLACK/blue 22 BLUE/black 12 23 BLACK/orange 24 ORANGE/black 13 25 BLACK/green 26 GREEN/black 14 27 BLACK/brown 28 BROWN/black 15 29 BLACK/slate 30 SLATE/black 16 31 YELLOW/blue 32 BLUE/yellow 17 33 YELLOW/orange 34 ORANGE/yellow 18 35 YELLOW/green 36 GREEN/yellow 19 37 YELLOW/brown 38 BROWN/yellow 20 39 YELLOW/slate 40 SLATE/yellow 21 41 VIOLET/blue 42 BLUE/violet 22 43 VIOLET/orange 44 ORANGE/violet 23 45 VIOLET/green 46 GREEN/violet 24 47 VIOLET/brown 48 BROWN/violet 25 49 VIOLET/slate 50 SLATE/violet ENCORE COMPUTER CORPORATION Telecommunications Department Universal Wiring Plan TERMINAL TO COMPUTER PORT WALL PLUG TERMINAL RJ11 RS-232 MALE Modular pins face up ------------ -------------- |6 BLU | (Silver Satin Phone Cord)| BLU | |5 S/GND YEL |---------/ /-------------| 7 S/GND YEL | |4 TX GRN |--------/ /--------------| 2 TX GRN | |3 RX RED | | 3 RX RED | |2 DTR BLK | | 20 DTR BLK | |1 WHT | | WHT | ------------ -------------- DATA BACKBOARD TO COMPUTER PORT 66M BLOCK COMPUTER PUNCH DOWN EIA RS-232 -------------- --------------- | 1 TX W/b | | 3 TX W/b | | 2 RX B/w | | 2 RX B/w | | 3 DTR W/o | ( 3 pr. Phone Cable ) | 4 DTR W/o | | 4 S/GND O/w |-----------/ /---------| 7 S/GND O/w | | N/C W/g |----------/ /----------| 4-5-6-8 | | N/C G/w | | | -------------- --------------- | Tx & Rx crossed in | this cable. - - - - -+ Legend: W/b White wire with Blue tracer dot B/w Blue wire with White tracer dot W/o White wire with Orange tracer dot O/w Orange wire with White tracer dot W/g White wire with Green tracer dot G/w Green wire with White tracer dot CRT CPU 2 ------------------------ 3 3 ------------------------ 2 7 ------------------------ 7 20 ------------------------ 4 ---+ 5 ---+ 6 ---+ 8 ---+ ENCORE COMPUTER CORPORATION Telecommunications Department Universal Wiring Plan TERMINAL TO COMPUTER PORT (Hardware Flow) CRT to RJ45 WALL PLUG CRT RJ45 RS-232 MALE Modular pins face up ------------ -------------- |8 CTS SLT | | 5 CTS SLT | |7 DSR BRN | (Silver Satin Phone Cord)| 6 DSR BRN | |6 S/GND YEL |---------/ /-------------| 7 S/GND YEL | |5 TX GRN |--------/ /--------------| 2 TX GRN | |4 RX RED | | 3 RX RED | |3 DTR BLK | | 20 DTR BLK | |2 RTS ORG | | 4 RTS ORG | |1 BLU | | BLU | ------------ -------------- DATA BACKBOARD TO COMPUTER PORT 66M BLOCK COMPUTER PUNCH DOWN RS-232 FEMALE --------------- ---------------- | 1 TX W/bl | | 3 RX W/bl | | 2 RX Bl/w | | 2 TX Bl/w | | 3 DTR W/o | ( 4 pr. Phone Cable ) | 5 CTS W/o | | 4 S/GND O/w |-----------/ /---------| 7 S/GND O/w | | 5 RTS W/g |----------/ /----------| 6 DSR W/g | | 6 DSR G/w | | 4 RTS--+ G/w | | 7 N/C W/br | | | W/Br | | 8 CTS Br/w | | 20 DTR | Br/w | --------------- | 8 DCD--+ | --------------- LEGEND: W/bl White wire with Blue tracer dot Bl/w Blue wire with White tracer dot W/o White wire with Orange tracer dot O/w Orange wire with White tracer dot W/g White wire with Green tracer dot G/w Green wire with White tracer dot W/br White wire with Brown tracer dot Br/w Brown wire with White tracer dot CPU CRT 2 ------------------------ 3 3 ------------------------ 2 4 ------------------------ 6 5 ------------------------ 20 +-- 6 ------------------------ 4 | 7 ------------------------ 7 +-- 8 20 ------------------------ 5 ENCORE COMPUTER CORPORATION Telecommunications Department Universal Wiring Plan NEC SPINWRITER CABLE FOR PRINTER CONNECTION 7700 & 8800 PRINTER UNIX RS-232 FEMALE 7700 RS-232 FEMALE RS-232 MALE 8800 2 ------------------------ 3 3 ------------------------ 2 4 ------------------------ 6 -- 8 5 ------------------------ 19 8 -- 6 ------------------------ 4 7 ------------------------ 7 20 ------------------------ 5 Universal Wiring Plan - New Installation DEFINITIONS: * Provides Voice and Data capabilities to each location via Modular Plug and Jack. * Telco Industry Standard Wire and Connectors. * Easy Data connections via cross-connects at Data Backboards. * Each Data Run numbered same as Voice Run. REQUIREMENTS: * Wall Jacks - Duplex 6 Conductor Top (Right) VOICE - Wire as required by the phone system Bottom (Left) DATA - Wired as USOC RJ25C 3- pair termination * Two 3-pair Copper station wire to each Universal Location. * Air Plenum - Teflon - only as required by local, or National Electric Code Section 800-3d. * Voice and Data Wire Run Number to be the same for each Universal Wire location. * Wire Run Number to be identified on face of each jack. * Wire Runs to terminate on 66M type blocks with 89B Brackets in telco room. Data Backboard to be separate from Voice Backboard. Data Runs to be numbered on 66M Blocks and all 6 wires are to be terminated. Richard Tobier Telecommunications Analyst Encore Computer Corp. 6901 W. Sunrise Blvd. Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 33313 voice (305) 797-5713 fax (305) 797-5666 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special Edition: Wiring Plan *****************************   Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 0:07:15 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #292 Message-ID: <8908130007.aa32347@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 13 Aug 1989 00:00:56 CST Volume 9 : Issue 292 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson 10xxx codes Revisited (Blake Farenthold) Transmission Level and loop Impedance (Larry Lippman) Operator Service (Gabe M. Wiener) Junk Fax: An Urban Legend (Steve Elias) Does Strike Generate Good PR for Telco? (David Gast) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 00:46:52 CST From: Blake Farenthold Subject: 10xxx codes revisited Patrick- You asked that someone repost the 10xxx codes list.. below is the list as I receved it from thr digets several months ago. I've made no changes so it may be a little out of date. The reader needing it wanted to identify the carriers accessable through a couple of 10xxx codes in his area.. all he needs to do is dial 10xxx-1-700-555-xxxx (4141 always works for me) CS-ID #45.telcom/net@pro-party Date: 1 Mar 88 21:21:12 GMT From: [info-telcom] de@moscom.UUCP (Dave Esan) Subject: Re: 10xxx codes -- list? In article <880227113646.2480a904@Csa5.LBL.Gov> super@CSA5.LBL.GOV (Michael Helm) writes: > >Anyone have a cross-reference of what 10xxx code stands for what >long-distance carrier? > I got this from the ongoing anti-Sprint discussion in misc.consumers. I offer no guarentees of reliability or accuracy. 001 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 002 AmeriCall LDC 003 RCI Corporation 007 Tel America 011 Metromedia Long Distance 012 Charter Corporation (Tri-J) 013 Access Services 021 Mercury 022 MCI Telecommunications 023 Texnet 024 Petricca Communications Systems 028 Texnet 030 Valu-Line of Wichita Falls 031 Teltec Saving Communications 033 US Sprint 036 Long Distance Savers 039 Electronic Office Centers of America (EO/Tech) 042 First Phone 044 Allnet Communication Services (LDX, Lexitel) 053 American Network (Starnet) 056 American Satellite 057 Long Distance Satellite 059 COMNET 060 Valu-Line of West Texas 063 COMNET 069 V/COM 070 National Telephone Exchange 080 AMTEL Systems 084 Long Distance Service (LDS) 085 WesTel 088 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 089 Telephone Systems 090 WesTel 093 Rainbow Communications 095 Southwest Communications 099 AmeriCall 122 RCA Global Communications 137 All America Cables and Radio (ITT) 142 First Phone 146 ARGO Communications 188 Satellite Business Systems 201 PhoneNet 202 ExecuLines 203 Cypress Telecommunications (Cytel) 204 United Telephone Long Distance 206 United Telephone Long Distance 211 RCI 212 Call US 213 Long Distance Telephone Savers 214 Tyler Telecom 215 Star Tel of Abilene 217 Call US 219 Call USA 220 Western Union Telegraph 222 MCI Telecommunications (SBS) 223 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 224 American Communications 227 ATH Communications (Call America) 229 Bay Communications 232 Superior Telecom 233 Delta Communications 234 AC Teleconnect (Alternative Communication) 237 Inter-Comm Telephone 239 Woof Communications (ACT) 241 American Long Lines 242 Choice Information Systems 244 Automated Communications 245 Taconic Long Distance Service 250 Dial-Net 252 Long Distance/USA 253 Litel Telecommunications 255 All-State Communications 256 American Sharecom 260 Advanced Communications Systems 263 Com Systems (Sun Dial Communications) 268 Compute-A-Call 276 CP National (American Network, Starnet) 284 American Telenet 286 Clark Telecommunications 287 ATS Communications 288 AT&T Communications 298 Thriftline 302 Austin Bestline 303 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 311 SaveNet (American Network, Starnet) 318 Long Distance Savers 321 Southland Systems 322 American Sharecom 324 First Communication 331 Texustel 333 US Sprint 336 Florida Digital Network 338 Midco Communications 339 Communication Cable Laying 343 Communication Cable Laying 345 AC Teleconnect (Alternative Communication) 350 Dial-Net 355 US Link 357 Manitowoc Long Distance Service 362 Electronic Office Centers of America (EO/Tech) 363 Tel-Toll (Econ-O-Dial of Bishop) 369 American Satellite 373 Econo-Line Waco 375 Wertern Union Telegraph 385 The Switchboard 393 Execulines of Florida 400 American Sharecom 404 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 412 Penn Telecom 428 Inter-Comm Telephone 432 Lightcall 435 Call-USA 436 Indiana Switch 440 Tex-Net 441 Escondido Telephone 442 First Phone 444 Allnet Communication Services (LDX, Lexitel) 455 Telecom Long Distance 456 ARGO Communications 462 American Network Services 464 Houston Network 465 Intelco 466 International Office Networks 469 GMW 472 Hal-Rad Communications 480 Chico Telecom (Call America) 488 United States Transmission Systems (ITT) 505 San Marcos Long Distance 515 Burlington Telephone 529 Southern Oregon Long Distance 532 Long Distance America 533 Long Distance Discount 536 Long Distance Management 550 Valu-Line of Alexandria 551 Pittsburg Communication Systems 552 First Phone 555 TeleSphere Networks 566 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 567 Advanced Marketing Services (Dial Anywhere) 579 Lintel System (Lincoln Telephone LD) 590 Wisconsin Telecommunications Tech 599 Texas Long Distance Conroe 601 Discount Communications Services 606 Biz Tel Long Distance Telephone 622 Metro America Communications 634 Econo-Line Midland 646 Contact America 654 Cincinnati Bell Long Distance 655 Ken-Tel Service 660 Tex-Net 666 Southwest Communications 675 Network Services 680 Midwest Telephone Service 682 Ashland Call America 684 Nacogdoches Telecommunications 687 NTS Communications 700 Tel-America 704 Inter-Exchange Communications 707 Telvue 709 Tel-America 717 Pass Word 726 Procom 727 Conroe-Comtel 735 Marinette-Menominee Lds 737 National Telecommunications 741 ClayDesta 742 Phone America of Carolina 743 Peninsula Long Distance Service 747 Standard Informations Services 755 Sears Communication 757 Pace Long Distance Service 759 Telenet Communication (US Sprint) 760 American Satellite 766 Yavapai Telephone Exchange 771 Telesystems 777 US Sprint 785 Olympia Telecom 786 Shared Use Network Service 787 Star Tel of Abilene 788 ASCI's Telepone Express Network 789 Microtel 792 Southwest Communications 800 Satelco 801 MidAmerican LD (Republic) 827 TCS Network Services 833 Business Telecom 839 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 847 VIP Connections 850 TK Communications 852 Telecommunicatons Systems 859 Valu-Line of Longview 866 Alascom 872 Telecommunications Services 874 Tri-Tel Communications 879 Thriftycall (Lintel Systems) 881 Coastal Telephone 882 Tuck Data Communications 883 TTI Midland-Odessa 884 TTI Midland-Odessa 885 The CommuniGroup 888 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 895 Texas on Line 897 Leslie Hammond (Phone America) 898 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 910 Montgomery Telamarketing Communication 915 Tele Tech 933 North American Communications 936 Rainbow Commuinications 937 Access Long Distance 938 Access Long Distance 951 Transamerica Telecommunications 955 United Communications 960 Access Plus 963 Tenex Communications 969 Dial-Net 985 America Calling 986 MCI Telecommunications (SBS) 987 ClayDesta Communications 988 Western Union Telegraph 991 Access Long Distance -- rochester \ David Esan | moscom ! de ritcv/ UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake@nosc.mil INET: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | CIS: 70070,521 | Source: TCX023 P.O. Box 17442 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD | GEnie: BLAKE San Antonio, TX 78217 | BBS: 512/829-1027 | Delphi: BLAKE [Moderator's Note: Thank you very much for providing this listing. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Transmission Level and Loop Impedance Date: 12 Aug 89 23:38:45 EDT (Sat) From: Larry Lippman In article Torsten Dahlkvist writes: > Oh, by the way, the "dB" levels are of course weighted against the old > traditional "1 mW into 600 Ohms" standard, giving a reference voltage > of 0.7746 V. One should exercise caution when discussing and comparing "dB" levels as applied to telecommunication circuits. "dB" may be used to denote comparisons between POWER or VOLTAGE, but the "dB" is not an absolute unit. dB is often referred to as a _relative_ power level with respect to a reference TLP (Transmission Level Point), with say, 0 TLP being 1 milliwatt of signal. What you are really referring to is the "dBm", which is an absolute unit of POWER based upon a power input of 1 milliwatt into an impedance of 600 ohms. It is important to understand that, in general, telecommunication transmission is concerned with POWER levels and not voltage levels, and that to think in terms of "volts" rather than watts (i.e., dBm) is misleading with respect to many of the issues involved. Telecommunication engineering is largely concerned with speaking and listening LEVEL, which is a function of POWER. As a trite, but important example, one rates stereo amplifier output level in watts, not volts! > Does anybody know why the 600 Ohm standard line impedance has been replaced > by "900 Ohm // 30 nF" for modern phones? 900 ohms is probably a more realistic compromise impedance for a subscriber loop than 600 ohms. The impedance of a subscriber telephone loop terminated with a telephone set is a highly complex function of frequency, cable design characteristics and loop length. A typical non-loaded loop of 10 kft in length will have an impedance whose resistive component varies between say, 300 and 1,200 ohms, and whose corresponding reactive component varies between j300 and -j600 ohms. All of these terms vary in a highly non-linear manner over a frequency of 300 to 3,000 Hz. A typical loaded loop of say, 25 kft, shows even more variation in impedance over 300 to 3,000 Hz, with the resistive component varying between 300 and 1800 ohms, and with the reactive component varying between -j300 and -j900 ohms. It is important to understand that the impedance of a subscriber loop is a _characteristic_ impedance, is largely beyond control, and varies greatly depending upon frequency. To be practicable, overall transmission characteristics are usually specified at a _single_ compromise impedance (i.e., the 900 ohms) and at a given frequency (often 1,000 Hz). One of the most critical areas involving loop impedance is when a 4-wire circuit is terminated in a CO to a 2-wire loop. Since a 4-wire/2-wire hybrid requires a balance network approximating the 2-wire impedance, a "compromise" network of a fixed 900 ohms (plus adjustable "build-out" capacitance) is usually used. If the transmission characterics are critical, an equalizer is used to flatten out the transmission loss versus frequency. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 23:48:09 EDT From: Gabe M Wiener Subject: Operator Service Organization: Columbia University In New York City, I can dial 0 for a New York Tel operator, or 00 for a long distance operator. This works both on ESS and on non-ESS exchanges. However, up at my weekend house in NW Connecticut, dialing 0 or 00 brings up the SNET operator. Now my exchange is definitely ESS (I have call waiting, 3-way calling, etc) though 10XXX codes do _not_ work. Shouldn't 00 bring up the AT&T operator directly? Even on ESS and even on non Equal Access in NYC, the 00 brings up an AT&T operator. Why is SNET any different? Have they not completely separated from AT&T? -G P.S. What is the purpose of the "beep" you hear right before you reach the operator? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 00:07:37 EDT From: Steve Elias Subject: Junk Fax: urban legend? Reply-To: eli@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) In article <132@ssc.UUCP> tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes: > > >I just can't BELIEVE all the stuff I am reading in print media about >Junk Fax. Last year it was computer viruses, now it is the spectre of >some demon-dialing monster taking over and using all your expensive paper. Sure enough, the media is in an uproar about this "issue". and dipshit politicians who don't know fax from phone sex will probably be involved soon. >Is this really a problem? I think not. I have been trying to track down >anyone who has personally experienced this as an ongoing problem, and the >trail is starting to look like the typical "urban legend". >The stories I keep seeing in the media tell these alledged horrors of >how someone had a really important message to send, but the machine was >'all tied up' by some junk fax coming through, as though they were >powerless to reach over and momentarily unplug the modular phone cord >so they could send their fax! There's no problem if the machine is attended... but what if someone sends endless fax overnight? >As I understand the new laws that are being passed, if I want to send >a 40 second fax to someone in one of 'those' states, I must first make >a 3 minute phone call to get permission! A few pages of fax is nothing to worry about, since most senders list their phone numbers at the top of the fax. A malicious PC-fax board user could cause a far more trouble -- sending endless fax files which use up ALL your fax paper and tie up lines. It would be easy to catch the twit originating such messages, but there probably does have to be a law against endless-fax. Perhaps current telecom law covers such an act already... -- ...... Steve Elias (eli@spdcc.com);(6178591389);(6178906844) {} /* */ [Moderator's Note: Thanks for sharing this item, which originally appeared in the comp.dcom.modems and comp.fax news groups. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 14:52:56 -0700 From: David Gast Subject: Does Strike Generate Good PR for Telecos? > From: myerston@cts.sri.com > difficulties for the Operators. Long Distance Operators are the > original ACD SLAVES. The are not short and abrupt because they want > to be but because their job depends on handling time, calls per hour > and a litany of such measurements. An ironic twist is the recent > posting pointing out that management replacements during the RBOC > strike are nicer and friendlier than the normal operators. These > same people would severly discipline a regular operator doing the > same. It's great PR. First by spending more time you can make the wait longer, and thus blame the union more. Second by being extra nice you caconvince the public that the operators are mean, nasty and unfriendly. Never mind that company policy is what makes the operators so mean, nasty, and unfriendly in the first place. Note: I am not syaing that operators are in fact mean, nasty, and unfriendly. I am merely pointing out an excellent :-( PR ploy. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #292 *****************************   Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 0:04:23 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #293 Message-ID: <8908140004.aa16961@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 14 Aug 89 00:00:28 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 293 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson SNET Operations in Connecticut (Jon Solomon) Modular Wiring Scheme for RS232 (Smitty) Welcome to Net Exchange Readers (TELECOM Moderator) Cable Pressurization (Larry Lippman) Re: Crosstalk Problem (Dave Levenson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 02:21:35 EDT From: jsol@bu-it.bu.edu Subject: SNET Operations in Connecticut They tend to do what they want, and what they can get away with. They are heavily intertwined with the legislature, such that local calling to Hartford has suddenly become popular. You can now call into from the Bradley Airport to Middletown, CT with only the use of one person's call forwarding in Hartford. My dad in West Haven has a New Haven exchange number, flat rate, for his business, that's something we don't have here. Basically if the toll tandem in your area doesn't support Equal Access (and for much of the state that is true), then you don't get 00. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if SNET is refusing to convert their #1 ESS's to #1A or #5 so they can implement this. Right now there is no room in the ESS1 address space for *any* *more* *coding* *regardless* of what it is they are coding for. Cambridge, MA had a #1 until just recently and they removed some code from the address space so they could add equal access. SNET was the first company to go all dial (they even supported the Woodbury Telephone Company and NY TEL (for Greenwich) to go dial just so they could say they were the first state with dial service universally. They paid for it by not being able to retire the step machines until a very long while into the ESS situation, and they bought barely enough equipment to support the ESS needs. They introduced ESS in my area by providing a new exchange for it and allowing people to change their number to it for a fee (of course). Those switches were highly experimental, and I actually crashed one of them without doing much. There are two "states" in Connecticut for telephone service. In Hartford, New Haven, New London, Bridgeport, Stratford (in fact the whole area near I-95 heading from New Haven to New York), and surrounding towns all have Equal Access (I think). I know SPRINT and MCI have access points in Hartford, and I know I dialed 950-1042 to get First Phone from a Newington pay phone, and 950-0777 also worked. Whether or not they have Equal Access by now is still a mystery to me. Newington runs a ess 2B switch (John Covert, correct me if I am really talking about a 2A -- I can never remember which of them are a local switch and which are a toll tandem). This switch is partly digital and partly analog. You hear loud clunks when you connect, but I digress. Mainly the thing stopping SNET from providing Equal Access besides the tariff (which they aren't doing diddly to achieve, and neither is SPRINT and MCI, they just don't think CT is worth it financially). They may have equal access and they may not, I just don't know. On the other hand, places like Canton, Simsbury, Enfield, Winsted, Columbia, Norwich (maybe), and all those other still-step or newly-converted-to-DMS or something exchanges will never have equal access. These towns are so small that they don't fill a prefix. I know of one prefix, 203-684 (Stafford Springs) which is fairly full (serves several towns), is still step by step, and doesn't have equal access. If you travel along i-84 to Boston from Hartford, you go Hartford, Rockville (203-871,2,5), Willimantic (there's a rest stop there now) Stafford Springs, then the Mass. border (Sturbridge, just converted to DMS or ESS5). If you get off at the very last exit (Union, CT) before the Mass border, and travel north, you will be in (413). The neat thing about that area is that it touches 3 area codes. Neither Mass. area code is local to 684. For years 684 was its own local calling area, and they dialed 4-digits to get each party. Now they are local to Rockville and Rockville is local to Stafford Springs. The summation of all this jibberish and reminiscing about CT is that 203-684 won't be converted for some time, and when they do convert it will likely be *after* the Willimantic toll center goes equal access, so they will have it. It's the Toll Centers that have to be converted. The Willimantic tandem probably still crossbar. The Hartford tandem is brand new. The New Haven tandem is still crossbar. You can hear the in-band signalling as the call is placed. Oh yeah, I just remembered something; the Waterbury toll tandem and local switching machine is now an ESS 5 (a BIG one). Watertown has 8 prefixes. That's a large town in CT. You judge. I don't even know where the ATT point of presence is. I think it's in Hartford. Exchanges like New Haven and Hartford serve several communities. New Haven serves Westville, Woodbridge, Hamden, New Haven proper, East Haven, West Haven, and Orange. All these areas have seperate switching centers with no more than 10 prefixes each (most have 3 or 4), and they have the same local calling area. Anyway, hope this answers some of the questions. I know something about Connecticut Phone Politics, but not everything :-(. --jsol ------------------------------ Subject: Modular Wiring Scheme for RS232 Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 13:46:03 PDT From: Smitty While Richard Tobier's RS232 scheme is clearly well-thought out, it doesn't take advantage of the standard telephone modular wiring scheme in which ALL modular cables have a built in "flip", so that in a 6-conductor flat cable, if the pins on the plugs are numbered 1-6, then the connections between the two plugs is 1-6 2-5 3-4 4-3 6-5. By taking advantage of this "flip", one can make ALL modular cables effectively into "null modems" and at the same time prevent potential terminal damage if a terminal is inadvertently plugged into a real telephone jack. This means that ANY two devices can be connected by a standard modular cable and "talk" to each other. Here is the basic scheme which is used in many places: A. From DTE (terminals, printers, and computers, etc.) to modular jack: (the numbers in the first column are the positions in the modular jack) 1 DTR (data terminal ready) (DB25: 20) 2 TD (transmitted data) (DB25: 2) 3 signal ground (3 and 4 are connected together wherever they appear) 4 signal ground (DB25: 7) 5 RD (received data) (DB25: 3) 6 DSR and DCD (connected together) (DB25: 6 and 8) CTS and RTS are connected but don't appear at the jack (DB25 4 and 5) B. From DCE (modems (and a few exceptional "brain-damaged" terminals and printers which are wired like modems) to modular jack (the numbers in the first column are the positions in the modular jack): 1 DSR (data set ready) (DB25: 6) 2 RD (received data) (DB25: 3) 3 signal ground (3 and 4 are connected together wherever they appear) 4 signal ground (DB25 7) 5 TD (transmitted data) (DB25 2) 6 DTR (DB25: 20) CTS and RTS are connected but don't appear at the jack (DB25 4 and 5) There are many variants, that work well, on the above. The key point is that if ANY two devices are connected together with a standard 6 conductor modular cable (which, of course, has the built-in "flip") then they can talk to each other. Also, since 3 and 4 are connected together, if this assembly is plugged into an ordinary single-line telephone jack, it simply shorts the telephone line (3 and 4 are connected to red and green, which is where a single-line appears) and puts no voltage on the RS232 connection. To make this work, any two female jacks which are connected, must also have the same "flip" described above (this means that the total number of flips between any two connected devices is odd, and this gives the desired "null modem" effect). It's very, very convenient, for testing, etc) to be able to connect two terminals together and have them talk (in full-duplex, of course), etc. One can make convenient patch-panels using this scheme. Of course, with the advent of terminal-servers using ethernets, which do all of the above and much more, the necessity for this kind of thing is going away rapidly (Thank God!). smitty ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 13:38:00 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Welcome to Net Exchange Readers I am pleased to announce that Telenet Communications Corp. is now making each issue of TELECOM Digest available to users of their Net Exchange BBS. The Net Exchange is their on-line information service for subscribers to PC Pursuit, which of course is Telenet's evening/overnight/weekend network service package for modem users. The Net Exchange is reachable free of charge through the Telenet Network by subscribers to PC Pursuit. There is no charge to use Net Exchange or read TELECOM Digest via that location. Users would follow the instructions given by Telenet, which in summary are (1) call into the local Telenet switch in your community; (2) request connection *on a collect basis* to them (@C PURSUIT); (3) log into Net Exchange in the normal way; (4) read files section 5, which is now the location for each day's issues of this Digest. No direct response to us is possible from that location at present. Users who wish to write the Digest must either do so from a Unix mail site of their choice, writing to 'telecom@eecs.nwu.edu' or 'telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu'; or via a Bitnet site writing to 'telecom@nuacca.bitnet'. All three addresses terminate here in Evanston at my office. An alternative address for Fidonet sites is as follows: Write to user: UUCP Fido Address: 1:16/390 The first line of text MUST say: "To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu" The second line of text MUST be blank. And unlike Fido, where carriage returns are not required (and frequently not desired in the body of the message), either hard or soft carriage returns are required in the text messages sent through this gateway to us. I appreciate Telenet's interest in TELECOM Digest, and the assistance given by David Purks, System Administrator for the Net Exchange in making our little Digest available to readers there. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Subject: Cable Pressurization Date: 13 Aug 89 10:29:08 EDT (Sun) From: Larry Lippman > I've seen compressed gas cylynders near poles and I've always wondered what > purpose they are used for? Could anyone shed some light on this? The compressed gas cylinders contain dry nitrogen, and are used as a source of gas to purge a cable of moisture following construction or repair work. Such nitrogen cylinders are not used as a permanent source of pressurization, but only as a temporary source. Pressurized cables are normally fed with compressed air whose moisture content has been removed by an air dryer. The distribution apparatus for cable pressure apparatus is usually located in the central office or in repeater huts and manholes for say, the L5 coaxial cable system. The distribution apparatus contains an array of needle valves and flowmeters to monitor the flow rate to each individual cable. The effectiveness of pressurization is directly measured through pressure sensors located at certain strategic points in the outside cable plant area. The pressure sensors transmit data (usually just pressure okay/not-okay) to a pressurization alarm system located in the CO. Some cable pressurization sensors are clever in that they "borrow" a regular subscriber pair and signal the pressure sensor output by placing a balanced ground of say, 200,000 ohms across the subscriber loop (which will not interfere with normal telephone service). While virtually all toll cables have pressurization, by no means is pressurization found on all exchange area cable. Pressurization is only used on major exchange area cables, and those combined toll/exchange area cables which carry N carrier (still around!), T carrier and wideband data circuits. It is important to understand that polyethylene insulated cable (PIC) is still susceptible to the effects of moisture, although the primary effects are only noticed at frequencies above 100 kHz. The presence of moisture attentuates higher frequency signals and increases conductor capacitance and conductance to ground. When pressurized cables pass through cross connection points that are exposed to atmosphere, a "pressure dam" is made using an epoxy sealing compound and a pneumatic tube continues the pressurization to the next section of cable. Pulp-insulated (i.e., paper) cable is still used, and opening such a cable on hot, humid day will cause the cable to suck up moisture from the air like a sponge, while transmission quality at high frequencies sinks like a lead balloon. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Crosstalk Problem Date: 12 Aug 89 20:36:36 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , siegman@sierra.stanford. edu (Anthony E. Siegman) writes: > I have a crosstalk problem between my two residential lines, and would > appreciate suggestions for alleviating same. ... > Situation: Two residential lines coming into my house -- an old > installation, no conduit, the incoming service is just a lead-sheathed > bundle of 4 wires coming under the street and up out of the ground at > my outside utility box (can't add a 3rd line for my modem!). ... > weather proof wires under eaves), and also as a four-wire cable (NOT > two twisted pairs, at least I don't believe so, just 4 colored wires) The problem is that the two lines run parallel in a non-twisted cable. Twisted pairs are used to reduce electromagnetic coupling between the circuits. Four-wire station quad is not intended for use in carying two lines, though it's often done without problems for short runs. Perhaps you can use the existing quad as a drag line to help pull through the twisted pair that will replace it! -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #293 *****************************   Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 0:56:16 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #294 Message-ID: <8908140056.aa17404@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 14 Aug 89 00:50:49 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 294 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Touring the Central Office (Larry Lippman) Call Progress Signals Needed (Dan Berry) Buffalo, Texas (Carl Moore) Sprint Bashing Should Stop! (Rick Adams) Re: AT&T Manuals Wanted (Michael T. Veach) Re: AT&T Manuals Wanted (Dave Levenson) Re: Toll Stations...One More Time! (Jim Gottlieb) Re: More About NJ Sabatoge (Stan M. Krieger) Re: Where Can I Find a Complete List of Access Codes? (Jim Gottlieb) Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV (Dave Levenson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Touring the Central Office Date: 13 Aug 89 10:50:21 EDT (Sun) From: Larry Lippman In article john@zygot.uucp writes: > Something that every reader of this group should do is take a tour of a > local central office. I would kill for that opportunity now with all > the advances in the past few years such as COSMOS, electronic > switching, etc. But I never will forget the several times I toured > local offices, both officially (with a public tour) and unofficially > (with a friend who was a supervisor in the office). It is becoming extremely difficult for even an organized group to tour a central office in any BOC area. BOC's are particularly paranoid (perhaps rightfully so) about outside people being in any central office. There is virtually zero chance of any individual being afforded a tour of a central office, unless it is, ahem, an "unauthorized" tour courtesy of a friend (who may do so with considerable risk to their job). Independent operating telephone companies may be much more accomodating, however. Some independent telephone companies even encourage customers to "see their wares". As an example, the closet independent telephone company in my area, Sanborn Telephone Co. (part of Iroquois Telephone, which is part of the Continental System) has a large window in their business office which looks out into the switchroom. However, Sanborn is a rather "small town" area with well under 4,000 telephone subscribers. When's the last time you could pay your telephone bill and watch the switchgear at the same time? :-) > There was a room with a bunch of little odometer-like counters, > thousands of them. While I was standing there, suddenly the lights went > out, there was a flash, and then the lights came back on. They actually > photographed the dials for traffic studies. For many years photographing message registers were the only way to BILL subscribers for message rate service. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 18:14:22 MDT From: userDBUG@ualtamts.BITNET (Dan Berry) Subject: Call Progress Signals Needed Organization: University of Alberta (MTS) I was interested in finding out the tone plans for the typical phone system's call progress signals, but I can't seem to be able to find them in any of my books! You know, the frequencies for a dial tone, busy signal, ringing and the rest of them. From someone else that I've talked to, they made mention that only some four frequencies were used to get some 20+ signals. dB's and timing too, S.V.P. Would anyone out there happen to be able to help me, please? It's for a practical joke I want to play on a friend. If you could just Email me the listings, then I could compile them and summarize if anyone else would like... +-----------------------------------+ DAN BERRY ! "Violence is the last ! University of Alberta ! refuge of an incompetent." ! Computing Systems +-----------------------------------+ (Network and DataCom) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 1:23:21 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Buffalo, Texas It has come to my attention that there are 2 widely-separated phone exchange areas in Texas which have the same place name (Buffalo). One corresponds to the post office Buffalo 75831, and the other is a suburb of Houston. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 10:52:43 -0400 From: Rick Adams Subject: Sprint Bashing Should Stop! > Chances are your Sprint rep friend will tell you they do not have 'call > supervision equipment' and cannot tell when the call actually starts. PT] Sprint claims that they have call supervision equipment in all areas that offer equal access. Why the continuing Sprint bashing? They aren't nearly as half-assed as you seem determined to present them. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 10:28:42 EDT From: Michael T Veach Subject: Re: AT&T Manuals Wanted Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories >Does anyone know of a source for AT&T manuals? The general public may order AT&T manuals thru: AT&T Customer Information Center (CIC) Attn: Customer Service Representative P.O.Box 19901 Indianapolis, IN 46219 U.S.A. (800) 432-6600 (USA) (800) 255-1242 (Canada) (317) 352-8557 (Outside USA & Canada) A few manuals have restricted distribution but most are unrestricted. Most manuals are paperback or loose-leaf, all are well done. Be aware that many manuals are at least $100 (due to limited press run). Major credit cards accepted for phone orders. Check or money order made payable to AT&T for mail orders. You MUST have the select code for what you are ordering. Usually a 6 digit number of the form XXX-XXX. I'll try to locate a catalog or at least a list of selected select codes that may be of interest to readers of this newsgroup. Michael T. Veach ihlpm!veach ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: AT&T Manuals Wanted Date: 12 Aug 89 20:29:56 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , morris@jade.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Morris) writes: > (Gabe M Wiener) writes: > >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 284, message 8 of 9 > >Does anyone know of a source for AT&T manuals? ... > And where do you get the center-tapped (!) 10v ni-cad batteries for the > Touch-A-Matic autodialer telephones? and the 1-button speakerphone accesory > circuit board? I don't know about either the manuals or the parts specified here, but in general, you can order AT&T documents (and software for AT&T computer products) from: AT&T Customer Information Center 1-800-432-6600 You can usually order parts from: AT&T National Parts Sales Center 1-800-222-PART They'll accept credit-card orders over the phone, and usually ship within a day or so. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: Jim Gottlieb Subject: Re: Toll Stations...One More Time! Date: 13 Aug 89 07:01:56 GMT Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles In article gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia. edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes: >And, of course, the one I've been asking about all week! >2) If they're running a cable out there to hook up a toll station, why not > just wire them right into the switch and assign them a telephone number > like any other telephone subscriber? There are others who know more about this than I (i.e. joe@mojave.cts.com), but since they have not spoken up, I'll pretend that I know what I'm talking about. Many toll station lines are in fact not a pair of wires or even a cable. They are run on what are called "open wire" lines. It is a single thick piece of wire. Ground is used as the second conductor. These wires may often serve several toll stations in the area, with different ring patterns for each station. So to start serving an area with a real switch, a real cable must often be run (if only for the few pairs necessary to set up a remote switch) a distance of 50 to 100 miles. I have a tape recording of a call made on one such phone shortly before it was replaced with automatic service. If I can find the tape, I will put it up on a number that people can call to hear how wretched these things sound(ed). -- Jim Gottlieb E-Mail: or or V-Mail: (213) 551-7702 Fax: 478-3060 The-Real-Me: 824-5454 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 12:02:48 EDT From: S M Krieger Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage Organization: Summit NJ In article , msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) writes: > In article bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry > Shein) writes: > > > How do you even know there was *any* sabotage? Because some phone > > service got disrupted and the phone co blamed it on the strikers? > > Maybe, maybe not. > All I know is that my daughter's phone line went dead (not even any power to the phone) last Sunday, she got service restored Monday afternoon, and for about three days, there was work going on at a cross-connection box in New Providence, NJ about 0.9 miles away from my home. And, unless it's really media manipulation, one of the "incidents" that the Newark Star Ledger reported was damage to a telephone box in New Providence that affected 400 subscribers. -- Stan Krieger Summit, NJ ...!att!attunix!smk ------------------------------ From: Jim Gottlieb Subject: Re: Where Can I Find a Complete List of Access Codes? Date: 13 Aug 89 17:16:47 GMT Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles In article r.a.a.@pro-palace.cts.com (R.A. Anonymous, Jr.) writes: > >I was wondering if anyone could help me out with locating the companies that >own a few access codes. The codes in question are 10555 >and 10999. These both work, but I don't know who I'm going to get a bill >from... 10555 is Telesphere. If your number isn't in their database, it usually defaults to their operator. I would be surprised if it allows direct-dialed calls from an unknown number. 10999 is Starnet Corp. >[Moderator's Note: Some time ago, a reader posted the entire list of >10xxx codes for the United States, although some are not available in all >communities. Could someone post that list again please? PT] The full list of 10XXX and 950-[01]XXX codes is listed in the back of Bellcore's "Telephone Area Code Directory." This can be ordered for just a few dollars by calling Bellcore on (201) 669-5800. While you're at it, order a free copy of their catalog. It's full of interesting-sounding publications that one can order (and would have been thrown in jail for possessing just a few years ago). A few select examples: CLASS Feature: Calling Number Delivery This Technical Reference defines Bellcore's view of generic requirements for the Calling Number Delivery feature for residential and small business customers $23.00 Call Waiting Deluxe Feature Requirements ...defines...a new service known as Call Waiting Deluxe (CWD). CWD...allows the subscriber to specify the termination treatment for an incoming call during conversation with another party. $25.00 (I wonder if this is just Cancel Call Waiting or something more) -- Jim Gottlieb E-Mail: or or V-Mail: (213) 551-7702 Fax: 478-3060 The-Real-Me: 824-5454 ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: LEC Monopoly and Cable TV Date: 12 Aug 89 17:59:44 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , asuvax!gtephx!ellisond@ ncar.ucar.edu (Dell Ellison) writes: > In article , jackson@ttidca.tti.com > (Dick Jackson) writes: > > Is anyone else in this group interested in the *future* of the telephone > > system? ... > > An example of the LEC's bid for more revenue is their request to be > > allowed to operate cable TV, i.e. to deliver entertainment to the home. ... > > [Moderator's Note: I am not quite clear on your use of the abbreviation > > 'LEC'. Would you explain the abbreviation, please? ... LEC usually refers to the Local Exchange Carrier ... > Actually, I would like to see the phone company provide cable TV, etc... > Because: > 1. The Cable TV companies in many cases are 'trampling' on the > consumers, because they have no competition (many times) in > a particular area. Many times they have little selection, > poor service and high prices. This solution would provide > some competition for them. > 2. I am very much in favor in the development of new technologies > and higher efficiency. This would be a much more efficient > and feature-rich system. (Not to mention the great benefits > of direct digital connections to our home computers.) > I would like to see this happen. (This would also bring picture > phones a lot closer to reality.) I'm a bit curious: Why do you think that replacing the existing Cable TV monopoly with the local Telco monopoly is going to change anything? Or are you suggesting that the local cable company could continue to do business in the face of competition from the local telco? I would expect to see the telco undercut the cable company through cross-subsidization from telephone rate-payers, until there's only one utility left, providing both TV and phone service. If you _really_ want to make it competitive, let's discuss allowing the present Cable TV companies offer point-to-point voice communication -:) ! -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #294 *****************************   Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 2:01:10 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #295 Message-ID: <8908140201.aa22760@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 14 Aug 89 01:42:26 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 295 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Caller ID Linked to Decline in Harrassing Calls (Dan Blumenthal) Phone Strike Spreads to the Midwest (Henry Mensch) 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone (TELECOM Moderator) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 00:38 EDT From: GABEL@qcvax.bitnet Subject: Caller ID Linked to Decline in Harrassing Calls The following article appeared on page 1 of the New York Times, Saturday, 8/5/89. (copyright 1989 New York Times) Harrassing Calls Show Decline When Phones Identify Callers by Calvin Sims The number of obscene or harassing telephone calls has fallen sharply in the first test of a system that allows people to see the number of the phone the call was dialed on before they answer. The test in Hudson County, N.J., showed a 49 percent drop in requests to track such calls after the system was in place. Telephone companies welcome the results, hoping that they will increase demand for the caller- identification service. Such systems are seen as a significant potential source of telephone revenue but they have been slow to win acceptance from regulators because of criticism that they invade the privacy of callers. The caller-identification system offered in New Jersey displays the number of the calling party on a small digital screen attached to the tel- ephone. The telephone subscriber can also notify the NJ Bell Telephone Co. to make a computer record of where and when a harassing call originated by dialing a code when the call is received. And, by pressing a code, the phone owner can block calls coming in from a designated number, making it impossible for a harasser to make repeated calls from one phone. The Hudson County test was started in late 1987 and has been widely available since the beginning of this year. The number of requests the phone company received to trace calls has declined sharply there. The 236 requests received in the six months that ended April 30, for example, amounted to a 49% decline from the similar six-month period two years earlier, when no one in the area had caller identification, NJ Bell said. "This technology, by its mere presence, is having a chilling effect on the number of crank phone calls that people are reporting," said James W. Carrigan, a spokesman for NJ Bell. "The word is out: people now have the ability to see the phone number of the caller, and many would-be obscene callers are afraid to mess around on the telephone." The service may spread rapidly. Phone companies in New York, Pennsylvania, California and the several Southern states served by the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company plan to introduce the service. The phone companies are enthusiastic about the revenue potential. New Jersey Bell, which charges $6.50 a month for the service, said its surveys showed that about 42% of its customers, or 1.2 million people, received annoyance calls last year and that 72,000 complaints were filed. Many phone companies, however, are moving more slowly than they expected because of the privacy issues the technology raises. Critics contend that the systems violate the rights of phone users who wish simply to keep their numbers private. The critics also say that caller identification will make the public less likely to use confidential social services like AIDS hotlines or shelters for battered women. And consumers phoning businesses might find their numbers being passed on to telephone marketing concerns without permission. The phone companies respond that the caller identification system increases privacy because it gives the called party an "electronic peephole," allowing them to answer only those calls from recognized numbers. Although there was strong opposition to the caller-identification system from the American Civil Liberties Union, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities allowed New Jersey Bell to introduce the service because of the initial success of the phone company's trial run. For billing, telephone companies keep a monthly computer log of all local and long-distance phone calls. Such records take about a month to process. The call-trace system allows the subscriber to create an immediate record of harassing calls. Several New Jersey residents have used the system to rid themselves of harassing calls. Some have recognized the phone number of the harassing caller as that of a relative of friend and asked the known harasser to stop. Other subscribers who were unfamiliar with the number of the harassing call that appeared on the display screen informed callers that their phone numbers could be seen, and the harassers quickly hung up. A family in Middlesex County used the computerized call tracing feature of the system to press charges against a man who called their home about 20 times a night for three months. The family made it possible for the phone company to record the number, date and time of the calls. "The guy had seen my daughter at a party, and he would call our number and say the most profane sexual things about her," said the father, who asked that the family not be identified. "It got to the place where we just took the phone off the hook in the evenings." When the case went to trial, New Jersey Bell provided the judge with its computer records. The defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year on probation. Experts said the case is typical in that the caller knew the victim. "Over all, we have dealt with very few perverts because most obscene phone callers are old boyfriends who have been dumped," said Martin Harrington, a detective at the Buffalo Police Department who specialized in telephone harassment cases. "The caller-identification device would probably cut my caseload by about 80% because the greatest fear of any obscene caller is having their identity revealed." Making an obscene or threatening phone call is a misdemeanor in most states. In New York State, conviction carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail and a $500 fine. More than 19,000 customers in New Jersey have signed up for the caller identification service. By the end of the year, the service will be available to about 66% of New Jersey Bell's 2.8 million customers. Among the localities that will have the service are Asbury Park, Atlantic City, Camden, Elizabeth, Hackensack, Lakewook, Montclair, Morristown, New Brunswick, Newark, Paterson, Plainfield, Red Bank, Toms River and Trenton. Phone users in other states may have to wait longer than expected because of the growing privacy debate. Pacific Bell, the big local phone company in California, was scheduled to offer caller identification later this year but recently said it would await until 1991 to consider the privacy issues. "We have the obligation to our customers to thoroughly explore the issues surrounding this new technology before we install it in our network," said Ethan Thorman, Pacific Bell's product manager. "At first the system looked like it was free of controversy so we rushed ahead to deploy it. But then we stepped back." The California Legislature is considering a bill that would require phone companies that offer the caller identification system to include a blocking feature that would allow the person making the call to block his or her phone numbers by dialing a special code. The party being called would receive a message on the digital screen indicating that the call is a private one. The bill, which has already passed the California Assembly and goes before the Senate later this year, would require the phone companies to provide the blocking service at no cost. "A caller-identification system that does not have a blocking function endangers the lives of battered women," said Gail Jones, director of Women Escaping a Violent Environment, a counseling center based in Sacramento, Calif. "The woman or her counselor will often contact the batterer to let him know that she is all right." A similar battle is developing in Pennsylvania, where the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania hopes to introduce caller identification by the end of the year. As in California, critics are arguing that the service should come with a feature that allows a caller to prevent the recipient from seeing where the call originated. "The introduction of this service poses a variety of privacy intrusions that the phone companies have been well aware of for some time," said Dan Clearfield, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Consumer Advocate Office. "That's why they designed the blocking mechanism into the original caller-identification software." New York Telephone plans to offer the service first in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and parts of Vermont later this year. A New York Telephone spokesman said that the company hopes to offer the service in other New York cities in 1990 but that the introductions would be based on how well the service does in the initial offerings. A spokeswoman for Southern New England Telephone Company siad that plans to start offering call-trace and call-block services in Connecticut later this year but that it has delayed offering caller identification because of the privacy issue. The phone companies say the inclusion of a blocking mechanism may make caller identification far less appealing to consumers. ============================= Dan Blumenthal Gabel%QCVAX.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 00:14:45 -0400 From: Henry Mensch Subject: Phone Strike Spreads to the Midwest Reply-To: henry@garp.mit.edu Pinched from the New York Times w/o permission: Workers went on strike against telephone companies in five Midwestern states, but a tentative agreement averted a walkout in 14 Western states and negotiations continued past a deadline in five other states. And there was no report of progress in strikes that began a week earlier against telephone companies in 15 states in the Northeast, West and the Middle Atlantic region. With Sunday's walkout, nearly 200,000 workers are on strike in four regions. Wages, health benefits and local issues are the main issues in this year's contract talks between the seven regional telephone companies created by the 1984 breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and two unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. At 12:01 a.m. Sunday, after negotiations collapsed in Chicago, 39,500 workers went on strike against Ameritech, formally known as the American Information Technologies Corp., and its subsidiaries serving 12.3 million customers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. But in Denver, US West and the communications workers' union continued to negotiate beyond the midnight deadline and at 8 a.m. Sunday announced a tentative contract. [An aside: I'm getting slightly *better* service due to the strike. I had a service installed the day before the strike; later that day the dialtone went away, and i phoned next morning to have it taken care of. NETelebozo sent a tech out today (Sunday!) to finish the investigation ("the pair went bad") and the work should be completed tomorrow morning. Usually it's "you have to sit at home all day until we turn up" sort of nonsense ... ] # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / [Moderator's Note: The late news Sunday night said the strikes had been resolved at US West and Southwestern Bell. Nynex, Atlantic Bell and Pacific Telesis remain out. I had predicted Ameritech would come to terms here, but obviously I was wrong. They walked out Sunday morning in Chicago. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 0:24:00 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone Sunday, August 13 marked the 100th anniversary of the invention of the pay phone. In 1889, William Gray obtained United States Patent # 408,709 for his invention, "A Coin Controlled Apparatus for Telephones". The first payphone was installed in January, 1890 at the Hartford Bank, in Hartford, CT. Today, a century later, there are an estimated two million payphones throughout the United States. So the story goes, Gray's inspiration came of necessity. He had asked someone to allow him to use their phone to make an urgent call to his sick wife, and they refused, even when he offered to pay for the call. He had a hard time convincing people that his invention would be useful or profitable. When Grand Central Terminal in New York City placed its first order in the early nineties, the management was only willing to purchase one instrument, and then only a consignment basis, after Gray offered to take it back with no obligation in two months if the new type phone did not prove itself. Now there are payphones everywhere. There are payphones in the White House, and payphones in the middle of Death Valley, CA. Until the middle 1950's one might still see a very old "Gray Electric Company" payphone in service somewhere. The price has changed as well: For the first 59 years, until 1948, a local call cost a nickle. In that year, most telcos raised their price for a call to a dime. Some, like New Orleans, LA, remained at the five cent rate for several more years. In the late sixties, most payphones were charging fifteen or twenty cents per call. The price has been twenty-five cents in most places now for several years. Happy Birthday! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #295 *****************************   Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 0:32:21 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #296 Message-ID: <8908150032.aa29886@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 15 Aug 89 00:10:38 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 296 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Cable TV Versus the Telcos (TELECOM Moderator) Complaint to Government Re Cellular Service (John R. Covert) Summary of Comments About "Watson" Voice Processing (Mark Donnelly) Incorrect Use of Area Code 202 (Carl Moore) AT&T Mail and the internet (Gary L. Crum) International Access Codes Around The World (Christopher Gosnell) TWX and Area 510 (Carl Moore) Ringback Number for Pennsylvania (John DeSanto) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 1:36:08 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Cable TV Versus the Telcos An interesting conference is being presented October 23-24 to discuss the controversial topic of cross-ownership in the telco and cable industries. Both cable operators and telcos are so mired in antagonism and mutual suspicion that they are ignoring potentially profitable joint venture opportunities. The telcos won't go on the record (they want to build systems and sell pay per view services), but they seem to think they can "do" cable with both hands tied behind their back. Cable is a 1950's technology, unfit to provide next generation video. And, cable marketers are selling the United States little more than empty promises, according to the telcos. Citing consumer complaints about poor service and rate increases as well as sexually explicit and other offensive programming -- the telcos claim that the only thing keeping cable looking as prosperous as it does is its monopoly status. The telcos seem to think they should be given a crack at it, to make it 'much better' for consumers, and less expensive, too! The cable industry, on the other hand, says television from the telephone company is not worth taking seriously. They say no one except an outfit with an excess of ratepayer money burning a hole in their corporate pockets would be planning to provide video on demand for $5000 a pop! The cable guys whine and complain saying Americans don't even want call-waiting!! They surely won't buy television programming from Sister Bell or one of her girlfriends. And as far as technology goes, the cable industry claims they are second to none -- pointing to the recent developments with one-way AM Fiber -- something the telcos said couldn't be done. The National Cable Television Association says the whole controversy is a dead issue. They say, "...this is just another bluff from Bell. They haven't got what it takes to pull it off. There is nothing to worry about since the telcos won't be able to do it..." Oh yeah? Then how come the NCTA just assessed their members a fifteen percent surcharge on next year's dues? If it is such a dead issue, what are they gonna do with all that money they won't be needing in Washington next year to fight the 'non-existent' telco threat to their territory? An Ameritech lobbyist in Our Nation's Capitol phrased the telco response very succinctly. "NCTA is trying to stall; trying to convince people that we should be treated as a joke. When that tactic eventually fails, then they will resort to litigation which will go on into the next century; all the while they keep ripping off the public with their inferior service and broken promises." Well my-oh-my, haven't the telcos become the poor down-trodden victims all of a sudden? Isn't that precious....the pot says the kettle is black! About that conference: Entitled "The New Video Marketplace: Business Opportunities for Telcos and Cable Operators", the conference will deal with all sorts of interesting ideas and concepts in the field of cable TV and the 'threat' by the telcos. Or is it a 'threat' by the cable guys? October 23-24, 1989 Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead, Atlanta, GA The conference chairman will be Henry Rivera, Partner; Dow, Lohnes and Albertson. Conference fee: $695. Information and registration available: Telecom Publishing Group ATTN: Conference Registrar, PO Box 1455, Alexandria, VA 22313-2055. Phone 800-327-7206 or 703-683-4100. FAX: 703-739-6490 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 20:30:08 PDT From: "John R. Covert 14-Aug-1989 2020" Subject: Complaint To Washington Re Cellular Service (A copy of the letter below is going to the names indicated here.) Judge Harold H. Greene Alfred Sikes, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission Gerald Brock, Chief, Common Carrier Bureau, Federal Communications Commission Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Chairman, Commerce, Science & Transport Committee Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Chairman, Communications Subcommittee Senator John Kerry, D-Mass, member, Communications Subcommittee Rep. John D. Dingell, Chairman, Energy & Commerce Committee Rep. Edward J. Markey, Chairman, Telecommunications & Finance Subcommittee ====================== As a consumer subscribing to the cellular telephone service offered by NYNEX Mobile Communications in Boston, Massachusetts, I am quite upset with the government regulations which prevent NYNEX from offering automatic completion of incoming calls to me when I am outside the Boston geographic area. Cellular systems were designed by their manufacturers to allow adjacent systems to be connected to each other, providing a continuous nationwide cellular network, even when adjacent systems are operated by different carriers. NYNEX is prevented, by government regulations, from connecting to adjacent systems. This is providing a hardship for me and other customers, who often travel out of the NYNEX service area into the nearby service areas of other companies. Stopgap methods of extending service, such as "Follow-me-Roaming" are inadequate. When I am driving from Boston to Washington, D.C., a caller trying to reach me would have to try each of the numbers on the attached list until locating me, and would be charged for each incomplete call. "Follow-me-Roaming" is not a usable alternative, because it requires me to dial a setup code as I drive from one company's area into another -- across an invisible boundary which moves depending upon radio conditions and cannot be known by the subscriber. The solution is to remove the government restrictions preventing NYNEX and other cellular telephone companies from interconnecting their systems. In fact, I believe the government should REQUIRE all cellular systems to be interconnected. This would allow fully automatic operation of incoming telephone calls, as was designed into the cellular systems and as is enjoyed by cellular customers in Canada and European countries. Sincerely, John R. Covert ======================== In order to reach me while I am driving from Boston to Washington, D.C., a caller must try each of the following numbers, followed by my ten digit Boston number, in order to reach me. The caller is charged for each call, even if the call does not complete. Allentown, NJ A 609 529-ROAM Balto-Wash A 301 440-ROAM B 301 382-ROAM Bridgeport, CT A 203 856-ROAM B 203 631-0000 Freehold, NJ A 201 513-ROAM Hackensack, NJ A 201 960-ROAM Haddon Hgts, NJ B 609 922-ROAM Hartford, CT A 203 930-ROAM B 203 631-0000 New York, NY A 212 847-ROAM B 212 301-ROAM Newark, NJ B 201 259-ROAM North East, MD A 301 920-ROAM Perth Amboy, NJ A 201 715-ROAM Philadelphia A 215 350-ROAM B 215 870-ROAM Salem, NJ A 609 420-ROAM Springfield, MA A 413 531-ROAM B 413 539-ROAM Trenton, NJ A 609 575-ROAM B 609 658-ROAM Vineland, NJ A 609 247-ROAM B 609 226-ROAM Washington, DC A 202 288-ROAM B 301 382-ROAM Wilmington, DE A 302 740-ROAM B 215 870-ROAM ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 09:39:44 EDT From: Mark Donnelly Subject: Summary of Comments About "Watson" Voice Processing Organization: Linotype Co., Hauppauge, NY Here are the comments I received about the Voice Processing System " Watson" Thank you to those who responded. >I was wondering if any one as experiences or comments about Natural >Microsystems product called "Waston". It is a PC based voice processing system >that I was thinking of buying. I bought one, and haven't had time to do as much with it as I'd hoped. (That's "Watson", not "Waston", by the way.) The basic package comes with a menu-based telephone answering machine and phonemail system. You have to spend more money if you want either other applications software or any interface software to call yourself. You don't get any hardware programming info. The software as supplied supports passwords and automatic dial-out forwarding of messages. The hardware works pretty well. Nicely designed except for two things that bugged me: 1) It doesn't hang up and get off the line if you pick up another extension, and there's no way to detect in software that someone local has picked up. 2) No way to deal with multiple phone lines. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 17:01:34 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Incorrect Use of Area Code 202 I have seen 2 recent cases where area code 202 was used in front of a Maryland number which has metro DC-area service but is beyond area 202 (they are only in area 301). In one case, 202-621 was displayed on the back of a panel truck. In the other case, 202-261 was displayed in a fast-food restaurant in an employment ad. Both cases had other phone numbers displayed; the ones I singled out were provided for callers from the Washington area. I have seen 621, which is in Laurel, used for this purpose by a few businesses in the Baltimore area. Before DC-area prefixes were changed from NNX to NXX form, long-distance dialing from 261 and 621 was 1+7D within Md., and 1+NPA+7D elsewhere. (But in Virginia, from 703-860, in Herndon and local to DC but toll to Md., you dialed NPA+7D for all long distance, and Herndon metro-area prefixes 471 and 620 appear on phone bills as VIENNA and are in area code 202, not just 703.) ------------------------------ From: "Gary L. Crum" Subject: AT&T Mail and the internet Date: 14 Aug 89 21:08:26 GMT Organization: University of Southern California What is the relationship between AT&T Mail and the internet? By "internet", I mean the collection of computer networks that exchange information with the Internet (NSFNET backbone and regionals and other TCP/IP networks accessible at the IP level from NSFNET sites) and world UUCP network (described by comp.mail.maps postings, larger than the set of sites receiving USENET news). If there exists a two-way gateway service between the AT&T Mail Network and the world UUCP network, then I would consider AT&T Mail part of the internet (not Internet -- following the distinction between "internet" and "Internet" used by A. Tanenbaum and D. Comer in their respective books, "Computer Networks" and "Internetworking with TCP/IP"). Does anyone have a better name and description for what I am calling "the world UUCP network"? I ask about all this, because I received literature about AT&T Mail today. The literature doesn't even mention any of {NSFNET,BITNET,CSNET,UUCP, USENET}. Yet, it does mention UNIX and states "AT&T Mail lets you send messages to almost anywhere in the world through service and delivery options like MailFAX, telex, and special gateway interfaces. If there is a gateway between AT&T Mail and the "world UUCP network", then it seems that the services provided by AT&T Mail and UUNET overlap somewhat. Perhaps AT&T Mail is closer to MCI Mail. A related issue is the relationship between the world UUCP network and the TCP/IP Internet. The AT&T Mail technical representative didn't know what I meant by world UUCP network, USENET, Internet, and TCP/IP. She started talking about gateway interface products (e.g. MHS X.400) when I asked about gateways. Maybe I should have used the word "relay". Gary Crum ------------------------------ From: Christopher Gosnell Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 14:14:33 BST Subject: International Access Codes Around the World Reply-To: Christopher Gosnell Organization: STC Technology Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK In article Henry Mensch writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 256, message 2 of 5 > >>PS. Isn't it about time that the world would agree on the international >>access code, i.e. the code that you replace the +-sign with in your >>international telephone number? In Sweden (and Denmark) we dial 009, >>but many in many countries in Europe it is the more logical 00. > >Why is 00 more logical than 009 (or 011 in Canada and the US), or 0011 >(in Australia)? > These are the access codes for international direct dial that I know of: Algeria 00 Austria 00 Belgium 00 Cyprus (Rep) 00 Czechoslovakia 00 (from Prague; elsewhere dial Prague followed by 00) Denmark 009 Finland 990 France 19 Germany (West) 00 Gibralter 00 Greece 00 Hungary 00 Italy 00 Luxembourg 00 Malta 0 Morocco 00 Netherlands 09 Norway 095 Portugal 00 (07 in some areas) South Africa 09 Spain 07 Sweden 009 Switzerland 00 Tunisia 00 Turkey 99 United Kingdom 010 United States 011 Yugoslavia 99 00, whether more logical or not is certainly the most widespread, at least in Europe and the Med. -- Regards Chris Gosnell ( cjg@stl.stc.co.uk +44-279-29531 Ext 2629 ) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 12:54:14 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: TWX and Area 510 Some of the addresses and phone numbers I have observed include "TWX 510 xxx-xxxx" where the x's are in the same style as our 7 digit phone numbers. Is this use of 510 affected by the upcoming use of 510 as an area code? (Earlier notes in this Digest said that 510 will be formed c. 1991 by splitting the east bay area -- Oakland etc. -- off from area 415 in California.) Speaking of 415/510 split, what area code will Marin County, which gets the north end of Golden Gate bridge, end up in? I assume San Francisco and south to area 408 will stay in 415. [Moderator's Note: 410-510-610-710-810-910 as 'area codes' came of course from the days when Bell was operating the TWX network. 410-510 were roughly the east coast of the US and New England. 610 was, and is Canada. 710 was the southern United States, and 910 was everything from Chicago westward. 810 was Mexico. I don't think Western Union has assigned anything new in 410-510 for years. In fact 410 is virtually empty. They seem to have taken a fancy to 910 for assignment of email addresses on EasyLink, and they seem to be using more traditional telex style numbers for other other applications. I don't think you will see much of 510 as a TWX area code after the next couple of years. And even with the little overlapping of 510-voice and 510-TWX which does occur, I'll venture a guess there will be even less overlapping of prefixes. PT] ------------------------------ From: John DeSanto Subject: Ringback Number for Pennsylvania Date: 14 Aug 89 14:35:36 GMT Organization: Defense Industrial Supply Center, Philadelphia, Pa Can anyone provide a ringback number for the Phila. Pa. area. Area Code 215. Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #296 *****************************   Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 1:21:20 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #297 Message-ID: <8908150121.aa29005@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 15 Aug 89 01:20:15 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 297 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Re: Types of Service (Mike Morris) Re: DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View (Torsten Dahlkvist) Re: MCI Announces VISA-Phone (munnari!ucsvc.unimelb.edu.au!U5434122) Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (Owen Scott Medd) Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco (Kent Borg) US Sprint Rep Comments on "Billing On No Answer" and More (Steve Elias) Re: Sprint Bashing Should Stop! (John Higdon) Re: Sprint Bashing Should Stop! (Paul Guthrie) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Morris Subject: Re: Types of Service Date: 14 Aug 89 05:32:47 GMT Reply-To: Mike Morris (Paul Fuqua) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 290, message 4 of 13 > I'm moving from one apartment to another this weekend, and called >my friendly Southwestern Bell office to arrange for the phone service to >be moved. The amusing thing was that the representative offered me my > ...edited... > Here's another question: how come the electric company can switch >my service for only $7, while the phone company charges $60? Since all >the wiring is in place, about all that's involved is a billing change. Well, you're assuming that the apartment you're moving into has phone service (99% (or more) likely, but there's always the chance...) Back when I was doing interconnect, my insurance agent moved from one office in a building to another on the same floor. She was quoted an outrageous sum to move her 6 lines. I told her to tell GTE (the Great Telephone Experiment) that the move had been canceled, and I'd move her. THe job was simple - move 6 pairs in the wiring closet. The mailman delivered the bills correctly, so there was no difference to GTE. A couple of months later she called GTE and told them that they had been sending the bills to the wrong address from the beginning, and would they please correct it? No problem, says them... End of story. Her comment was that GTE stood for Graft, Theft & Extortion. Something like $100 _per line_ for something that took me under 10 minutes for all 6!. Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. ------------------------------ From: Torsten Dahlkvist Subject: Re: DTMF Frequencies From a Musician's Point of View Date: 14 Aug 89 06:20:13 GMT Reply-To: Torsten Dahlkvist Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden In article optilink!jones@ames.arc. nasa.gov (Marvin Jones) writes: >Perhaps the more musically useful Telecom tone is precise (digital) dial tone, >which uses 350 and 440 Hz. The higher of these tones is US standard concert A >(middle A). There have been many times I have been away from home, or other >source of musical reference, and have picked up a phone to get an "A" to >help tune a guitar or keyboard. Beware, though, that if you leave the U.S you may well find yourself in one of the "sine dial-tone" countries which output a single sine wave tone of nominally 421 Hz. Because of the wide tolerances specified for this frequency, 440 Hz is actually within the limits and many old exchanges were in fact "tuned" to this standard A. Nowadays, however, admins are getting stuffier and as exchanges are getting modernized they usually get re-tuned to 421 Hz. /Torsten Torsten Dahlkvist ! "I am not now, nor have I ever ELLEMTEL Telecommunication Laboratories ! been, intimately related to P.O. Box 1505, S-125 25 ALVSJO, SWEDEN ! Dweezil Zappa!" Tel: +46 8 727 3788 ! - "Wierd" Al Yankowitz ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 17:13 +1000 Subject: Re: MCI Announces VISA-Phone From: U5434122@ucsvc.unimelb.edu.au Organization: The University of Melbourne Re: MCI's VISA billing for LD calls > It is unclear to me at this time if prior arrangements are required with > MCI to use VISA billing, or if those numbers are somehow now being installed > right into a data base of acceptable cards/pins. It is unlikely that prior arrangement would be necessary. In Australia we have card-phones. These telephones have magnetic stripe readers in them. To use the telephone you have to swipe your credit or ATM card and enter your PIN. If a cheque or savings account is selected, the money is debited from your account on completion of the call. Before presenting a dial tone, the telephone will often tell you how much money is in your account, so you know your limit. Call cost is displayed as the call progresses and at the end. Unfortunately these public telephones have a minimum charge of $1.20, so they are only useful for international or long distance calling. Throughout Australia local calling is flat-rate 21c per call, irrespective of time. The local calling area includes the whole metropolitan area of all major cities. Local calls from a public phone are 30c, so a cardphone is OK if you want to make 4 calls at once. Daniel ------------------------------ From: Owen Scott Medd Subject: Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco Reply-To: Owen Scott Medd Organization: M & S Associates -- Ann Arbor, MI Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 13:11:41 GMT In article >cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) writes: >> >Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) >picked >> >up the phone and dialed: >> >> >1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 I tried the number here and got: MichBell: "You have reached 234-5678, a special test circuit. If this is a long distance call, it will appear on your bill. Thank you." At least they're polite... -- USMail: M & S Associates, 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Phone: +1 313 761-6624 FAX: +1 313 971-0804 UUCP: uunet!sharkey!heifetz!osm Internet: osm@heifetz.ann-arbor.mi.us ------------------------------ From: Kent Borg Subject: Re: Bay of Eagle Fiasco Date: 14 Aug 89 23:22:00 GMT Reply-To: Kent Borg Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA In article desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers) writes: >I tried it - 9, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 - and got > tick, tick, tick... (unusual, regular, call progress clicks) > "the person you are trying to reach is unavailable or out of our service > area. Please try ..." and I forget the rest. Our PBX traps it locally and gives me an immediate busy signal. The phone on my desk says Ameritech on it. The designers knew that people expect to hear tones when they dial a push button phone, but they are not using tones to communicate with the PBX, so they have two single tones which alternate with each keystroke. Are people so tone deaf that they are fooled?? I like hearing the real touch-tones. I get to know frequently called numbers, can dial them quickly, and hear if I make a mistake. Do many people use that as an error checking feature, or is everyone deaf? Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uiucp or ...!husc6!lloyd!kent ------------------------------ From: eli@chipcom.com Subject: US Sprint Rep Comments on "Billing On No Answer" and More Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 14:50:47 -0400 I spoke with my US Sprint college pal again. He had some interesting comments about the "call progress / billing problems" which have been talked about in previous Digests. He also had some comments on ATT's fourth quarter 88 posted financial loss. From regular equal access (feature group D) -- both destination & source phone numbers are sent through a CO to an "access tandem" and then to long distance carrier. In this case, hardware call progress supervision is available on the destination CO/trunk/line and there is no chance for error. 99.8% of all long distance calls use this method, or something called feature group B, so there is no chance for billing error. An example of a feature group B call would be one that went through the "950" local access numbers for the long distance carriers. Before equal access, these 950 numbers were required in order to provide hardware supervision (and access) with feature group B. In primitive/podunk exchanges (feature group A), the receiving CO will not indicate back to the source CO whether someone has picked up the phone. In this case, software supervision is used. Here there is a nonzero probability for a billing error. ATT is not susceptible to this type of error, as some readers have pointed out, because... ATT calls are terminated on the trunk side of the telco instead of the line side of the telco, and in this case, ATT uses feature group C, which is not available to "alternative" long distance carriers due to the vagaries of how ATT built their network before equal access. Group C bypasses a few switch steps, which was one of the reasons why ATT calls used to get completed faster than Sprint's. (This part of the explanation went over my head a bit; clearly my buddy limited his comments here so he could get back to work without spending too much time explaining this "feature group C" setup.) 99.8% of all long distance traffic use hardware supervision, hence the "billing on unanswered call argument" is mostly a non-issue. In the .2% which are forced to use software supervision, there can be a false "off-hook" signal sent back to the originating switch in as few as 6 rings, usually more like 15-20 rings. So, the bottom line is not to let the destination phone ring or busy for very long -- IF YOU ARE CALLING A PODUNK EXCHANGE. Regarding call setup/completion time, he said that Sprint and ATT are within 2 tenths of a second in call completion time. He also commented about ISDN and how US Sprint is ready for ISDN, whereas ATT is behind, and MCI is way behind. Sprint already has CCS7 (switching something-or-other), a fiber network, and 100% digital transmission. ATT is accelerating the depreciation of their equipment because they have to modernize their network in order to support ISDN, and to keep up with the competition -- in this case, US Sprint. -- Steve Elias -- eli@spdcc.com, eli@chipcom.com -- voice mail: 617 239 9406 ------------------------------ Reply-To: bovine!john@apple.com Subject: Re: Sprint Bashing Should Stop! Date: 14 AUG 89 18:13:19 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon Organization: ATI Wares Team Lines: 36 In article , rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) writes: > Why the continuing Sprint bashing? They aren't nearly as half-assed as > you seem determined to present them. Here are a couple of recent observations. They still have a very cavalier attitude toward service. They strongly suggest that they have far more important things to worry about that whether your call goes through and you can contact your UUCP neighbor in St. Marys, KS. As I was told, "Not many people call there so it's naturally not one of our major priorities." Well, thanks for your help, sir. The second thing is their billing. I have been really annoyed to received bills for calls made four months in the past, particularly when they are calls to be billed back to clients. You can imagine the warm reception I get from my client's accounts payable when they receive a bill for work long done and forgotten about. And finally, when was the last time you even tried to reach "customer service"? I have literally given up after thirty minutes of waiting and listening to their "commercials on hold" or their musak-on-hold that consists of three songs in rotation, over and over and over. When someone finally does answer, on many occasions I have been cut off and had to start the whole laborious procedure all over again. As long a Sprint has pretentions to being a major long distance carrier, they are going to have to live up to some minimum standards. If they provide satisfactory service for you, then fine. But for many of us, they fall short of the mark. It's not really in the spirit of free information exchange for us to just take it and be quiet. I'm sorry if you consider the mentioning of legitimate complaints to be bashing, but I hope the DIGEST never sinks to a level of inoccuous fluff. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Paul Guthrie Subject: Re: Sprint Bashing Should Stop! Date: 15 Aug 89 03:48:47 GMT Reply-To: Paul Guthrie Organization: The League of Crafty Hackers In article rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) writes: >Sprint claims that they have call supervision equipment in all areas that >offer equal access. >Why the continuing Sprint bashing? They aren't nearly as half-assed as >you seem determined to present them. Perhaps because what Sprint claims in call supervision is not really call supervision. They use 'energy detect', a half assed method of determining if somebody really did answer on many of their small town connections. Try dealing with Sprint as a heavy usage subscriber. If you compare the amount of lines running to a particular small town vs say AT&T (no contest) or MCI, Sprint is sadly lacking. I had a case where I needed *lots* of lines running to Myrtle Bay, and Sprint had something like 4, where MCI had 4 T-spans!!! This was not some strange case, either, rather the norm. In any case, the number of Sprint terminations with true supervision, is not the same as the number of Sprint terminations which they claim have 'answer supervision'. Also, Sprint (at least in this area) continuously used to give me service problems, including such things as 'modifying' their service to only give one way talk path before answer supervision without notification (1-800s emulating FGB service need this). I did have many problems with MCI too, but all of the 'memorable' experiences seem to have been with Sprint. -- Paul Guthrie chinet!nsacray!paul ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #297 *****************************   Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 2:18:11 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #298 Message-ID: <8908150218.aa01449@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 15 Aug 89 02:00:00 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 298 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Telephone Numbering Change in Denmark (ucsvc.unimelb.edu.au!U5434122) Select Codes for AT&T Publications (Michael T. Veach) Telenet and Digest Circulation (Andrew Boardman) Error in Earlier Message (Scott D. Green) Re: Caller ID (Was Re: Special Ring Detection) (Lawrence M. Geary) Re: Touring the Central Office (Ron Natalie) Re: Touring the Central Office (John Higdon) Re: More About NJ Sabatoge (Ron Natalie) Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone (John Levine) Re: Call Progress Signals Needed (John Higdon) Re: Buffalo, Texas (Greg Hackney) Re: Cellular Calls to 911 (Kent Borg) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: U5434122@ucsvc.unimelb.edu.au Subject: Telephone Numbering Change in Denmark Date: 14 Aug 89 17:19:04 (UTC+10:00) Organization: The University of Melbourne Recently Denmark changed its system of telephone numbers and area codes, going through a stage where the area code was compulsory even for local calls. They moved to 8 digit numbers recently, I think, although that seems excessive for a country of only 5 million people. ( 7 digits will serve about 15 million people, if pushed to the limit, and that is without area codes) Can anyone give details of the Danish situation now, please? Thanks, Daniel U5434122@ucsvc.dn.mu.oz.au ------------------------------ From: veach@ihlpm.att.com Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 12:43 CDT Subject: Select Codes for AT&T Publications Here are some select codes of some non-restricted AT&T publications. AT&T assumes no responsibitity for errors. Prices are plus tax. Basic shipping included in price within continental U.S. No returns without prior authorization from AT&T, Inc. Everything is subject to change without notice. 000-000-002 AT&T Documents Identified by 9-Digit Numbers Master Index = $78.79 300-000 AT&T Computer Systems Documenation Catalog 999-600-111 Area Code Handbook = $2.00 000-011 AT&T Documenation Guide 000-041 International Telephone Directory Catalog 999-000-000 Numerical Index Division 999 Product Documentation = $1.35 000-018 AT&T Product Brochures and Job Aids Guide 555-000-010 AT&T Business Comunications Systems Publication Catalog 311-022 Industrial/Laboratory Handbook = $17.17 311-024 AT&T Computer Software Catalog UNIXrg System V = $22.54 308-339 Office Telesystem User's Guide = $33.75 Michael T. Veach ihlpm!veach [Moderator's Note: Thanks, but can you give an address and telephone number for ordering? Are credit card orders accepted? In another message today, a reader complains that the previous phone number given was wrong. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 11:17:20 EDT From: Andrew Boardman Subject: Telenet Ownership and Digest Circulation In article Mr. Moderator wrote: >I am pleased to announce that Telenet Communications Corp. is now making >each issue of TELECOM Digest available to users of their Net Exchange BBS. Courtesy, of course, of the beloved US Sprint Company, which now owns Telenet. Could someone inform me when Telenet changed hands? (It wouldn't by any chance coincide with the PCP overhaul, now would it?) PS: A warning: getting on Telenet's mailing list can be hazardous to your mailbox. The volume of mail I have received from them has increased exponentially since I first requested some piece of trivia. Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu ROLM is a four letter (and if you really have to, ab4@cunixc on bitnet) word. [Moderator's Note: Funny you should mention it. All I ever get in the mail from them is my monthly invoice for PC Pursuit. It is rare I hear from them otherwise. And of course, I promised them I'd find something else to put in the Digest every Tuesday -- heretofore a Holy Day of Obligation for the believers in the One True Telephone Company to bash Sprint -- besides homilies and meditations from Mssrs. Higdon, Guthrie, and yours truly. Bribery! (Wink) (Blink Blink) :) Starting next week, its MCI's turn! PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 11:37 EDT From: "Scott D. Green" Subject: Error In Earlier Message Re: Where can I find. . . (Jim Gottlieb) The number given for BellCore Publications catalog (201-669-5800) is either incorrect or is a victim of the strike :-). ("The number you have reached is not in service..") Can anyone correct it? -Scott [Moderator's Note: Sorry about that. Maybe Mr. Veach will get back to us with ordering/billing/shipping instructions, etc. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 10:28:41 EDT From: Lawrence M Geary Subject: Caller ID (was Re: Special Ring Detection) Reply-To: lmg@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (lawrence.m.geary) Special ringing could probably be performed by a smart phone that also handles caller ID signals. Now that the caller ID feature is getting around, does anyone know of telephones offered or in the works that would display the called number and perform other tricks? --Larry -- lmg@hoqax.att.com Think globally ... Post locally att!hoqax!lmg ------------------------------ From: Ron Natalie Subject: Re: Touring the Central Office Date: 14 Aug 89 21:08:47 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. I've always found it much easier to get a tour set up with an AT&T installation than with the local phone company. I guess they decided they need the PR more. -Ron ------------------------------ Reply-To: bovine!john@apple.com Subject: Re: Touring the Central Office Date: 14 Aug 89 18:08:20 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , kitty!larry @uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) writes: > It is becoming extremely difficult for even an organized group > to tour a central office in any BOC area. BOC's are particularly paranoid > (perhaps rightfully so) about outside people being in any central office. Things must have been different in years gone by. Twice (in the early 60's) there was a little bill insert inviting the subscriber to an "open house". There were two dates given and when you showed up, you got a tour of your (my) central office. This was the ANdrews (San Jose) office that served my telephones. Around that same era, a friend of mine got a similar invitation in his bill to tour the AXminster (Santa Clara) office. About fourteen years ago Pac*Bell invited radio engineering types to visit the downtown San Jose office. We saw the crossbar, the ESS, the AT&T tandem (it was all AT&T then), and even the employee lunch room! About three years ago, radio engineering types were invited to tour the Bush/Pine office in San Francisco where we saw the ESS, the video switching center in the Grant St. building, and a Telephone Pioneers exhibit. > There is virtually zero chance of any individual being afforded a tour of > a central office, unless it is, ahem, an "unauthorized" tour courtesy of a > friend (who may do so with considerable risk to their job). Oh, I was reminded of that in no uncertain terms (I was palmed off as someone from the Fresno area that worked for Pacific Telephone!) But organized tours have been most plentiful. Pac*Bell is very image conscious and they may feel that this is one way of enhancing that. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Ron Natalie Subject: Re: More About NJ Sabotage Date: 14 Aug 89 20:42:28 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. It was almost certainly an inside job, but I snicker about their High Security locks. The last NJ Bell high security area I visited was protected by a "Simplex" pushbutton lock that had the combination that it is shipped with from the factory (which is always the same). Even if they changed these combinations, the phreaks around here know how to manipulate these things open. Actually, the fact that Rutgers was off the net was only coincidental with the sabotage. It did knockoff some of the other JVNC members, but our problem turned out to be that the guys installing the phonelines for the new dormitories tripped over one of the T1 lines in the manhole they were working in. -Ron [Moderator's Note: Its nice to know the phreaks in your community are experienced burglars. That should make everyone feel great. PT] ------------------------------ From: John Levine Subject: Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone Reply-To: John Levine Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 22:27:39 GMT In article our moderator writes: >In the late sixties, most payphones were charging fifteen or twenty cents >per call. The price has been twenty-five cents in most places now for >several years. Ten cent payphones are still the norm in most New England states, except for COCOTs, of course. I guess we're just thriftier than the rest of you. The last I heard, Taconic Tel, a small independent telco that serves the area around Chatham NY, near the Massachusetts border, still remains the last refuge of the five cent pay phone. It is my impression that they don't have enough of them to make it worth the effort to go before the PUC and change the rate. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 {ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, johnl@ima.isc.com, Levine@YALE.something Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old. -The Globe ------------------------------ Reply-To: bovine!john@apple.com Subject: Re: Call Progress Signals Needed Date: 14 Aug 89 18:11:16 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , userDBUG@ualtamts.BITNET (Dan Berry) writes: > I was interested in finding out the tone plans for the typical phone > system's call progress signals, but I can't seem to be able to find > them in any of my books! You know, the frequencies for a dial tone, > busy signal, ringing and the rest of them. From someone else that > I've talked to, they made mention that only some four frequencies > were used to get some 20+ signals. dB's and timing too, S.V.P. All of the information you seek in the Radio Engineer's Handbook. I don't have my copy at hand, but it's widely available and in it's umpteenth edition. Everything you ever wanted to know about telephony hardware is in that book. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Greg Hackney Subject: Re: Buffalo, Texas Date: 14 Aug 89 22:42:00 GMT Reply-To: moxie!greg@cs.utexas.edu Organization: S.W. Bell In article cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) writes: >It has come to my attention that there are 2 widely-separated phone >exchange areas in Texas which have the same place name (Buffalo). >One corresponds to the post office Buffalo 75831, and the other >is a suburb of Houston. If memory serves, the 497 exchange in Houston was formerly called Buffalo, and is now called Gypsy 7. And the 498 exchange, Alief, Texas, is called Gypsy 8. -- Greg ------------------------------ From: Kent Borg Subject: Re: Cellular Calls to 911 Date: 14 Aug 89 22:08:18 GMT Reply-To: Kent Borg Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA In article doug@letni.LawNet.Com (Doug Davis) writes: >As a side note, anyone want to post their experences about fun things >to do with your portable cell phone? So far I have this list: I was once at a a friend's house when Dave, another friend, got a beep on his beeper. He looked down and thought the number seemed awfully familiar, but he dialed it anyway. It was a friend of his who couldn't find the place, but did find Dave's car. Being good friends, he had a key and knew the combination on Dave's cellular phone. He decided to phone Dave to ask for directions. Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uucp or ...!husc6!lloyd!kent ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #298 *****************************   Date: Wed, 16 Aug 89 0:52:02 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #299 Message-ID: <8908160052.aa13338@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Aug 89 00:45:10 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 299 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Proposed Payphone Regulation in GA (Ilya Goldberg) Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone (Mike Trout) Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone (John Wheeler) Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone (Larry E. Kollar) My Experiences With US Sprint (Debra Hisle) Re: Sprint Bashing Should Stop! (Rick Adams) Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Tom Wiencko) Re: Select Codes For AT&T Publications (Michael T. Veach) [Moderator's Note: DO NOT FORGET to watch the full lunar eclipse Wednesday night. The moon will begin to be covered starting around 7:20 PM CDT, and will be completely dark for about two hours later in the evening. Times vary by locale, but this exciting event is supposed to be visible in much of the world Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Our European readers should probably expect this event about 0300 GMT. Folks in Alaska will miss it entirely this time around. Chicagoans will see it in the southeastern sky. PT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 16:27:27 -0700 From: Ilya Goldberg Subject: Proposed Payphone Regulation in CA Organization: Stanford University Just got this notice with this month's bill from Pacific Bell. It seems that they (CPUC) want to increase the regulation of payphones. The leaflet is only a summary of the complete proposal on which hearings have been scheduled. Here is the text of the main points: ----- 1. Rate stability - The price of local calls from all pay phones will be 20c per call, for five years. 2. Free access to necessary services - All pay phones will provide free access to emergency, repair, directory assistance, "800" numbers, and the local telephone company Operators when users dial "0". 3. Clear signs and instructions - All pay phones will have clear signs indicating rates, dialing instructions, free access, the identity of the pay phone vendor, and the long-distance carrier serving the phone. 4. Enforcement - Prices approved by the CPUC will be enforced. 5. New "Pay Station" Service Charge - An additional charge of 30c may be charged for each "0+" call (i.e. collect calls, calls billed to third numbers or credit cards). This charge is a new rate and is in addition to the 40c surcharge applied to calling card calls or the $1.00 surcharge applied to collect calls. {comment: Pac bell charges 40c for credit card calls, at&t charges 80c. I am not sure if this 30c surcharge will apply to all "0+" calls or only intra-lata "0+" calls} ----- It seems that there is a compromise being made between the pay phone service providers and customers. Customers get points 1+2 in exchange for the new charge in point 5. Well, it seems that customers lose! Before the competition was allowed, customers already had all the benefits mentioned above provided by the BOC which owned all payphones. Now, if the customers agree to pay an extra 30c for credit card and collect calls, the benefits will remain. And I thought competition was allowed in order to reduce prices! Ilya Goldberg ilya@polya.stanford.edu ------------------------------ From: Mike Trout Subject: Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone Date: 15 Aug 89 20:05:24 GMT Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY In article , esegue!johnl@uunet.uu. net (John Levine) writes: > The last I heard, Taconic Tel, a small independent telco that serves the > area around Chatham NY, near the Massachusetts border, still remains the > last refuge of the five cent pay phone. It is my impression that they don't > have enough of them to make it worth the effort to go before the PUC and > change the rate. This is still true. Taconic Telephone brags about their nickel pay phones quite a bit. I suspect that pay phones are a money losing product for Taconic, but that they pay off in the long run in good PR. At least once a year the _New_York_Times_ runs a feature article on "the nation's last nickel pay phones." This is good for Taconic, as most of their customers are transplanted New York Citians. Taconic actually serves a fairly large area, covering much of New York State east of the Hudson between Troy and Poughkeepsie. Semi-related trivia question: Name the famous movie in which the following line was uttered: "THERE'S a phone call that'll cost more than a nickel." -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ From: John Wheeler Subject: Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone Date: 15 Aug 89 18:09:36 GMT Reply-To: John Wheeler Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta In article telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >The price has been twenty-five cents in most places now for several years. It's still a dime in Dawson County, GA...how many places can still say that? -- Turner John Wheeler E N T E R T A I N M E N T ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw Networks Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports ------------------------------ From: "Larry E. Kollar" Date: 15 Aug 89 13:56:14 GMT Subject: Re: 100th Anniversary of the Pay Phone Reply-To: mclek@sunb.UUCP (Larry E. Kollar) Organization: DCA Inc., Alpharetta, GA In article telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >The price [for a payphone call] has been twenty-five cents in most places now >for several years. Standard Telephone, in northeast Georgia, still has 10-cent payphones. But then again, most Dawsonville merchants will let you use their phone to make a local call (comes in handy when the wife sends you to the store & you forgot what she wanted :-). In 1980, I had a job as a "galley hand" (cook's go-fer) on the Gulf drilling platforms. The little telco that served Beaumont (? memory's fuzzy) TX had a FIVE-cent payphone in an office where we waited for the helicopter. -- Larry Kollar ...!gatech!dcatla!mclek : life BEGIN funds @ enough_to_retire < WHILE work REPEAT ; ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 10:45:40 EDT From: "Hisle, Debra" Subject: My Experiences With US Sprint John Higdon recently posted a fairly long complaint about US Sprint. In the interests of equal time, I thought I'd share my opinion of my service since 1987. I chose US Sprint as my 1+ server when I moved to Lexington. Yes, the first bill took about three months to arrive. I really couldn't complain about that, as it took about three months for my husband's independent consulting status to gel, so cash-flow kind of coincided. Since then, I have yet to notice billing errors or delayed billings. We had one incorrect charge, when a call to Peru, Indiana was billed as a call to the country Peru. Instead of correcting the charge, my friendly US Sprint Customer Service Rep just removed it. In fact, the only complaint I have about the billing is that is made on a due-upon-receipt basis, rather than providing a due date. That's just a personal preference, I suppose; I'm rather sloppy with mail. Recently, I was trying to make a call to The Netherlands for the first time, and didn't realize that the 0 at the beginning of the city code is only used within the country. After trying direct, I dialed the Sprint operator, who gave me the number for customer service. I had supposed from all the Sprint bashing that customer service isn't even open on Sunday mornings, but I was wrong. I did not have to wait for a representative, and he was very helpful in deciphering the unfamiliar number format for me. The call went through just fine, although it was disconcerting to get a couple of beeps rather than the familiar ringing. Our local phone book, which provides cursory instructions for international dialing, said to allow at least 45 seconds for ringing to start. It was more like 25 seconds, and my friend picked up before I realized that the beeps meant a connection, not just a step along the way. On normal long distance calls (mostly California, Atlanta and Houston), I haven't noticed a delay for connection. I don't notice the line quality one way or the other, except that when my mom calls (either ATT or MCI -- I'm not sure which), the background fuzz reminds me what I'm missing. People really do think I'm in town when I made unexpected calls, but I put that down as much to my reputation for travelling as to line quality. Recently, receiving calls from my husband when he was in Jamaica made mere background fuzz fade in comparison. It's easy to forget good quality, until a really bad connection comes along to remind you. We talked through, on various occasions: a delayed echo on my end (makes for VERY short thought units), bad cross-talk or just plain static, with dropouts for variety. - Deb Oh, and I don't work for US Sprint, I just use the phone. ------------------------------ From: Rick Adams Subject: Re: Sprint Bashing Should Stop! Date: 15 Aug 89 16:03:23 GMT Organization: UUNET Communications Services, Falls Church, VA Background: My Sprint bill is $30,000 - $40,000 per month. My phone bill comes in a big box with detail of every call. I have NEVER found one of those details to be a call that was not answered. I switched to Sprint because of the lousy service I got from ATT (just like you described as receiving from Sprint). I've never had that sort of problem with Sprint. I consider the offhanded and uninformed response of the moderator that "Sprint doesn't have answer supervision" to be uncalled for bashing. It is not factual and it as uncalled for. Just because they offer lousy residential service, you can't damn the entire company for it. If they happen to make a business decision to care less about residential services, than business services, fine. Don't use them from your home. However, you would be a fool to refuse to consider them for business use based on their residential services. (I use ATT at home and Sprint at work. ATT is superior with residential service and inferior with business service.) My basic complaint is that too much information on this list is either hearsay or outdated or just plain wrong. I have nothing against savaging a vendor who's screwing up (readers of comp.sys.sequent will attest to that). However, I do feel that we should be dealing in facts rather than inuendo. The amount of pro-ATT bigotry is astounding. For some reason, very little of the Sprint "information" is factual or current. This is what I object to. ---rick ------------------------------ From: Tom Wiencko Subject: Will Sprint Soon Have Call Supervision Ability? Date: 15 Aug 89 14:23:21 GMT Reply-To: Tom Wiencko Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product" In article eli@chipcom.com writes: > Why do you dread Sprint more than any other long haul carrier? > Don't all carriers have problems with starting charges if you > let the phone ring or give a busy signal for a "very long time"? > > Which carriers are immune from such charges? If Sprint alone is > >[Moderator's Note: For one, AT&T has no problem with call supervision. They This brings up an interesting point which might merit some discussion here. Until recently, I had regularly told friends and associates who were plagued by one minute calls on their phone bills that if their carrier was not AT&T that those calls may well be no-answers or busy, or dropped calls, and they may be able to get a phone bill credit for their one minute billings. Recently, one of these companies (a sales organization, with massive phone bills) did this, and reported back to me that their carrier (Sprint) will soon (and may by now) provide true answer supervision on their lines, and will therefore credit old bills, but not future bills (after answer supervision is in place). I told them to verify this by checking on how, technically, they are going to do this. They reported back that alternative carriers are now allowed to use Feature Group C lines, and are installing equipment to allow them to provide true end-to-end line supervision. I was astounded. Has anybody else heard of this happening? My (informal) information is that most of the major LD carriers will have their routes wired for supervision by the end of this year (which I find somewhat incredible). Thoughts? Rumors? Comments? Tom ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 18:15:43 EDT From: Michael T Veach Subject: Re: Select Codes for AT&T Publications Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 7 The phone number is 1-800-432-6600 Major Credit cards accepted. The AT&T CIC numbers I previously gave ARE correct. (e.g. 1-800-432-6600) Jim Gottlieb (attmail!denwa!jimmy) posted the BellCore number which seems to be incorrect. Michael T. Veach ihlpm!veach [Moderator's Note: I know. It was only after I put the Digest in the mail yesterday morning and had gone to bed that I lay there and realized it was the *Bellcore* phone number which was wrong -- not the AT&T Customer Information number. We are still looking for the Bellcore number, I assume. Sorry about that. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #299 *****************************   Date: Wed, 16 Aug 89 1:28:01 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #300 Message-ID: <8908160128.aa10008@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Aug 89 01:20:47 CDT Volume 9 : Issue 300 Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson Secure Voice Mail System Needed (David Stodolsky) Re: AT&T Mail and the internet (John Higdon) Policy Change Regards Unlisted Numbers? (Sam Ho) SNET Is Not a Baby Bell; It's Basically an Independent (John R. Covert) Discerning One's Long Distance Carrier (Ed Jones via John R. Covert) NPA Dialing Procedure Changes (Greg Monti via John R. Covert) Sony Answering Machines (Lou Judice) Unusual Warning Notice on Phones (Lou Judice) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 19:41:28 +0200 From: David Stodolsky Subject: Secure Voice Mail System Needed I need a voice mail system for a health behavior research study. When I asked for one from a telco in Denmark the answer was: >Sorry, for the time being we don't have such a product. >We are looking for something though. If I can locate a system that handles our requirements, the effort of getting it approved here can probably be justified. ================================================== Re: Secure Voice Mail - Preliminary System Specifications Required features - - must be remotely activated from tone sending telephone: Voice mail - Each user must have their own voice mail box and greeting message that are password protected. Password and greeting message can be changed. - central functions: Capacity - 500 user mail boxes, 10 minutes of stored speech for each user. Call distribution - Automatic call and deliver prerecorded message under program control with password protection. Questionnaire procedure permitting collection of data and selection of conversation partners based upon response patterns. Security log. Each action of the system must be time stamped and entered in a system log. Optional features: Voice message editing from tone-sending telephone. Forwarding number for each user, user changeable from tone-sending telephone. Voice-message bulletin board. Alarm feature permitting automatic notification of up to three telephone numbers that continues until a password is entered by a receiver. Scaleable with the same software up to 2 megabit trunk and 30, 000 users. ISDN compatible. Capacity for 2 megabit trunk in the scaled up version. Compatible with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, USA) computer system standard for community-based research trials. (see below) Delivered system can be self contained or a front end to a separate computer. In the case a front-end system is supplied, it must use RS-422 or other interface available on the Apple Macintosh and IBM-PC/AT computers. ====================== The following specifications are from instructions to community-based research organizations applying for NIAID grants: "Equipment will be required for computer-to-computer elec- tronic mail communications, report generation, and data analysis. Specifically: * MS-DOS/PC-DOS microcomputer IBM compatible PC/AT or equivalent, * Monochrome display, * Minimum of 20 megabyte hard disk and 640 K memory; the 3.5" diskette drive is recommended, * A 2400 baud modem and cable (to be specified by AIDS Pro- gram), * 132-column printer and cable (Epson LQ-1500 or equivalent), * Communications software to be specified by AIDS Program, * WordPerfect word processing software (version 5.0 is pre- ferred)." The NIAID recommendations for communication software are not final, but they will probably include MCI Mail and Lotus Express. The modem specified will probably be any which is 2400 baud and Hayes compatible. ====================== David S. Stodolsky, PhD Routing: <@uunet.uu.net:stodol@diku.dk> Department of Psychology Internet: Copenhagen Univ., Njalsg. 88 Voice + 45 31 58 48 86 DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark Fax. + 45 31 54 32 11 ------------------------------ Reply-To: bovine!john@apple.com Subject: AT&T Mail and the internet Date: 15 Aug 89 13:16:14 PDT (Tue) From: John Higdon Organization: ATI Wares Team In article , crum%lipari.usc.edu@usc. edu (Gary L. Crum) writes: > If there is a gateway between AT&T Mail and the "world UUCP network", then > it seems that the services provided by AT&T Mail and UUNET overlap somewhat. > Perhaps AT&T Mail is closer to MCI Mail. For those that prefer it, AT&T mail offers a UUCP connection to a subscribing site. Hence, all communications is done on the subscriber's existing mail software and the fact that it is carried by AT&T Mail is invisible to the users. > The AT&T Mail technical representative didn't know what I meant by > world UUCP network, USENET, Internet, and TCP/IP. She started talking > about gateway interface products (e.g. MHS X.400) when I asked about > gateways. Maybe I should have used the word "relay". I subscribe to AT&T Mail via UUCP, therefore my site has AT&T Mail as a UUCP neighbor. There is no "gateway" as such, unless you consider all of AT&T Mail's subscribers who use UUCP to be gateways. When talking to an AT&T Mail technical person say "UNIX" rather than "UUCP" and you will probably get farther. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 14:14:38 PDT From: Sam Ho Subject: Policy Change in Unlisted Numbers? Last week, the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission issued rules about releasing unlisted numbers to "voice mail" and "pay-per-view" services, over the objections of the Attorney General's office, which felt that the privacy implications were not yet clear. The background is as follows: Last year, the UTC rejected a proposal to release unlisted numbers to information providers for billing purposes. It also shelved a proposal for "message forwarding" services which would flash a caller's number on a screen. The current action was prompted because the UTC said these "services are already available", and that software exists to record the numbers of incoming callers to a voice-mail system. The ruling prohibits such a linkage. Violators would have their service disconnected. The UTC notes that this should be a sufficient deterrent, since voice-mail installation is $1500, with a $355 monthly charge, and there are other ways of gathering numbers for sales purposes. I am not quite sure what the ruling means, since all numbers, listed or otherwise, are already recorded for long-distance and 800 calls, and in the case of 800 calls, may be itemized on the recipient's bill. I know that the earlier information providers ruling regarded the disclosure of name-and-address information, for bills returned as uncollectible. I would imagine that this has something to do with CLASS services, which, to my knowledege, are not offered in Washington. Sam Ho samho@larry.cs.washington.edu [Moderator's Note: At the time of divestiture, one ruling was that telcos has to share all numbers -- including non-pub numbers -- with the alternate long distance carriers, for billing purposes only. The carriers were then and are now forbidden to make other use of the information than billing. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 19:54:27 PDT From: "John R. Covert 15-Aug-1989 2255" Subject: SNET Is Not a Baby Bell; It's Basically an Independent Like Cincinnati Bell, and is not really affected by the consent decree except for market pressure to support what its customers want. Phone companies are, of course, amazingly immune to market pressure. >Basically if the toll tandem in your area doesn't support Equal Access >(and for much of the state that is true), then you don't get 00. All tandems in SNET-land support equal access by now. Some end offices still don't, notably No. 5 XBars, but No. 5 XBars can do "00" even when they can't do Equal Access, when needed if the local operating company has its own operators. >In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if SNET is refusing to convert their #1 ESS's >to #1A or #5 so they can implement this. Number 1 ESSs have equal access. Every Baby Bell has converted all No 1 ESSs to Equal Access by now, but again, SNET doesn't have to if they don't want to. It's not even an issue of whether SNET wants to pay for the new software; the equal access upgrades were required to be free of charge. >Newington runs a ess 2B switch (John Covert, correct me if I am really talking >about a 2A -- I can never remember which of them are a local switch and which >are a toll tandem). Newington is, indeed a 2B. There's no such thing as a 2A, but there is a No 2. Both are end offices. There's really no way to tell the difference from the outside except to note that Newington is probably too big for a No 2. >This switch is partly digital and partly analog. You hear loud clunks when you >connect, but I digress. Well, not really. The entire switching matrix is analog; the only digital part is the computer providing the stored program control. The same is also true of both No 1 and No 1A ESS. >On the other hand, places like Canton, Simsbury, Enfield, Winsted, >Columbia, Norwich (maybe), and all those other still-step or >newly-converted-to-DMS or something exchanges will never have equal >access. These towns are so small that they don't fill a prefix. Not really true. They'll become equal access when a carrier says that they want to provide Feature Group D trunks. >The summation of all this jibberish and reminiscing about CT is that >203-684 won't be converted for some time, and when they do convert it >will likely be *after* the Willimantic toll center goes equal access, Both Stafford Springs and Willimantic are served by a DMS digital toll center, which certainly can handle equal access. BTW, the same machine serves the 203-456 code in Willimantic. >The New Haven tandem is still crossbar. You can hear the in-band signalling >as the call is placed. Being able to hear the in-band signalling is not an indication of a XBar. It used to imply XBar Tandem with RST loop supervision trunks. In the case of New Haven it's probably a DMS200 with DCMs which connect the receive path while they're outpulsing, so if it's a 2-wire office you're going to, you'll hear the reflection during pulsing. >I don't even know where the ATT point of presence is. I think it's in >Hartford. There are certainly a large number of AT&T PoPs in CT, not just Hartford. /john ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 18:45:27 PDT From: Ed Jones, National Public Radio (via John R. Covert) Subject: Discerning Your LD Carrier [Moderator's Note: John Covert kindly passed along this note he received, and the one following. PT] Please, PT, don't encourage readers to dial 700-555-1212 to find out which Default Carrier is in use on a line. I made that mistake once, and good old Ches. & Pot. billed me $.50 for a Directory Assistance call (yes, I know it doesn't exist, but tell that to their software). The correct number is 700-555- 4 1 4 1. Network? You mean that thing we use to send radio programs to our stations? ---------------------------- From: Fred G. Monti - National Public Radio (via John R. Covert) Subject: NPA Dialing Procedure Changes Date: 15 August, 1989 RE: Changes in Dialing Procedures in 202, 301, 313, 404, 703 NPA's I only receive summaries of traffic on this net, so these may have appeared already: NPA 404: Beginning on unknown date, phone users in 404 NPA (part of Georgia) will dial direct-dialed toll and all operator-assisted calls within 404 differently: CALL TYPE OLD WAY NEW WAY Toll within 404 NPA 1 + 7 digits 1 + 404 + 7 digits Op-assist within 404 NPA 0 + 7 digits 0 + 404 + 7 digits Reason for change: to accommodate use of interchangeable codes (prefixes within 404 containing zero or one as second digit). NPA 313: Beginning on an unknown date, phone users in 313 NPA (part of Michigan) may dial direct-dialed toll calls within 313 NPA as only 7 digits (was 1 + 7 digits). Reason for change: unknown. NPA's 202, 301, 703: Beginning 1 October 1990, phone users in NPA's 202 (District of Columbia), and those parts of 301 (Maryland) and 703 (part of Virginia) which are close enough to each other to be affected will be required to dial local calls across NPA boundaries with 10 digits (currently 7 digits). Reason for change: elimination of code conservation. Currently, there are no duplicated codes within anyone's 7 digit dialing area. They'll be allowed after 1 Oct 90. Prefixes are being chewed up pretty quickly. Reason change was announced a whopping 16 months in advance: to allow PABX, COCOT and other users with programmable systems time to reprogram them for the change. Some systems may be programmed to allow only 7 digit or 1 + 10 digit calls. Now, 10 digit calls need to be allowed, but only if the first three digits are 202, 301 or 703. This differs from the 617/508 situation in Massachusetts where all calls across the boundary are 1 + 10 digits regardless of whether local or toll. In the Washington area, the 10 versus 11 digit distinction will preserve a way of knowing the difference. Not announced: what will happen to the (relatively few) cases where local and extended area calls within an NPA are currently dialed with 1 + 10 digits due to code duplication. They'll probably be reduced to 7 digits. Greg Monti, National Public Radio, Washington, DC +1 202 822-2459 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:26:22 PDT From: "L. J. Judice (DTN: 323-4103 FAX: 323-4533" , Subject: Sony Answering Machine Thanks to Dave Levenson for his in depth response to my posting. This sounds like what's happening. I'll have to change my message now to "thank you for calling xxx-xxxx. Please leave a message at the tone, and maintain a greater than 1:1 ratio between your voice message and the background noise level" :) :) :) /lou ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:26:31 PDT From: Lou Judice 15-Aug-1989 0916 Subject: Unusual Warning Notice on Phones While moving offices recently, we noticed the following odd label on the bottom of AT&T straight sets (normal single line phones): WARNING USE FOR BUSINESS SYSTEMS ONLY OR YOU RISK AN ELECTRICAL SHORT CIRCUIT. The phones are on a Dimension PBX. I'm sure I've put consumer phone stuff on a Dimension without frying it, so I'm curious about this. (Note, I could understand if this was a digital phone or a MET-set type phone). /ljj ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V9 #300 *****************************